To the right, as you see, is the lounge leading
into the winter-garden. The gymnasium is closed until midnight.
Any other part of the place please explore at your leisure, but I
am going to ask you one thing. I want you to meet me in a room
which I will show you, at a quarter to twelve."
He led them down one of the corridors which opened from the hall.
Before the first door on the right a man-servant was standing as
though on sentry duty. Sir Timothy tapped the panel of the door
with his forefinger.
"This is my sanctum," he announced. "I allow no one in here
without special permission. I find it useful to have a place to
which one can come and rest quite quietly sometimes. Williams
here has no other duty except to guard the entrance. Williams,
you will allow this gentleman and these two ladies to pass in at
a quarter to twelve."
The man looked at them searchingly.
"Certainly, sir," he said. "No one else?"
"No one, under any pretext."
Sir Timothy hurried back to the hall, and the others followed him
in more leisurely fashion. They were all three full of
curiosity.
"I never dreamed," Margaret declared, as she looked around her,
"that I should ever find myself inside this house. It has always
seemed to me like one great bluebeard's chamber. If ever my
father spoke of it at all, it was as of a place which he intended
to convert into a sort of miniature Hell.
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