"Hardly," said I. I did not want to talk. I was longing to do
something--to begin. The punctual guard went by twenty feet away, the
smoke of his pipe blown toward us.
"I never liked pipe-smoking on the picket-line," said Merton. "You can
smell it of a damp night at any distance. Remind me to tell you a
story about it. Heavens!" he cried, as a flash of lightning for an
instant set everything in noon-day clearness, "I hope we shall not
have much of that. Keep down, Greville. Ever steal apples? Strike that
repeater." I did so. "It's a good deal like waiting for the word to
charge. I remember that once we labeled ourselves for recognition in
case we did not come out alive. Just after that I fell ill."
"Hush!" I said. "There he is again."
"All right; give him a moment," said Merton, "and now you have a full
half-hour. Come."
We crossed the narrow road and stood below the garden wall. He gave me
the aid of his bent knee and then his shoulder, and I was at once
lying flat on the garden wall. My repeater rang 10:15, and then, as I
lay, I heard voices. This time there were two men. They paused on the
road just below me to light cigarettes. One of them consigned the
weather to a place where it might have proved more agreeable. The
other said Jean had a pleasanter station in the house. This was not
very reassuring news, but I was in for it and wildly eager to be
through with a perilous adventure.
As they disappeared, I dropped from the wall into the garden and fell
with an alarming crash, rolling over on a pile of flower-pots. There
was such a clatter as on any quiet night must have been surely heard.
For a moment I lay still, and then, hearing no signals of alarm, I
rose and groped along the wall to the door of the conservatory. It was
not locked. Pausing on the step outside for a moment, I took off my
shoes and secured them by tying them to a belt I wore for this
purpose. Then I went in. I found the door of the house ajar, and
entering, knew that I was in the drawing-room. I moved with care, in
the gloom, through the furniture, and, aided by a flash of lightning,
found my way into the hall. Before me, to left, across the hall, was
a small room. The door was open. I smelled very vile pipe-smoke and
heard footfalls overhead, but no sound of voices. I became at once
hopeful that I should have to deal with but one man. I opened
cautiously a window in the little room and sat down to listen and
wait. I had been given a half-hour. My repeater at last struck 10:45.
Meanwhile the clouds broke in places, and there were now gleams of
unwelcome moonlight and now gusts of wind-driven rain.
I rose and shut to a crack the door of the room and waited. Beyond the
wall, to my right, I heard of a sudden a wild shriek of "Murder!
murder! Help! help!" shrill, feminine, convincing. Then came a
pistol-shot, then another, and in a moment a third more remote, and,
far away, the cries of men.
My time had come. That the gate guards would make for the direction of
the sound we had felt sure, but what would happen in regard to the
house guard was left to chance. At all events, he would be isolated
for a time. To my relief, the ruse answered. I shut the window
noiselessly as I heard my host running down the stairway.
He opened the hall door in haste and was dimly seen from my window
hurrying toward the gate. I rushed into the hall, bolted the hall
door, and ran up-stairs. The old nurse had been prepared for my coming
and met me on the first landing.
"Quick," I said. "You expected me. The boudoir." She had her good
Yankee wits about her, and in a minute I was kneeling, wildly anxious,
and groping in the ashes. Thrusting the package of paper within my
shirt-bosom, I ran down-stairs, and as she came after, I cried that I
had locked the hall door, and to unlock it when I was gone. "Be
quick," I added, "and lock the conservatory door behind me. No one
has been seen by you. Go to your own room." Pausing to put on my
shoes, I fled across the garden, neither hearing nor seeing the guard
who must have joined his fellows outside.