The garden was somewhat overgrown, and afforded a multitude of cover. Tommy and Tuppence managed to reach the back of the house unobserved.
Here there was a wide terrace, with some crumbling steps leading down from it. In the middle some French windows opened onto the terrace, but they dared not step out into the open, and the windows where they were crouching were too high for them to be able to look in. It did not seem as though their reconnaissance would be much use when suddenly Tuppence tightened her grasp of Tommy’s arm.
Someone was speaking in the room close to them. The window was open and the fragment of conversation came clearly to their ears.
“Come in, come in, and shut the door,” said a man’s voice irritably. “A lady came about an hour ago, you said, and asked for Mrs. Leigh Gordon?”
Tuppence recognised the answering voice as that of the impassive man servant.
“Yes, sir.”
“You said she wasn’t here, of course?”
“Of course, sir.”
“And now this journalist fellow,” fumed the other.
He came suddenly to the window, throwing up the sash, and the two outside, peering through a screen of bushes, recognised Dr. Horriston.
“It’s the woman I mind most about,” continued the doctor. “What did she look like?”
“Young, good-looking, and very smartly dressed, sir.”