Peter refused to be put off by such flippancy. "I don't want to be officious," he explained painstakingly, "and I don't say for a moment that you aren't quite capable of looking after yourself, but I have got a distinct impression that Strange has got on your soft side. Am I right?"
"Very seldom," Margaret retorted. "But I've already said I like the man. Perhaps that's partly your fault, because you and Chas run him down so much."
"Rot!" Peter said sweepingly. "All Charles and I have said is that Strange behaves in a way that can't be described as anything but fishy. You must admit that he does."
Margaret was silent. Peter struck a match and said between puffs: "I've a suspicion you've seen rather more of the fellow than I have. Has he ever told you anything ahout himself?"
She could answer that quite truthfully. "No."
"Well, has he ever said anything to make you think that we're on the wrong track about him?"
She thought for a moment, wondering how much she could divulge without breaking her word to Strange. Peter had always been her confidant, more so than Celia, who was older, and who no longer lived with them, and never till now had she kept anything from him. It was uncomfortable to be so torn between two feelings, uncomfortable and unaccustomed. Yet something deeper than her friendship with her brother now had her in its hold, and even while one part of her longed to tell him everything, the other prompted her to keep silence. She looked up to find that Peter was regarding her steadily. She coloured, and said: "It's very hard to say. But from - things he has said to me I do feel perfectly sure that whatever he may be doing he doesn't want to hurt or alarm us in any way."
Peter's brows rose. "Really? Then he admits he's at the bottom of our mystery?"
"No. He never said that. But he did say that he wished we would leave the Priory. I think I can safely tell you that."
"Did he, indeed? Any reason?"
She hesitated. "N-no. Only that — he didn't want us to be in any danger."
"Think he was responsible for that skeleton?"
"I don't know, Peter," she said honestly.
He smoked in silence for a while. At last he said:
"Don't you see, Sis, that what you've told me practically proves that my suspicions aren't by any means groundless?"
"In a way I do, but… Look here, Peter, you know I'm not the sort of silly fool who gasses about intuition and all that sort of rot, don't you?"
He grinned. "Yes, thank God!"
"Well, I'm not, but I don't mind admitting that about Strange I have got an absolute conviction that he isn't out to harm any of us. I agree he's being mysterious, and I agree that for some reason or other he may want to get us out of this place. But I don't believe the reason is a bit what you think."
"My dear girl, I don't know what to think!"
"No, but you've got an idea that he's a wrong 'un. And that's where I think you're mistaken. If he wants to get possession of this house it's for some purpose we've none of us guessed."
He hunched his shoulders lower in his chair. "Quite sure you aren't being a bit led away by a personable exterior?"
"Ever known me fall for a handsome face?"
"I haven't, but I shouldn't like to swear that you never would. And I grant you Strange is a nice-looking chap, and a powerful-looking one too, which as far as I can make out is what most women like in a man."
"Well, if that's the line you mean to stick to it's not much good my arguing," Margaret said with some asperity.
Conversation showed a tendency to flag after that. Presently Peter said: "One thing that seems to me to stand out a mile is that you're keeping something up your sleeve. Not cricket, Sis."
"Oh, shut up!" Margaret said crossly. "Even supposing I were I don't see that it makes much odds now that you've told the police the whole story."
"If you know anything about Strange that we don't, it might help the police considerably."
"I haven't the smallest desire to help the police," Margaret replied. "I hate policemen: they come nosing round after wireless licences, and tell you you don't know how to drive your car just because you misunderstand their silly signals. Anyway, I don't want to talk about Michael Strange any more." She gave a little shiver. "I say, don't you think it's beastly cold?"
"It is chilly," he agreed. "Wind's in the north. Like me to shut the window?"
"You might push it to just a bit. It'll get airless if we have it completely shut. I've half a mind to put a match to the fire. Look and see if there's any coal in the scuttle."
He lifted the lid. "Empty. We can soon get some though, if you really want a fire. Seems ridiculous in July, I must say."
"Nothing's ridiculous with the English climate. Honestly, wouldn't you rather like a fire?"
"I don't mind one way or the other. If you're cold, have one." He reached out a hand to the bell-pull, and tugged it.
"It's broken," Margaret informed him. "Celia didn't think it was worth while having it mended. If you take the scuttle out to the kitchen Bowers'll fill it, and bring it back."
"All right," he said obligingly. "Though you're a pest, you know." He dragged himself out of his chair and picked up the scuttle. "This is where an electric heater would come in handy."
"Oh no, think how cheery it'll be to see a blaze!" Margaret encouraged him.
He went out, and she picked up the matches and knelt down before the wide grate. A fire had already been laid, and enough coal to start it had been arranged on top of the wood. Margaret lit the edges of the newspaper, and had the satisfaction of hearing, in a few seconds, a promising crackle. The wood was dry, and caught easily, and Margaret, seeing that no frenzied fanning was going to be necessary, got up from her knees. She put out her hand to help herself up by one of the projecting bits of the moulding that ran round the fireplace, and to her surprise the carved wooden apple that her fingers had grasped twisted right round. She stared at it, and then quickly looked round the room, remembering the rosette that had moved to slide back the panel of the priest's hole.
Beside the fireplace a dark cavity yawned in the panelling.
She scrambled up, and forgetting that Peter had gone through the door that led to the servants' quarters, called to him. "Peter, come here quickly!"
Then she remembered that he could not hear her, and she stood for a minute, looking at the gap in the panels. Not for worlds, she thought, would she venture inside until Peter came back, but sheer curiosity impelled her to tiptoe towards it, and try to peep in.
It was so dark that she could only see that it seemed to be a narrow stone stairway, leading up in the thickness of the wall. The central lamp threw its light so that it only illumined the step immediately in a line with the opening, and the stone wall beyond. Margaret could not see more than the dim outline of another step leading downwards. She was half afraid that some horrible skeleton might be inside, but she could not perceive anything of that nature. Holding with one hand to the edge of the panel, she ventured to step just inside, in the hope of being able to see where the stairs led. Leaning her other hand against the wall she craned forward trying to pierce the darkness below her. She moved her right hand from the wall to feel ahead of her, wondering whether she was really standing on a staircase, or whether it was only another priest's hole. Her hand did not, as she had half expected, encounter another wall, but to her annoyance a gold bangle that she wore and whose clasp she had been meaning to have strengthened, came undone, and fell with a tinkle on to the second step, which she could just perceive. Involuntarily she stooped to pick it up, but to reach it she had to let go of the panel she still held, and take one step down on to the second stair. Her fingers had closed on the bangle and she was about to step back on to the level of the library floor when she was startled to see the shaft of light cast by the lamp in the room disappearing. She turned like a flash, and saw to her horror that the panel was sliding noiselessly back into place.