REINFORCED
Mr Holland had opened his eyes; he had done nothing more. The movement
might have been owing to an involuntary contraction of the muscles, so
rigid did his attitude continue to be, so apparently unseeing were the
staring pupils. But, for the instant, it was sufficient for Miss Broad
that he had shown signs of volition even to so small an extent. She
bent over the bed, addressing him by a dozen endearing epithets.
'Guy! My darling! my love! my dear! Don't you know me? It's
Letty--your own Letty! Speak to me! Guy! Guy!'
But he did not speak. Nor was it possible, to judge from any
responsive action on his part that he even heard. His continual
unnatural rigidity cooled the first ardour of the lady's joy. She
addressed Miss Bewicke. And now the tears were streaming down her
cheeks.
'May, come here! Look at Guy! Get him to speak to me!'
To enforce compliance with her wish was not so easy, as Miss Bewicke
saw, if the other did not. There was an uncanny look about Mr
Holland's whole appearance which was not reassuring. He looked far
indeed from the capacity for reasonable speech.
'He wants help. We ought to have a doctor at once.'
'Then fetch one--fetch one!'
That there was anything about the request which was at all
unreasonable, seemingly Miss Broad did not pause to consider; she was
too preoccupied with her own troubles and his. But to Miss Bewicke the
difficulty of the errand forcibly occurred.
'You forget--' she began. Then stopped, for she remembered how easy it
was, in the other's situation, to forget all things save one. She knit
her brows and thought, the result of her cogitations being a series of
disjointed sentences.
'They can hardly be such brutes, when they know. And yet it was they
who put him there. I wonder! Do I dare?'
It seemed that she essayed her courage. She went to the door, and, for
a moment, listened. Then turned the key, opened it an inch or two.
What she saw and heard increased her valour, especially what she
heard. The drawing-room was empty. Loud voices came through the open
door of the bedroom--her own bedroom on the opposite side--sounds
which did not speak of peace.
'I do believe they're fighting.'
She stole on tiptoe a foot or two into the empty room, then stopped in
a flutter as of doubt--what might not happen if they caught her?--then
tiptoed further, till she had reached the centre of the room. Again
she paused. If she was seen, it was a long way back to the haven of
comparative safety she had quitted. But the noise, if anything, grew
louder. From some of the words which reached her, she judged it
possible that they were too much occupied with their own proceedings
to pay heed to anything else. She perceived that, by some stroke of
good fortune, the key was outside the door. She screwed her courage to
the sticking-point, forming a sudden resolution. Darting forward,
thrusting the door to quickly, she turned the key, then, when the key
was turned, the deed done, the three gentlemen trapped, she leaned
against the wall, went white, seemed on the verge of fainting.
She went still whiter when the handle was turned within, and Mr Horace
Burton's voice was heard demanding that the door be undone.
'If they should get out!'
The possibility of the thing, and the fear thereof, acted on her as a
spur. She tore to the door which led out of the flat, and, throwing it
open, almost fell into the arms of the cook and housemaid who were
returning from their Sunday evening out. Seldom have domestic servants
been more heartily welcomed. She addressed them by their names.
'Wilson! Stevens! go at once for the police!'
Instead of promptly obeying, they stared at her in astonishment. Her
hat, which she had not removed during the lively incidents which had
marked the passage of the time since her arrival home, was on one
side, at that unbecoming angle which is a woman's nightmare; and there
were other traces of disarray which were not in keeping with her
best-known characteristics, for, with her, a pin misplaced was the
thing unspeakable. While the cook and housemaid stared, hesitating to
start, as they were bidden, in search of the representatives of law
and order, the lift stopped at the landing, and from it, of all
persons in the world, Mr Bryan Dumville emerged.
She flew into his arms, as, it may be safely said, she had never flown
before.
'Oh, Bryan! Bryan! I'm so glad you've come!'
As the flattered gentleman was, no doubt, about to express his
appreciation of the warmth of his reception, the lift commenced to
descend. Something else occurred to her.
'Stop! stop!' she cried. The lift returned. The porter looked out
inquiringly. 'Peters, there are thieves in my rooms! You had better
come with us at once.'
'Thieves, miss? Hadn't I better--'
She cut the porter's sentence short, relentlessly.
'No, you hadn't. You must come with us at once. Don't you hear me say
so?'
He went. They all went--the cook and the housemaid, the porter, Mr
Bryan Dumville, and Miss May Bewicke. She went last. As she went, she
shut the front and drawing-room doors behind her. She pointed towards
her bedroom.
'They're in there at this moment--three of them.'
The porter seemed to have his doubts.
'Three of them? You're sure they are thieves, miss?'
'Am I sure? Why do you ask me such a question? Do you think I'm likely
to make a mistake in a matter like that? Pray, don't be absurd.'
'In that case, if they are thieves, don't you think I'd better fetch
the police?'
Miss Bewicke's wits worked quickly. Even when circumstances seemed
against their working at all--since instructing the cook and housemaid
to do as the porter was now suggesting that he should do--she had
already been turning things over in her mind, with the result that she
was not sure that she desired official assistance after all. If the
police came, arrests would be made; she would have to see the thing
through to the bitter end. In view of such a possible consummation,
there were many points to be considered. Had she been an actress, with
a keen eye for an advertisement--a type which, it is understood, does
exist--the idea of figuring as the heroine of what the slang of the
hour calls a 'cause célèbre' might have commended itself to her
intelligence; but, as it happened, she was not that kind. If these
gentlemen did come into the hands of the police--at anyrate, on this
particular charge--it was possible that things might transpire which
she, and possibly others, would not wish to have mentioned in court
and in the papers. That the miscreants deserved all the punishment
which the law might award them, she had no doubt whatever. At the same
time, she was equally clear that they would duly, and shortly, receive
their reward, if not at her instance, then at that of others. So, on
the whole, she decided, in a twinkling, that she would take no final
step till she saw which way the cat might jump.
'When I want you to fetch the police, I will tell you.' She turned to
the housemaid. 'But there's one thing, Stevens, you might fetch, and
must, and that's a doctor. Go to the nearest, and bring him at once.'
Even as she spoke, through the dining-room door there came three
persons--Miss Broad, with Mr Guy Holland on her arm, looking the most
woe-begone figure imaginable, but still alive, and plainly walking;
behind them Miss Casata. For the second time Miss Bewicke
countermanded her instructions.
'Stay, Stevens! Perhaps the doctor won't be wanted.'