The big woman looked at her smaller mate for just a moment, a scrutinizing look.  Then she said with most unexpected meekness, “I was wrong.  You always have the proper feelings, Radbolt.”

“The fault was mine, entirely mine,” Beaumaroy hastily interposed.  “I dragged in the old yarn, I led Mr. Naylor into telling it, I told you about what I said to Mr. Saffron and how he took it.  All my fault!  I acknowledge the justice of your rebuke.  I apologize, Mr. Radbolt!  And I think that we’ve exhausted the interest of the Tower.”  He looked at his watch.  “Er, how do you stand for time?  Shall Mrs. Wiles make us a cup of tea, or have you a train to catch?”

“That’s the woman in charge of the house, isn’t it?” asked Mrs. Radbolt.

“Comes in for the day.  She doesn’t sleep here.”  He smiled pleasantly on Mrs. Radbolt.  “To tell you the truth, I don’t think that she would consent to sleep here by herself.  Silly!  But—­the old story, you know!”

“Don’t you sleep here?” the woman persisted, though her husband was looking at her rather uneasily.

“Up to now I have,” said Beaumaroy.  “But there’s nothing to keep me here now, and Mr. Naylor has kindly offered to put me up as long as I stay at Inkston.”

“Going to leave the place with nobody in it?”

Beaumaroy’s manner indicated surprise.  “Oh, yes!  There’s nothing to tempt thieves, is there?  Just lock the door and put the key in my pocket!”

The woman looked very surly, but flummoxed.  Her husband, with his suave oiliness, came to her rescue.  “My wife is always nervous, perhaps foolishly nervous, about fire, Mr. Beaumaroy.  Well, with an old house like this, there is always the risk.”

“Upon my soul, I hadn’t thought of it!  And I’ve packed up all my things, and your car’s come and fetched them, Mr. Naylor.  Still, of course I could—­”

“Oh, we’ve no right, no claim, to trouble you, Mr. Beaumaroy.  Only my wife is—­”

“Fire’s an obsession with me, I’m afraid,” said the stout woman, with a rumbling giggle.  The sound of her mirth was intolerably disagreeable to Mary.

“I really think, my dear, that you’ll feel easier if I stay myself, won’t you?  You can send me what I want to-morrow, and rejoin me when we arrange—­because we shall have to settle what’s to be done with the place.”

“As you please, Mr. Radbolt.”  Beaumaroy’s tone was, for the first time, a little curt.  It hinted some slight offense—­as though he felt himself charged with carelessness, and considered Mrs. Radbolt’s obsession mere fussiness.  “No doubt, if you stay, Mrs. Wiles will agree to stay too, and do her best to make you comfortable.”

“I shall feel easier that way, Radbolt,” Mrs. Radbolt admitted, with another rumble of apologetic mirth.

Beaumaroy motioned his guests back to the parlor.  His manner retained its shade of distance and offense.  “Then it really only remains for me to wish you good-bye—­and all happiness in your new property.  Any information in my possession as to Mr. Saffron’s affairs I shall, of course, be happy to give you.  Is the car coming for you, Mr. Naylor?”