“Oh!” gasped Loraine. “Do you think he’s been murdered?”

Battle shook his head at her reproachfully.

“No need for anything so melodramatic,” he said. “No⁠—I rather think⁠—”

He paused, his head on one side, listening⁠—one large hand raised to enjoin silence.

In another minute they all heard what his sharper ears had been the first to notice.

Footsteps coming along the terrace outside.

They rang out clearly with no kind of subterfuge about them. In another minute the window was blocked by a bulky figure which stood there regarding them and who conveyed, in an odd way, a sense of dominating the situation.