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Her eye was fixed anxiously on the clock, which was verging on twenty minutes past seven, and she feared the relation of her old friend's experience might make them late at the Weynes. But at that moment Tufnell approached his mistress and caught her eye. A slight shade of annoyance crossed her brow as she listened to something he communicated in a low voice, and she turned to her guests.
Is she dead?" "Dying," said Musard sadly. "Is it...?" her voice dropped to nothingness, but her frightened eyes, travelling fearfully into the shadowy corners of the big bedroom, completed the unspoken sentence. Musard understood her, and bowed his head silently. Then, turning his face to the door, he beckoned Tufnell to approach.
The guests had finished dinner, and Miss Heredith, with a watchful eye on the big carved clock which swung a sedate pendulum by the fireplace, beckoned Tufnell to her and directed him to serve coffee and liqueurs at table. "What is your favourite stone, Mr. Musard?" said a bright-eyed girl sitting near him, after coffee had been served. "Personally I have a weakness for the ruby," replied Musard.
I pulled them down myself before sounding the gong." "Thank you, Tufnell." "I understand that you were not present at the dinner table when the shot was fired?" said Merrington when the butler had left the room. "No, I was not." "May I ask why you left the table?"
He became so bewildered with trying to attend to everything at once that he lost sight of the shorter of the ladies, whom he was following, but, pushing ahead, soon found her again in the midst of a group of old friends though still young soldiers who had known the Institute before leaving for foreign service, and were eagerly inquiring after the health of Miss Robinson, and Tufnell the manager, and others.
"I'll watch this room to-night." As he stood there, speculating on the possibility of the owner of the trinket returning to the room to search for it, he was interrupted by a low tap at the door. He walked across and opened it. Tufnell stood outside, grave and composed. "Mr. Musard would like to see you in the library," he said.
In chatting about the plans of the building and the prospects of success, our hero became at last so deeply interested partly, no doubt, because of his friend's enthusiasm that he forgot the flight of time, and the evening was advancing before he rose to leave. "Now, Tufnell," he said suddenly, "I must be off, I have another call of importance to make."
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