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  Frances was halfway across the room with Phillida at her heels, when the screams began. They resounded from somewhere downstairs and came, one after the other, full lunged and lusty, in a steady crescendo.

  The landing was a place of fluttering half darkness when they got out there. Doors swung on their hinges and droughts fled past like live things.

  "What is it? Oh, what is it? What is it?" someone was repeating shrilly, and Frances was astonished to discover that it was herself.

  The reverberations of the first mighty crash still tingled in the air, and as the fifth scream died, after reaching a pitch of abandoned terror, there was a scuffle on the flags downstairs and then, for the second time in her life, Frances heard the sound which should have been so very reassuring and yet was not, the swift purposeful tread of someone marching firmly across the hall.

  It was the same. That was the one thing which stood out in her mind, subduing every other thought by its significance. She choked back a cry just in time and only a deep inarticulate sound escaped her.

  Phillida clutched her shoulders.

  "Who is it?"

  She did not answer. There was a rush of cold air and a clatter as the yard door slammed back against the wall and the screaming began again.

  "For God's sake keep that blasted woman quiet! He's getting away. Stop him!"

  Godolphin's voice, comfortingly human and furious, sounded in the darkness, and they heard his stick grating on the stone as he limped forward.

  "Head him off by the front way. Quickly, Norris! After him! I'm following as fast as my damned leg will let me."

  "All right, sir, all right." Norris' voice sounded quavery and the front door opened, letting in a blast of damp air. He shouted as he took the stone steps and Godolphin lurched after him.

  Another scream, but a halfhearted one. sounded from the drawing-room door, and Frances recognized the voice.

  "Mrs. Sanderson!" she called, hurrying down the staircase. "Mrs. Sanderson, are you hurt? I'm coming, I'm coming."

  There was a theatrical gasp as she reached the hall, and a vast damp calico bundle collapsed in her arms.

  "He's here." whispered the woman. "He's here again. The killer's come back."

  Frances supported her. There was little else she could do if they were both not to roll on the stairs.

  "Are you hurt?" she repeated.

  "No, I'm not hit. He missed me."

  "Then what are you screaming for? Turn the lights on." As she said them the words sounded unduly unsympathetic, but they had their effect. Mrs. Sanderson drew back, startled and reproachful.

  "What?"

  Turn the lights on. What are you all doing scrambling about in the dark?"

  She went over to the switch by the service door and found it without difficulty. A house one has known since babyhood has few secrets, even in the dark. The candelabra sprang into a blaze, and she stood blinking in the half-light. The gong was just as she had expected to see it. It lay sprawling across its corner, a wreckage of brass dragons and wrought-iron supports, while beside her, her glistening face wearing an expression of injured amazement, was Mrs. Sanderson, clearly prepared to scream again the moment the slightest cause should present itself.

  "There," she whispered, flinging out a dramatic finger at nowhere in particular, "there he was."

  Frances glanced past her at the open threshold through which the wind blew so freezingly. Godolphin came in almost immediately. He was wearing a plaid dressing gown, and his yellow cane looked incongruous with it, although he evidently needed it.

  "The fool missed him," he said irritably. "I saw him myself, but he streaked round to the back of the square like a rabbit. Damn this leg! I had to give up. It was hopeless. He outstripped me at once." He looked down at himself regretfully and turned to greet Norris, who had come in behind him. "You're out of training," said Godolphin accusingly. "Couldn't you keep up with him?"

  "No sir, I couldn't. I saw him but I couldn't catch him."

  Norris, also in a dressing gown and Grey with cold, looked almost as reproachful as Mrs. Sanderson. "He was gone like a flash." "Would you know him again?"

  "I wouldn't really like to say, sir. I didn't really see his face at all. It's a mite foggy and he kept into the houses at first. He was a shape in the shadows; that's all you could say."

  Godolphin seemed somewhat taken aback by this rise to the dramatic possibilities of the situation, but he was still irritable.

  "I don't think he got much, anyway," he said. "We were on to him too soon. Have you looked about? Anything missing?"

