Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/273

 "I don't think it can have been."

"It was." And the stern, puppy lieutenant turned to his followers, who clustered there in the dark.

"Yes, there was a light there ten minutes since," chimed the followers.

"I don't see how it's possible," persisted Sharpe.

"Oh, well—there is sufficient evidence that it was. What other persons have you in the house—" and this officer and gentleman stepped into the room, followed by his three Cornish weeds, one of whom had fallen into a ditch in his assiduous serving of his country, and was a sorry sight. Of course Harriet saw chiefly him, and had to laugh.

"There's Mrs Waugh, the housekeeper—but she's in bed."

The party now stood and eyed one another—the lieutenant with his three sorry braves on one hand, Sharpe, Somers, and Harriet in an old dress of soft silk on the other.

"Well, Mr Sharpe, the light was seen."

"I don't see how it was possible. We've none of us been upstairs, and Mrs Waugh has been in bed for half an hour."

"Is there a curtain to the passage window?" put in Somers quietly. He had helped Sharpe in setting up house.

"I don't believe there is," said Sharpe. "I forgot all about it, as it wasn't in a room, and I never go to that side of the house. Even Mrs Waugh is supposed to go up the kitchen stairs, and so she doesn't have to pass it."

"She must have gone across with a candle as she went to bed," said Somers.

But the lieutenant didn't like being pushed into unimportance while these young men so quietly and naturally spoke together, excluding him as if he were an inferior: which they meant to do.

"You have an uncurtained window overlooking the sea, Mr Sharpe?" he said, in his military counter-jumper voice.

"You'll have to put a curtain to it to-morrow," said Somers to Sharpe.

"What is your name?" chimed the lieutenant.

"Somers—I wasn't speaking to you," said Richard coldly. And then to Sharpe, with a note of contempt: "That's what it is. Mrs Waugh must just have passed with a candle."