Miss Allison did not think this worthy of being replied to. She passed on to her bedroom and presently rejoined the party in the drawing room.
As usual, she took Emily up to bed at ten o'clock, but when she had delivered her into Ogle's care, she went downstairs again and permitted Mr. James Kane to take her for a moonlight stroll through the gardens.
The night was fine and very warm, but a rustle heard in a cluster of flowering shrubs quite destroyed Miss Allison's pleasure in being alone with her betrothed.
She was reasonable enough to admit that the noise had probably been caused by a cat or a night bird, but it put her in mind of the dangers threatening Jim, and she very soon made an excuse to go back into the house.
Norma and Rosemary were the sole occupants of the drawing room, Sir Adrian having drifted away to the library. When Jim and Patricia came in through the French windows Norma was seated bolt upright at a card table, energetically playing a complicated Patience and telling Rosemary at the same time how much happier she would be if she found an Object in life.
Rosemary was quite in agreement with this but explained that her Russian blood made it impossible for her to remain constant to any one Object for longer than a few months at a stretch.
"My dear girl, don't talk nonsense to me!" said Norma bracingly. "You're lazy, that's all that's wrong with you. Why don't you take up social work?"
"I don't think my health would stand it," replied Rosemary. "I'm one of those unfortunate people whose nerves simply go to pieces as soon as they're bored."
"Thank God I don't know what it is to have nerves!" said Norma.
"Yes, you're lucky. I don't suppose you even feel the atmosphere in this awful house," said Rosemary shuddering.
"All imagination!" declared Norma, briskly shuffling the cards.
"Of course, I knew you would say that. All the same, there is a dreadful atmosphere here. I expect you have to be rather sensitive to it."
Lady Hart raised her eyes from the cards. "I do not in the least mind being thought insensitive, Rosemary; but as I fancy you meant that remark as a slur on my character, I can only say that it was extremely rude of you," she said severely.
This rejoinder was so unexpected that Rosemary, colouring hotly, was for the moment bereft of speech.
Lady Harte, laying her cards out with a firm hand, took advantage of her silence to add: "The sensitiveness you vaunt so incessantly, my good girl, does not seem to take other people's feelings into account. If you talked less about yourself and thought more of others, you would not only be a happier woman but a great deal pleasanter to live with into the bargain."
"Of course, I know I'm very selfish," replied Rosemary with the utmost calm. "You mustn't think I don't know myself through and through, because I do. I'm selfish and terribly temperamental and fickle."
"You are not only selfish," said Lady Harte; "you are indolent, shallow, parasitic and remarkably stupid."
Rosemary got up, roused at last to anger. She said in a trembling voice: "How very funny! Really, I can hardly help laughing!"
"Laugh away," advised Lady Harte, her attention on Miss Milligan.
"When you have seen your husband shot before your very eyes," said Rosemary, a trifle inaccurately, "perhaps you will have some comprehension of what it means to suffer."
Lady Harte raised her eyes and looked steadily up at the outraged beauty. "My husband, as I think you are aware, died of his wounds twenty years ago. I saw him die. If you think you can tell me anything about suffering, I shall be interested to hear it."
There was an uncomfortable silence. "Sometimes I feel as though I should go out of my mind!" announced Rosemary. "No one has the least understanding of my character. Good-night!"
"Good-night," said Lady Harte.
The door shut with a decided bang behind Rosemary.
Jim moved forward from the window, where he and Patricia had remained rooted during this remarkable duologue. "Really, Mother!" he expostulated.
"A little plain speaking is what is wanted in this house!" said Norma roundly. "The idea of that young baggage telling me I don't know what it is to suffer! She!— Why, she's revelling in being a widow! Do you think I can't see what's under my nose? Atmosphere! Bah!"
Patricia smiled but said: "I don't much like identifying myself with Rosemary, but I'm conscious of that atmosphere, too, you know."
"A dose of salts will probably do away with it," replied Norma crudely.
This prosaic suggestion did much to restore Miss Allison to her usual placidity, but when she presently went up to bed her mind crept back to the conversation in Timothy's room. The pleasing theory that an Unknown Killer lurked in their midst did not seriously trouble her, but she would have been happier could she but have been assured that Jim would lock his bedroom door before going to bed. But nothing was more unlikely than that he would take this simple precaution against being murdered.
Further reflection compelled Miss Allison to admit to herself that it would not be a very easy matter for anyone to murder Jim in his bed without running the risk of instant detection. In the warmth and bright light of the bathroom she decided that her fears were foolish; on the way back to her room along the shadowy passage she was not quite so sure; and lying in bed with the moonlight filtering into the room through the gaps between the curtains, and a tendril of Virginia creeper tapping against the window, she began to consider the possibility of Timothy's being right after all.
In her mind she ran over the male staff of Cliff House and fell asleep at last with a conglomeration of fantastic thoughts jostling one another in her head.
It did not seem to her that she had been asleep for more than a few minutes when she was awakened suddenly by the echoes of a scream. She started up, half in doubt, and switched on the light. The hands of her bedside clock stood at a quarter-past one, she noticed. Just as she was about to lie down again, believing the scream to have occurred only in her unquiet dreams, it was repeated. Miss Allison recognised Mr. Harte's voice, raised to a wild note of panic, and sprang out of bed, snatching up her dressing gown. As she flung open her door she heard Timothy shriek: "Jim! Jim!"
She raced down the passage to his room and found to her surprise that it was illumined only by the moonlight. Switching on the light, she discovered Mr. Harte cowering at the end of his bed, sweat on his brow, his eyes dilated and glaring at her.
"There's a man, there's a man!" gasped Mr. Harte in a grip of a rigor. "Jim, Jim, there's a man!"
Miss Allison, her own nerves not quite normal, gave a choked exclamation and faltered: "Where? Who?"
Mr. Harte paid no attention to her but panted. "It's the Killer! I saw his eyes g-glittering! He's there! I saw him. Jim!"
Miss Allison spun round to look in the direction of his terrified gaze. She saw nothing to alarm him, and at that moment Jim walked into the room, looking sleepy and dishevelled. "What on earth's the matter?" he demanded.
"I saw him, I saw him!" bubbled Mr. Harte. "There's a man in the room!"
"Oh!" said Jim, running an experienced eye over his relative. "Wake up, you ass!"
He flashed his torch in Timothy's face, and Timothy came to himself with a gasp and a shudder and clutched his arm. "Oh, Jim!" he said sobbingly. "Oh, Jim! A m-man in a m-mask! Oh gosh! I swear there was s-someone in the room!"
"Rubbish! You've had a nightmare, that's all," said Jim, giving him a little shake.
"Yes, I kn-know, but—who's that?"
The rising note of terror made Miss Allison look round involuntarily, but all that met her eyes was the spectacle of Sir Adrian Harte, swathed in a brocade dressing gown and with not a hair out of place, entering the room.