  Norris' small eyes opened wide.

  "I never thought it might be burglary, sir." He sounded relieved at the suggestion.

  It was clear that Godolphin had never thought it was anything else, but now that the idea was presented to him he leapt on it.

  Good lord!" he said, adding immediately afterward, as if it were a new thought, "Good lord! I didn't get a look at him. A man looks so different when he's running. Different height, even." He broke off and shot Frances a long, searching glance. She recognized his thought, and Phillida's observation came back to her: "It's not real to him. It fascinates him like another expedition or something."

  "Did you think it was David?"

  The dangerous question rose to her lips and she might have asked it had it not been for Mrs. Sanderson. Until now the housekeeper had stood helpless, her hands swinging limply in front of her, while she gaped at the two men as though she did not understand them, but now she asserted herself.

  "It was the nigger," she exploded. "It was the nigger come back to murder someone else."

  "You hold your tongue, Mrs. S.! The police told you straight to hold your tongue." Norris strode across the stones and thrust his face into her own.

  "It was him," persisted the woman. "I can see it in your eye. You saw him. It was the nigger again." She opened her mouth, presumably to scream anew, but Norris dealt with her by placing a hand solidly across the lower half of her face.

  "She's hysterical," he said, wrestling with the refractory calico bundle with an efficiency which was surprising. "She thought she saw a nigger on the day of the murder, and it's turned her blinking head. The police themselves told her to keep quiet about it. She's advertising herself as unbalanced, that's what she's doing. Keep quiet, Mrs. S. do."

  A masterly jab in the stomach from the housekeeper's elbow silenced him with a squeak, and the good lady emerged from his arms disheveled and furious.

  "You leave me be!" she exploded. "I did see him and the police complimented me on the clear way I told it. I saw him all right, and Molly saw him, and where is she now? Dead in 'er bed very likely. He's been back to take 'is toll."

  "Highly improbable." The thin voice from the top of the stairs silenced everybody. The old Gabrielle stood there, dripping with lace shawls and resting on Dorothea's arm. Phillida was a step or two behind her, and together they made a dramatic group.

  "Where is the girl?" Gabrielle addressed the house at large and was answered.

  "Here, ma'am." A scrubby object, all loose hairs and cheap negligee, wriggled self-consciously out of the drawing-room and wavered in the center of the stage.

  "How long have you been hiding there?" Gabrielle was in her more omnipotent mood.

  "Since we heard the moving about, ma'am."

  "When was that?"

  "Just before the gong fell over, ma'am."

  "My God," said Gabrielle conversationally. "My God, what next? You, Mr. Godolphin, what are you doing running about the house dressed up like that?"

  The admonitory tone, the implied insult to his dressing gown and her tremendous advantage of position combined to bring Godolphin to attention and to take the wind out of his sails at one sweeping blow. He straightened himself and colored but he answered pertinently enough.

  "I heard the door that leads into the yard open and close and I came down to investigate. On the way I ran into Norris, who had heard the same thing. In the hall he
re we surprised somebody who made a dash for it and knocked over the gong. The Mrs. Sanderson began to scream, and the fellow, whoever he was, got away."

  Gabrielle turned to look at Phillida.

  "When I was mistress of this house I had it locked at night," she said acidly. "It saved a lot of inconvenience."

  "But the door was locked, ma'am. I did it myself." Norris was almost in tears. 'That's why I was so took aback. Whoever came in must have had a second key."

  "Impossible." Gabrielle spoke flatly, almost carelessly. "Did anybody see this burglar?"

  "We're wondering if it was a burglar, darling." Frances felt her voice was unnecessarily low.

  "Are you, my dear? Did anybody see him?"

  "Both Norris and I caught a glimpse of the man, Mrs. Ivory." Godolphin was recovering his authority. "It was very foggy outside, and he went off like a hare. We just saw him for a moment, that was all."

  "And was he a Negro?"

  The inquiry, coming from her in all seriousness, was astonishing, and they gaped at her. Godolphin looked at Norris, who seemed bewildered.

