Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/243

Rh would think I had come out in the hope of getting a word with Léontine, and no doubt find nothing to suspect in the story of my motor having broken down.

So I stood at the bottom of the steps, looking round for a servant; and, seeing no one but the distant waiters carrying dishes, I was about to try the side entrance when my ear was caught by a low sound which had for me a peculiar significance. Nobody but an ex-cracksman would have given it a second's thought. On a lovely summer day, with birdsongs all about, the distant sounds of careless revelry, bursts of laughter, and the occasional squeal of a maid coming from the direction of the stables, and the big, sunny, wide-open country house, its front shaded and silent, but the rear teeming with activity—let me tell you, it seemed the very last place in the world for such a sound as fetched me up all standing!

It was no more than the gentlest purr; and if I had not been standing directly before the open door, so that it came to me amplified through the vaulted corridor within, I never could have heard it. As it was, I recognised it instantly, and knew exactly what was going on.

I took a quick look round. There was nobody in sight for the instant, and I slipped like a cat up the steps and through the front door. There I stopped again to listen. It was cool and silent inside—so still that I could hear the ticking of a clock on the floor above. The noise which had attracted me came also from the floor above; and as I listened it ceased for an instant, then changed in character,