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breath a little as you passed the hiding-hole. Priests had lain close here many times; strange irony, that it should now be serving as a vantage-point for spying on a clerical delinquent. There were two cracks in the panelling of Reeves' room, and through either you could see, in the shifting firelight, the dark outlines of the oaken cudgel that lay against Reeves' arm-chair. By a grim accident, it stood exactly as if it were being held in the right hand of someone seated there. It could not fail to catch the eye of anyone who turned on the electric light, when he came in.

Voices, echoed up the staircase, proclaimed the breaking up of the dining-tables. They could distinguish Carmichael's high-pitched accents, as he told an interminable story at the foot of the stairs⁠—no doubt to Marryatt, who still delayed his coming. Then at last they heard Marryatt's step, the rather boyish, light step that characterized him; he was still crooning, if further identification were needed, the hymn Reeves had heard from the churchyard.

and the sounds died away with the footfalls, as Marryatt turned the corner into his own room.