“Nothing doing,” said Adèle swiftly.
“I am not prepared,” said Mansel, “to continue to talk this over while Mrs. Pleydell sits there.”
Rose Noble’s eyes narrowed.
“If you don’t like the rules,” he drawled, “you ⸻ well needn’t play. I’ve picked my words so far, but run me up and I’m not going to cramp my tongue. If you’re bunched round my table, God didn’t put you there. You horned right into this parlour, and, if you don’t like the eats, I guess you can swallow them whole.”
“I repeat my request,” said Mansel. “I decline to—”
“I don’t fancy that verb,” snapped Rose Noble, using a savage oath. “You may feel ugly, but I’ve the right end of the gun. And now try and get me, you ⸻. I’m running this ⸻ party from the soup to the pineapple’s bush. If you wanted a Bible reading, you’ve come the wrong day of the week. We’re talking business this morning. It mayn’t smell as sweet as lipsalve, but, if I find your linen dirty, I reckon you made it foul.”
“I repeat my request,” said Mansel steadily.
Rose Noble sucked in his breath. Then he opened his blazing eyes.
“Then finish,” he said, “you ⸻. You say you’ve told her husband you want his wife. I’ll give you some more to tell him, next time you meet. So far she’s lived alone in her private suite. Bedroom and bathroom adjoining, as tight as you please. Now we’ll cut out the bathroom, sonny, and she’ll share—”
“I decline to—”
With a roar Rose Noble flung forward, and Mansel’s bare hands shot out. The left struck aside the pistol, as Rose Noble fired: the right hit the beast on his mouth and knocked him into his chair. But for this, he must have gone down before the weight of the blow, but the chair was massive and, though it rocked for a moment, it held him up.
The sudden support saved him.
As I snatched at the second pistol, he swept it off the board, but the movement disordered his aim, and his second bullet went wide.
“Into the bedroom,” yelled Mansel, hurling an oaken footstool, with all his might.
As I hustled Adèle through the doorway, I heard a screech of pain and a third report. Then Mansel whipped into the room and I slammed the door.
“Quick! Wedge the doors,” breathed Mansel.
Now that we suspected their presence, the doors in the panelling were easy to find, and, since they opened inwards, before thirty seconds had passed the Closet and Bedchamber had been secured.
As I drove the last wedge, Mansel leaned his back to the wall and covered his eyes.
“That chair,” he said brokenly. “That chair. It’s enough to break a man’s heart. I’d no time to hit him square, but I never so much as dreamed that that damned chair wouldn’t go. If it had …”
Adèle put her arms round his neck, drew down his head to hers and kissed his lips.
“My darling,” she said quietly, “no man could have done so well.”
“By God, that’s true,” I cried.
“Oh, Adèle,” said Mansel simply, “I do love you so much.”
Then his arms went about her, and she hid her face in his coat.
Sitting on the floor of the Closet, I summed up our circumstances as best I could.
For the moment, Adèle was safe. What remained of the food which we had drawn up the cliff would last us with care for two days. We had three pistols, each holding seven rounds, and we had the run of two rooms and a way down into the archway—for what it was worth. That we could hold this position I had no doubt: indeed, it seemed most unlikely that Rose Noble would make an attack, for, unless we three could break out or Hanbury and the servants could break in, we must in three or four days fall into his hands.
For us to break out would be extremely hard: we had long ago perceived that the two “galleries of stone” were the keys to the royal suite, and that these were joined by a passage meant that we were surrounded by a guardroom which two men could hold against twenty, the inside of which we had not so much as seen.
With Hanbury and the servants we were no longer in touch. Our line of communication had been cut, and, even though George should decide to attempt our relief, I could not see that four men could bring this about. Six had been none too many two nights ago, and for four to repeat an assault which had only succeeded because it was a surprise seemed to me a hopeless adventure.
I found it hard not to believe that Fortune had taken her stand on the enemy’s side. Had we known of the doors in the panelling, not once but five times over should we have won our match: without that precious knowledge, two nights ago we had all but rescued Adèle: if Rose Noble had not met Casemate in search of his hat, Adèle by now might well have been thirty miles off: but for the weight of the chair, Rose Noble must have been dead ten minutes ago. This last was a bitter thought. Looking back, I perceived how Mansel had made the brute angry in order to make him move and had actually lured the master into the way of a fool, how he had ignored gross insult and let Adèle suffer in silence to gain his end, and how only the fear of depriving Adèle of his service had made him break off a battle which he might well have won.
Then I fell to
