Violet Forster's Lover Part 20

He withdrew the support of his arm, but she did not sit down on the chair, she leaned on the back of it; perhaps she feared that if she sat she would not be able to rise unaided. He advanced towards the open window, then gave an exclamation, stooping as he did so.

"Here, at least, is the revolver." He held up the weapon for her to see, and examined it. "One of the chambers has been discharged, that was the shot we heard; the others are still loaded."

He seemed to be about to say something else, but all at once, stopping, he stood at attention. It was she who spoke.

"You heard?"

"Wasn't that someone moving?"

"It was someone in the next room--there's someone in there now--listen!"

"Good gracious!"

There unmistakably was someone--a woman's scream rang out. There still seemed to be another room beyond, or, at any rate, there was another door. The major dashed towards it; this time he was through before the girl had a chance of stopping him.

She was left alone--to listen. And, clinging to the chair, she stood on one foot, and she listened. She never forgot those few moments. There was the dead man behind her; some strange thing had happened where she was; what was taking place in front? Her helplessness rendered her position so much worse than it need have been. She tried to move, but she had done too much of that already; the moment she put her injured foot to the floor a shock went all over her which made her shut her eyes, and the room swam round. She could not even get to a bell to summon a.s.sistance if it were needed; all she could do was to stand--and wait.

She was aware that she was in that state of mind and body in which it was quite possible that her imagination might play her tricks.

Was it her imagination which made her fancy that such strange things were going on about her; which made her think, as she glanced towards it, that a face had been looking through the open window, which had been quickly withdrawn as she turned her head? The sounds she heard--were none of them real? The footsteps outside the window; the mutterings--surely they were mutterings--was that not someone speaking in whispers? She felt sure that they were footsteps, that someone was speaking. The horror of it--but she was too incapable of movement to make sure.

And then, in the room behind her, where he lay, with the lacquered club beside him, amid the broken furniture--was this another trick her imagination played her? Were those not real movements which she heard; was it only that she fancied that voices were speaking? Again she felt convinced that it was not imagination only; there was something going on which it behoved her to see--in the room behind her, outside the window--she knew not where besides. What was Major Reith doing? Had he not found the woman who had screamed? He pretended to be her friend, to care for her--did he not understand what she must be enduring, in that room, helpless, alone?

If he was much longer, she would have to scream, as that woman had screamed. Flesh and blood has its limits; she had really reached them.

She would either have to scream, or go mad--or something would happen to her; she had never felt like that before, never.

In the nick of time, when it seemed to her that something would have to go, that she must break down, Major Reith returned.

"I am very sorry to have kept you waiting so long, but I can't help thinking that someone has been playing tricks with me."

"Haven't you found her--the woman who screamed?"

It sounded so strangely in her ears that she did not know her own voice.

"I found no one. I believe my attention has been diverted with some ulterior purpose. Have you heard nothing?"

"What haven't I heard? I believe there has been someone in the next room."

"We will soon see about that--come. I'm going to take you into that room on the road to bed; and I shall have to rouse the house, but first I shall see you safe to your own chamber."

Only with the greatest difficulty, even with his support, could she return to the adjoining apartment. The instant the door was opened they made a discovery.

"You see," she cried, "it wasn't only imagination, someone has been here--the lights are out."

What she said was correct; the room, which they had left lighted, was in pitch darkness. There appeared to be switches by every door, and it took Reith but an instant to have the room as radiant as before. Both their glances travelled in the same direction. This time it was the major who exclaimed:

"Good G.o.d! Draycott's gone!"

CHAPTER XVII

Sleepers Awakened

It was a fact: the dead man's body had disappeared, in so brief a s.p.a.ce of time that Major Reith and Miss Forster did not find it easy to credit the evidence of their own senses. They had been out of the room--how long? At the most, three or four minutes. They had gone into the next room, been there not more than a minute when the woman was heard screaming. Although circ.u.mstances had made the time during which Miss Forster had been left alone seem infinite, actually it was probably only a minute or two. During those fleeting minutes what had--what could have happened? Had the dead man come back to life and taken himself away?

There was nothing to show that anything had happened. There was the club, the furniture, apparently in exactly the same confusion in which they had left it; only a dark red stain, that was still wet and s.h.i.+ny, marked the place on the floor where something had been lying. And that stain was eloquent; the man from whom so much blood had come must have been in a parlous condition, certainly in no state to pick himself up and walk una.s.sisted from the room. For he would probably have been bleeding still; his progress would quite possibly have been marked upon the carpet. Which way could he have gone? There were two windows and three doors--all of them were shut. Reith looked to see if there were signs of him on the other side of the doors. There was nothing.

It was while he was standing at the door looking out into the pa.s.sage that there was, for the first time, anything to show that the happenings downstairs had been heard above. A gentleman in a dressing-gown came along with a candle in his hand, followed by another, in the same attire, without a candle. The one in front was the Earl of Cantyre; the other was Sir Gerrard Ackroyd. The earl broke into exclamation at the sight of the major.

"Hullo, Reith! Have the beggars woke you, too?" When he saw the girl, on his good-humoured face there came a comical expression. "What!

Violet Forster! What on earth's the matter?" He was looking round the room. "Who has been knocking the furniture about like this?" He turned to Ackroyd: "That must have been the noise you heard."

"I told you it sounded as if somebody was throwing the furniture about.

Somebody's been having a lark all over the house."

"Lark, you call it? If someone has been having a lark, I call it jolly bad form at this hour of the morning." His lords.h.i.+p's tone was one of grievance. "What's the meaning of all this? I suppose the beggars disturbed you, too--nice thing! Wasn't there a pistol-shot, and someone screaming, and I don't know what besides? Lark, indeed!"

"I wish," said the major, "that I could think that it was only what Ackroyd calls a lark. I'm afraid there's been something very like murder done."

"Murder! Reith--you're joking."

"Does this room look as if I were joking? You see this great patch upon the floor, still wet, and what's upon this club? When Miss Forster and I came into this room Noel Draycott was lying here--dead."

"Dead? Draycott--I say! How did that come about? What have you done with him?"

"What someone has done with him is what Miss Forster and I were trying to ascertain when you came along. He was here perhaps not five minutes ago, and now--where is he?"

"Where's who?"

"Hullo! Now here is the whole jolly crowd! I knew how it would be. Why do all you people want to come downstairs? You were just as well off in your beds, and a lot more comfortable."

The earl's words were prompted by the fact that through the door by which he had entered were coming a stream of people, his own wife in the van. It was she who had put that question. Behind her were all sorts and conditions of people, some of them in surprising costumes.

There were ladies, old and young; some of them were guests, some servants. They had one thing in common: that they were all in a state of considerable excitement. There was the same miscellaneous collection of men. The guests, for the most part, seemed disposed to treat the affair as a jest. The male servants were more serious; it might be that under no circ.u.mstances could they see a jest in anything which involved their being roused from well-earned slumber.

It was the countess who was the first to reply to the earl:

"My good Rupert, did you imagine that, after your rus.h.i.+ng out of the room like that, I was going to stop in bed to be murdered? What has been going on? What a state this room is in! And, my dear Violet, what is the matter with you? You look as if you'd seen, not one ghost, but several!" When the lady saw that there really was something the matter with the girl, her flippant tones became suddenly earnest. "Violet, are you ill?"

"I twisted my foot coming down the stairs, and--it is pretty bad."

"You poor child! It's plain you can't stand; and you oughtn't to.

We'll have you carried upstairs. There's a carrying chair in the hall.

But"--her ladys.h.i.+p's glance was wandering round--"whatever has been going on in here? Is that---- What's that on the floor?"

Major Reith spoke: