The man he called Percy sauntered towards them. He was middle-aged with his hair going grey at the temples. He was elegantly dressed, but the effect was spoiled by the hunch of his shoulders, which gave his figure a sinister silhouette.

Carina, glancing at him, thought that she had never seen a more dissipated face or, as he caught sight of her, a more lecherous expression in any man’s eyes.

He reached where they were standing and she found herself looking at the two big pearls surrounded by diamonds in his white shirt-front and the cufflinks that glittered as he moved in his stiff white cuffs. And with the colour rising in her face she realised that she was avoiding his eyes because of the way that he was staring at her.

“Will you not you introduce me?”

There was something thick and slimy about his voice that Carina found odious.

“No, Percy,” Lord Lynche said sharply. “Go back to your cards. I will be with you in a moment.”

He turned his back on his friend and with a gesture indicated the stairs to Carina.

Immediately and because in some inexplicable way she wanted to turn her back as quickly as possible on the man with the heavy bags of evil-living beneath his leering eyes, she hurried towards the stairs, pulling Dipa by the hand.

“Where we go? Velly big stairs!” Dipa chattered.

Carina did not answer him, and Lord Lynche, after allowing her to go first, suddenly walked ahead of them, striding two or three steps in advance so that he reached the top long before they did.

‘We are going to see his mother,’ Carina told herself consolingly and knew that it was with a sense of relief she had learned that there was another woman in the house.

*

She began to see now what perils she might have encountered, arriving at a strange house in the middle of the night to seek out a man who was living as a bachelor.

She had kept her eyes staring resolutely ahead of her, watching the tail of Lord Lynche’s coat. But now, as she reached the top of the stairs, she could not prevent herself from looking back.

As she had anticipated, the man to whom she had taken such an instantaneous dislike was still there, standing in the centre of the hall staring after them.

It was only a quick glance and she turned away immediately. But she knew that he had seen her face and felt angry with herself that she should have looked back.

Lord Lynche, still without speaking, was leading them down a broad corridor.

The windows on either side were heavily draped with dark red velvet curtains and where they were not completely closed Carina could see that each window had heavy wooden shutters with iron bars.

She knew now why she had seen no light from the front of The Castle.