Meantime Ashe had entered Mr. Peters’ bedroom and switched on the light.  Mr. Peters, who had just succeeded in dropping off to sleep, sat up with a start.

“I’ve come to read to you,” said Ashe.

Mr. Peters emitted a stifled howl, in which wrath and self-pity were nicely blended.

“You fool, don’t you know I have just managed to get to sleep?”

“And now you’re awake again,” said Ashe soothingly.  “Such is life!  A little rest, a little folding of the hands in sleep, and then bing!—­off we go again.  I hope you will like this novel.  I dipped into it and it seems good.”

“What do you mean by coming in here at this time of night?  Are you crazy?”

“It was your suggestion; and, by the way, I must thank you for it.  I apologize for calling it thin.  It worked like a charm.  I don’t think he believed it—­in fact, I know he didn’t; but it held him.  I couldn’t have thought up anything half so good in an emergency.”

Mr. Peters’ wrath changed to excitement.

“Did you get it?  Have you been after my—­my Cheops?”

“I have been after your Cheops, but I didn’t get it.  Bad men were abroad.  That fellow with the spectacles, who was in the museum when I met you there this evening, swooped down from nowhere, and I had to tell him that you had rung for me to read to you.  Fortunately I had this novel on me.  I think he followed me upstairs to see whether I really did come to your room.”

Mr. Peters groaned miserably.

“Baxter,” he said; “He’s a man named Baxter—­Lord Emsworth’s private secretary; and he suspects us.  He’s the man we—­I mean you—­have got to look out for.”

“Well, never mind.  Let’s be happy while we can.  Make yourself comfortable and I’ll start reading.  After all, what could be pleasanter than a little literature in the small hours?  Shall I begin?”

* * *

Ashe Marson found Joan Valentine in the stable yard after breakfast the next morning, playing with a retriever puppy.  “Will you spare me a moment of your valuable time?”

“Certainly, Mr. Marson.”

“Shall we walk out into the open somewhere—­where we can’t be overheard?”

“Perhaps it would be better.”

They moved off.

“Request your canine friend to withdraw,” said Ashe.  “He prevents me from marshaling my thoughts.”

“I’m afraid he won’t withdraw.”

“Never mind.  I’ll do my best in spite of him.  Tell me, was I dreaming or did I really meet you in the hall this morning at about twenty minutes after two?”

“You did.”

“And did you really tell me that you had come to the castle to steal—­”

“Recover.”

“—­Recover Mr. Peters’ scarab?”

“I did.”

“Then it’s true?”

“It is.”

Ashe scraped the ground with a meditative toe.

“This,” he said, “seems to me to complicate matters somewhat.”