There was a man in it probably.
Was that it?"
A sudden feeling of lassitude, of intense weariness, spread over Vera's limbs.
She said in a dull voice: "Yes - there was a man in it..."
Lombard said softly: "Thanks. That's what I wanted to know..."
Vera sat up suddenly.
She exclaimed: "What was that?
It wasn't an earthquake?"
Lombard said: "No, no.
Queer, though - a thud shook the ground.
And I thought - did you hear a sort of cry?
I did."
They stared up at the house.
Lombard said: "It came from there. We'd better go up and see."
"No, no, I'm not going."
"Please yourself.
I am."
Vera said desperately: "All right. I'll come with you."
They walked up the slope to the house.
The terrace was peaceful and innocuous-looking in the sunshine.
They hesitated there a minute, then instead of entering by the front door, they made a cautious circuit of the house.
They found Blore.
He was spread-eagled on the stone terrace on the east side, his head crushed and mangled by a great block of white marble.
Philip looked up. He said: "Whose is that window just above?"
Vera said in a low shuddering voice: "It's mine - and that's the clock from my mantelpiece... I remember now. It was - shaped like a bear."
She repeated and her voice shook and quavered: "It was shaped like a bear..."
III Philip grasped her shoulder.
He said, and his voice was urgent and grim: "This settles it. Armstrong is in hiding somewhere in that house.
I'm going to get him."
But Vera clung to him.
She cried: "Don't be a fool.
It's us now!
We're next!
He wants us to look for him!
He's counting on it!"
Philip stopped. He said thoughtfully: "There's something in that."
Vera cried: "At any rate, you do admit now I was right."
He nodded.
"Yes - you win!
It's Armstrong all right.
But where the devil did he hide himself?
We went over the place with a fine-tooth comb."
Vera said urgently: "If you didn't find him last night, you won't find him now...
That's common-sense."
Lombard said reluctantly: "Yes, but -"
"He must have prepared a secret place beforehand - naturally - of course it's just what he would do.
You know, like a Priest's Hole in old manor houses."
"This isn't an old house of that kind."
"He could have had one made."
Philip Lombard shook his head.