It was while he was standing at the door looking out into the passage that there was, for the first time, anything to show that the happenings downstairs had been heard above. A gentleman in a dressing-gown came along with a candle in his hand, followed by another, in the same attire, without a candle. The one in front was the Earl of Cantyre; the other was Sir Gerrard Ackroyd. The earl broke into exclamation at the sight of the major.
"Hullo, Reith! Have the beggars woke you, too?" When he saw the girl, on his good-humoured face there came a comical expression. "What! Violet Forster! What on earth's the matter?" He was looking round the room. "Who has been knocking the furniture about like this?" He turned to Ackroyd: "That must have been the noise you heard."
"I told you it sounded as if somebody was throwing the furniture about. Somebody's been having a lark all over the house."
"Lark, you call it? If someone has been having a lark, I call it jolly bad form at this hour of the morning." His lordship's tone was one of grievance. "What's the meaning of all this? I suppose the beggars disturbed you, too--nice thing! Wasn't there a pistol-shot, and someone screaming, and I don't know what besides? Lark, indeed!"
"I wish," said the major, "that I could think that it was only what Ackroyd calls a lark. I'm afraid there's been something very like murder done."
"Does this room look as if I were joking? You see this great patch upon the floor, still wet, and what's upon this club? When Miss Forster and I came into this room Noel Draycott was lying here--dead."
"Dead? Draycott--I say! How did that come about? What have you done with him?"
"What someone has done with him is what Miss Forster and I were trying to ascertain when you came along. He was here perhaps not five minutes ago, and now--where is he?"
"Hullo! Now here is the whole jolly crowd! I knew how it would be. Why do all you people want to come downstairs? You were just as well off in your beds, and a lot more comfortable."
The earl's words were prompted by the fact that through the door by which he had entered were coming a stream of people, his own wife in the van. It was she who had put that question. Behind her were all sorts and conditions of people, some of them in surprising costumes. There were ladies, old and young; some of them were guests, some servants. They had one thing in common: that they were all in a state of considerable excitement. There was the same miscellaneous collection of men. The guests, for the most part, seemed disposed to treat the affair as a jest. The male servants were more serious; it might be that under no circumstances could they see a jest in anything which involved their being roused from well-earned slumber.