"Rouse has stopped the concert."
The man returned.
"Well, who was it?"
"No one, sir, is in the drawing-room."
"No one is, or no one was?"
"No one was, sir."
He smiled. I glanced at Ernest, and Ernest glanced at me. He seemed to be a trifle incredulous.
"Then who was that playing the violin?"
"I fancy, sir, that it must have been someone in the street."
If it was someone in the street then my ears had played me a curious trick. I thought it possible that Rouse was screening one of the maids. I chose to let it pass. I recurred to the subject of our conversation.
"Well, and about your friend?"
"He has disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Into thin air, like that performer on the violin." There was a suggestive twitching about the corners of Ernest's lips. I am afraid he thought that Rouse had been guilty of what may be politely termed a subterfuge. "More than a week ago he left his lodgings, with his violin-case in his hand, and he has not been heard of since. Ha! there is the performer back again."
There was. This time it sounded as though someone upstairs was tuning the violin.
"Rouse, who is upstairs?"
The man stood listening.
"I will go and see, sir. There was certainly no one there just now."
