Chapter 23The sleeping house was bright and a little stuffy in the early morning when Mr. Campion came quietly downstairs at half past six. The brilliant sunshine which even in the country seems so much cleaner at that hour than at any other in the day burst in through the curtains, making little patches of vivid colour on stone floor and carpet, while outside the gilded tops of the trees were dancing in the morning wind.
Campion had surveyed the cloakroom and the hot, sun-bathed lounge with some care before he became conscious of a quiet scuffling in the drawing room and put his head in to find Mr. Lugg and his assistant already at their housework.
Clad in a singlet and a pair of ancient grey-black trousers, a luggage strap about his middle and disreputable carpet slippers upon his bare
