ss.

"So there were no ghosts walking last night?" he remarked, as he took
his place at the table. "Wonderful thing this absolute quiet is after
London. Give you my word, I never heard a sound from the moment my head
touched the pillow until I woke a short while ago."

Dominey returned from the sideboard, carrying also a well-filled plate.

"I had a pretty useful night's rest myself," he observed.

Mangan raised his eyeglass and gazed at his host's throat.

"Cut yourself?" he queried.

"Razor slipped," Dominey told him. "You get out of the use of those
things in Africa."

"You've managed to give yourself a nasty gash," Mr. Mangan observed
curiously.

"Parkins is going to send up for a new set of safety razors for me,"
Dominey announced. "About our plans for the day,--I've ordered the car
for two-thirty this afternoon, if that suits you. We can look around the
place quietly this morning. Mr. Johnson is sleeping over at a farmhouse
near here. We shall pick him up en route. And I have told Lees, the
bailiff, to come with us too."

Mr. Mangan nodded his approval.

"Upon my word," he confessed, "it will be a joy to me to go and see some
of these fellows without having to put 'em off about repairs and that
sort of thing. Johnson has had the worst of it, poor chap, but there
are one or two of them took it into their heads to come up to London and
worry me at the office."

"I intend that there shall be no more dissatisfaction amongst my
tenants."

Mr. Mangan set off for another prowl towards the sideboard.

"Satisfied tenants you never will get in Norfolk," he declared. "I
must admit, though, that some of them have had cause to grumble lately.
There's a fellow round by Wells who farms nearly eight hundred acres--"

He broke off in his speech. There was a knock at the door, not an
ordinary knock at all, but a measured, deliberate tapping, three times
repeated.

"Come in," Dominey called out.

Mrs. Unthank entered, severer, more unattractive than ever in the hard
morning light. She came to the end of the table, facing the place where
Dominey was seated.

"Good morning, Mrs. Unthank," he said.

She ignored the greeting.

"I am the bearer of a message," she announced.

"Pray deliver it," Dominey replied.

"Her ladyship would be glad for you to visit her in her apartment at
once."

Dominey leaned back in his chair. His eyes were fixed upon the face of
the woman whose antagonism to himself was so apparen