  "No," he said. "No, ma'am. That is, I don't think so. Do you, sir?"

  "No, I don't," said Godolphin dubiously. "One can't be certain, of course, but it wasn't my impression."

  "Ah," said Gabrielle as if she had established an important point. "And if it wasn't burglary why do you suppose this person came?"

  "To fetch the weapon," said Mrs. Sanderson, and the simplicity of the statement was impressive. "As soon as I heard someone creeping about in the house it came to me. No one's found the weapon. The police have searched for it high and low but they didn't know where to look. He knew where to look and he's come back for it. He must have had a minute or two in the house before Mr. Godolphin and Mr. Norris surprised him. He's gone straight to the spot and got it."

  They humored her, or flattered themselves that they did, while they satisfied their own natural curiosity. All the downstairs rooms save one presented the placid vacant look which daytime chambers always have when startled into life in the middle of the night. The last room they searched was the garden room, and there the change was slight but disturbing in the circumstances. In that cold room which a few hours before had been left as severely neat as a nun's cubicle a chair had been drawn up to the table, while behind it the door of the cupboard, which had been closed ever since the last police expert had examined it, hung swinging open, exposing a hungry emptiness.

  Godolphin, who had led the exploring party, stepped back abruptly, and Phillida caught her breath audibly. Mrs. Sanderson thrust her way through the group and stood at the ordinary and yet in the circumstances singularly-sinister scene.

  "There you are," she said. "What did I say? It was the murderer. He's been back for the weapon, and you know what that means... He's going to use it again."

  The crude melodrama of the statement would have struck most of them as ludicrous on an ordinary occasion, but that night, in the bare room before the gaping cup-board, the lurid words in the shrill north-country voice were not humorous at all.

  15

  In the morning, when the police had been informed and were still wandering round the house with that ostentatious effort at self-effacement which is guaranteed to fray the strongest nerves, when David had called to see Gabrielle and had spent an hour with her, and when Godolphin had disorganized what was left of the normal domestic routine by taking every servant in the house over and over every incident in the night's adventure, Lucar delivered his invitation.

  There is something about real impudence which is a force in itself, and the terse notes which arrived from him for every member of the family, stating fully in the most admirable of commercial English that he would be glad if they would give him their attention for half an hour at three o'clock in Meyrick's office at the gallery, had the quality of an ultimatum.

  To their own and each others astonishment they went meekly. It was an extraordinary gathering. Everyone was quiet and everyone was angry. As Prances looked round her and saw Phillida, waxy and hollow eyed, sitting sullen in her furs. Godolphin trembling with suppressed irritation and fidgeting with his stick as if he would like to use it. David aloof and for once completely removed from her. Miss Dorset red eyed and shocked into outraged silence, and Lucar odiously pleased with himself behind Meyrick's second desk, and the fact which had been scratching at the back of her mind for the past week came home to her abruptly. No one really trusted anyone else any more. Each person in that unhappy group, all tied together by every known bond of blood or affection, and who were isolated by a sea of scandal and suspicion from the rest of their kind, had at one time or another during the last few days secretly suspected each of the rest in turn of the one crime which is never forgiven in a civilized community, the one social sin which everyone still takes seriously.

  Lucar looked round with a brief smile. That derisive grin seemed to escape him by accident, for he controlled it instantly, but they had all seen it and had all found it disturbing.

  "I don't see the old lady yet," he said. "We want her." They gaped at him and he enjoyed their astonishment. "She'll come," he remarked.

  David stirred. "What are you going to do, Lucar? Confess?"

  The drawling question was intentionally offensive, and they had the satisfaction of seeing the man redden. However, he kept his temper and eyed the other man from beneath his thick lids.

  'That would suit you, wouldn't it?" he said. "You've been watching me, Mr. Godolphin. Placed me yet?"

  The sarcasm seemed to be lost on Godolphin.

  "Yes," he said. "You were Robert Madrigal's batman. An inefficient servant."

