When the butler knocked upon the ornate doors, nobody answered.
The butler coughed, knocked again, waited, and finally opened the doors. The room beyond — sumptuously decorated in jade and gold, beautiful, feminine — was empty of either Mrs. Daughtry or Lord Maundevyle.
‘She must have already gone out,’ said the butler. ‘I will enquire of the stables whether the horses were taken out, and put-to.’
‘I would be obliged to you,’ said Ballantine. Perhaps some groom or stable-boy might have overheard where the lady expected to be driven to. He did not permit himself to be ushered out again, bearing down the butler’s fussing with a calmly-uttered, ‘I should like to look around, thank you.’
Once the impossible man had gone, Ballantine ventured into Mrs. Daughtry’s borrowed bedchamber, and qui
