"Oh,
newports cigarettes, of course it is. Don't you remember, he made the Butler leave the room before he did it? If it was innocent, it wouldn't have mattered the Butler seeing. And I know there's something going on-something political. The servants have been talking about it for days. Pan, we could prevent a murder,
cheap newport cigarettes!"
"I've never heard such nonsense," he said shortly. "How do you think you're going to keep still for four hours in this poky wardrobe? Let me go and look in the corridor. I'll tell you when it's clear."
He fluttered from her shoulder, and she saw his little shadow appear in the crack of light.
"It's no good, Pan, I'm staying," she said. "There's another robe or something here. I'll put that on the floor and make myself comfortable. I've just got to see what they do."
She had been crouching. She carefully stood up, feeling around for the clothes hangers in order not to make a noise, and found that the wardrobe was bigger than she'd thought. There were several academic robes and hoods,
newport cigarette, some with fur around them, most faced with silk.
"I wonder if these are all the Master's?" she whispered. "When he gets honorary degrees from other places, perhaps they give him fancy robes and he keeps them here for dressing-up....Pan, do you really think it's not poison in that wine?"
"No," he said. "I think it is, like you do. And I think it's none of our business. And I think it would be the silliest thing you've ever done in a lifetime of silly things to interfere. It's nothing to do with us."
"Don't be stupid,
newport cigarettes," Lyra said. "I can't sit in here and watch them give him poison!"
"Come somewhere else, then."
"You're a coward, Pan."
"Certainly I am. May I ask what you intend to do? Are you going to leap out and snatch the glass from his trembling fingers? What did you have in mind?"