  Frances got up. 'This is silly," she said, her voice sounding unexpectedly authoritative in the electric silence. "It's no good sitting round here and insulting one another. What do you want to say, Mr. Lucar? You've asked us to meet you and here we are. In a way it's extraordinary that we should have come. The fact that we have shows that we're all pretty near the end of our resources, so now you've got us here do say what you've got to say, for heaven's sake."

  Lucar turned to her. "That's not quite the line to take with me," he began.

  "My proud beauty," supplemented David under his breath.

  Lucar swung towards him savagely.

  "They’ll do from you. They’ll do from the lot of you.

  I've got you and you know it, but I'm going to put the position to you so clearly that you can't make any mistake. I'm only waiting for Mrs. Ivory."

  "In that case we may as well go home." Frances spoke wearily. The whole thing was slipping out of gear. "Oh, come down to earth," she said. "Is Granny likely to come all the way up here just because you've asked her to? Can't you see it's a miracle we've come ourselves? It's only because we don't know where to turn and we're clutching at straws. I'm sorry to be so forthright, but it's about time somebody said something out straight. It seems to me that you're so pleased that you're not arrested that it's turned your head. Of course Granny won't come to you. It's cheek of you to ask her, appalling cheek."

  She paused. Lucar was smirking and David came over to her.

  "Hold it, Duchess," he murmured and pulled her round to face the door.

  Gabrielle was making an entrance. On her way down the passage she had been leaning on Dorothea's arm, but now she came forward alone, looking like some great old actress arriving to present the prizes. She was in full mourning, made almost bulky by a fox cape hanging to her knees and surmounted, most unexpectedly, but very charmingly, by an old-fashioned widow's cap with a starched and goffered lining and a long dark veil hanging down behind. Her natural dignity saved the situation, and even in the midst of his triumph Lucar evidently felt that she had somehow scored over him.

  She sat down in the armchair, and Dorothea, looking very solid and respectable in her black, planted herself at her elbow.

  It was at this point that the wind rose again or, to be exact, that the little company first noticed it. The long broca
de curtains behind Lucar billowed out as a great gust came rushing through the narrow slit at the top of the tall window. Miss Dorset sprang to close the sash but not before a pile of flimsy papers had been strewn over the floor and Phillida had exclaimed with nervous spitefulness at the interruption.

  It was typical of the afternoon that this trivial incident should have impressed itself so vividly upon their minds, and to the end of her days Frances was to feel a twinge of apprehension whenever a curtain should swing out suddenly in the rising wind.

  It was Godolphin who opened the hall, sitting forward on his hard chair, his folded hands resting on the crook of his stick. Alter his first thrust he had been quietly superior, listening to Frances* outburst with the weariness of the expert with the child, but now he spoke practically.

  "Now." he said, "now, my man, perhaps you'll explain yourself. What the devil did you mean by cutting and running the moment poor Madrigal was found dead? Didn't you realist you'd have the police after you like a pack of hounds?"

  Lucar looked up from the desk where he sat in Meyrick's chair, drawing circles with Meyrick's pen on Meyrick's blotter. He was glistening with conceit.

  "Not very politely asked," he said primly, "but I'll answer you. I went before I knew he was dead. Anyone can tell you that. The police saw that at once when I pointed it out to them. What I did was very simple. On the night before the discovery I happened to hear that a certain collector in London was interested in the Gaylord Venus. That information came into this office, and I saw an opportunity of doing myself a bit of good. Madrigal was out of the way. I couldn't find him to ask his opinion even if I wanted to. So I slept the night on it and decided to take the affair into my own hands. I went down to the bank and drew out all the cash I had and nipped on a boat for New York. I didn't tell a soul because the fewer people you tell when it's a question of a deal of this sort the better. I reckoned that if anyone could make Damon Penryth of Philadelphia sell that picture it was little Henry. In mid-ocean the news about Madrigal came through on the radio. I put two and two together and decided to come back. I sent a wire to the police at once, and they met me off the boat. We soon understood one another. I was all right. I knew that all along."