He sat up. Somebody was moving in the corridor. He went to his table for an electric torch, slid silently across the room, flung open the door and flashed on the light. He caught a glimpse of legs vanishing round a corner, legs which were crawling, a man’s legs. A door was closed stealthily.
Reggie swept the light along the floor. It fell at last on some spots of candle grease dropped where the fallen Sally was examined. Thereabouts the legs had been. He moved the light to and fro. Close by stood an old oak settle. He swept the light about it, saw something beneath it flash and picked up Mrs. Faulks’s big ruby brooch.
The early morning, which he does not love, found him in the garden. There under Sally’s window the ladder still stood. “That came from the potting sheds, sir,” his factotum Sam told him. “Matter of a hundred yards.” Together they went over the path and away to the little powerhouse by the stream. The ground was still hard from the night frost.
“Not a trace,” Reggie murmured. “Well, well. Seen anybody about this morning, Sam?”
“This morning, sir?” Sam stared. “Not a soul.”
“Have a look,” said Reggie and went in shivering.
He was met by the butler who said nervously that Colonel Beach had been asking for him and would like to see him in the study. There he found not only Colonel Beach but Mrs. Beach and Sally and Captain Cosdon, a distressful company. It was plain that Mrs. Beach had been crying. Sally was on the brink. Cosdon looked like a naughty boy uncertain of his doom. But the Colonel was tragic, the Colonel was taking things very hard.
Reggie Fortune beamed upon them. “Morning, morning. Up already, Miss Winslow? How’s the head?”
Sally tried to say something and gulped. Tom Beach broke out: “Sorry to trouble you, Fortune. It’s an infernal shame dragging you into this business.” He glared at his wife, and she wilted.
“My dear Colonel, it’s my job,” Reggie protested cheerfully, and edged towards the fire which the Colonel screened.
“I’m awfully sorry, Colonel. I’m the one to blame,” Cosdon said. “It’s all my fault, don’t you know.”
“I don’t know whose fault it isn’t. I know it’s a most ghastly mess.”
“It’s just like a snowball,” Alice laughed hysterically. “Our snowball burglary.”