te corners--a tendency which had to be discouraged because it gave
to both of them a too obvious air of being tremendous conspirators, Also
Audrey had had to dissuade him from accompanying her to the Hall. He had
rather conventional ideas about women being abroad alone after dark, and he
abandoned them with difficulty even now.

As there were no street lamps alight in summer in the village of Moze,
Audrey had no fear of being recognised; moreover, recognition by her former
fellow-citizens could now have no sinister importance; she did not much
care who recognised her. The principal gates of Flank Hall were slightly
ajar, as arranged with Aguilar, and she passed with a suddenly aroused
heart up the drive towards the front entrance of the house. In spite of
herself she could not get rid of an absurd fear that either Mr. Hurley or
Inspector Keeble or both would jump out of the dark bushes and slip
handcuffs upon her wrists. And the baffling invisibility of the sky further
affected her nerves. There ought to have been a lamp in the front hall, but
no ray showed through the eighteenth century fanlight over the door. She
rang the bell cautiously. She heard the distant ting. Aguilar, according to
the plan, ought to have opened; but he did not open; nobody opened. She was
instantly sure that she knew what had happened. Mr. Hurley had been to
Frinton and ascertained that the Spatt story as to the tank-room was an
invention, and had returned with a search warrant and some tools. But in
another ten seconds she was equally sure that nothing of the sort could
have happened, for it was an axiom with her that Aguilar's masterly lying,
based on masterly listening at an attic door, had convinced Mr. Hurley of
the truth of the story about the tank-room.

Accidentally pushing against the front door with an elbow in the deep
obscurity, she discovered that it was not latched. This was quite contrary
to the plan. She stepped into the house. The unforeseeing simpleton had
actually come on the excursion without a box of matches! She felt her way,
aided by the swift returning memories of childhood, to the foot of the
stairs, and past the stairs into the kitchen, for in ancient days a
candlestick with a box of matches in it had always been kept on the ledge
of the small square window that gave light to the passage between the hall
and the kitchen. Her father had been most severely particular about that
candlestick (with matches) being-always read