Spaulding may have seen his chance to nip the thing in the bud, and had taken the risk....
He felt the detective's lips at his ear: "Hear anything?
Move a little so's you can look up." Ruyler heard his wife's voice above him, then Aileen Lawton's.

He parted the branches and saw the two girls lean over the low sill of the casement.

Both had removed their masks, but their faces were only dimly revealed.

Their voices, however, were distinct enough, and his wife's was dull and flat.
"Oh, I can't," she said.

"I can't." "Well, you'll just jolly well have to.