The regret in his tone was very poignant, and for some seconds the girl did not speak. Then she moved a little nearer to him as if to compensate him for any embarrassment her question might cause him.
“Why did you?” she said at last.
Abbershaw was silent for some time before he spoke. Then he sighed deeply.
“I was a crazy, interfering, well-meaning fool,” he said, “and there’s no more dangerous creature on the face of the earth. I acted partly on impulse and partly because it really seemed to me to be the best thing to do at the moment. I had no idea whom we were up against. In the first place I knew that if I destroyed it I should probably be preventing a crime at least; you see, I had no means, and no time, to decipher it and thereby obtain enough information to warn Scotland Yard. I didn’t even know where the bank to be robbed was situated, or if indeed it was a bank. I knew we were up against pretty stiff customers, for one man had already been murdered, presumably on account of the papers, but I had no idea that they would dream of attempting anything so wholesale as this.”
He paused and shook his head.
“I didn’t realize then,” he continued, “that there had been any double-crossing going on, and I took it for granted that the pocketbook would be recognized instantly. Situated as we were then, too, it was reasonable to suppose that I could not hold out against the whole gang, and it was ten chances to one that they would succeed in getting back their plans and the scheme would go forward with me powerless to do anything. Acting entirely upon the impulse of the moment, therefore, I stuffed the plans into the grate and set fire to them. That was just before I went down to speak to you in the garden. Now, of course, Dawlish won’t believe me, and if he did, I’m inclined to believe he would take his revenge upon all of us. In fact, we’re in a very nasty mess. If we get out of here we can’t get out of the house, and that Hun is capable of anything. Oh, my dear, I wish you weren’t here.”
The last words broke from him in an agony of self reproach. Meggie nestled closed to his shoulder.
“I’m very glad I am,” she said. “If we’re in for trouble let’s go through it together. Look, we’ve been talking for hours—the dawn’s breaking. Something may turn up today. Don’t these people ever have postmen or milkmen or telegram-boys or anything?”
Abbershaw nodded.
“I’ve thought of that,” he said, “but I think everyone like that is stopped at the lodge, and anyhow today’s Sunday. Of course,” he added brightly, “in a couple of days there’ll be inquiries after some of us, but it’s what von Faber may do before then that’s worrying me.”
Meggie sighed.
“I don’t want to think,” she said. “Oh, George,” she added pitifully, “I’m so terribly tired.”
On the last word her head lolled heavily against his breast, and he realized with sudden surprise that she was still a child who could sleep in spite of the horror of the situation. He sat there with his back against the wall supporting her in his arms, staring out across the fast-brightening room, his eyes fixed and full of apprehension.
Gradually the room grew lighter and lighter, and the sun, pale at first, and then brilliant, poured in through the high window with that warm serenity that is somehow peculiar to a Sunday morning. Outside he heard the faraway lowing of the cattle and the lively bickering of the birds.
He must have dozed a little in spite of his disturbing thoughts, for he suddenly came to himself with a start and sat up listening intently, his ears strained, and an expression of utter bewilderment on his face.
From somewhere close at hand, apparently in the room with the bolted door, there proceeded a curious collection of sounds. It was a hymn, sung with a malicious intensity, unequalled by anything Abbershaw had ever heard in his life before. The voice was a feminine one, high and shrill; it sounded like some avenging fury. He could make out the words, uttered with a species of ferocious glee underlying the religious fervour.
“Oh vain all outward sign of grief,
And vain the form of prayer,
Unless the heart implore relief
And Penitence be there.”
And then with still greater emphasis:
“We smite the breast, we weep in vain,
In vain in ashes mourn,
Unless with penitential pain—”
The quavering crescendo reached a pinnacle of self-righteous satisfaction that can never be known to more forgiving spirits.
“Unless with penitential pain
The smitten soul be torn.”
The last note died away into silence, and a long drawn-out “Ah‑ha‑Ha‑men” followed it.
Then all was still.
XVI
The Militant Mrs. Meade
“Good heavens, what was that?”
It was Meggie who spoke. The noise had awakened her and she sat up, her hair a little wilder than usual and her eyes wide with astonishment.
Abbershaw started to his feet.
“We’ll darned soon find out,” he said, and went over to the second door and knocked upon it softly.
“Who’s there?” he whispered.
“The wicked shall perish,” said a loud, shrill, feminine voice, in which the broad Suffolk accent was very apparent. “The earth shall open and they shall be swallowed up. And you won’t come into this room,” it continued brightly. “No, not if you spend a hundred years a-tapping. And why won’t you come in? ’Cause I’ve bolted the door.”
There was demoniacal satisfaction in the last words, and Abbershaw and Meggie exchanged glances.
“It’s a lunatic,” whispered Abbershaw.
Meggie shuddered.
“What a horrible house
