“I guess Jute’ll bite his thumbs, when he finds we’re gone.”
Bunch propped himself on an elbow and let out an oath.
“Serve ’im ⸻ well right,” he spouted, “the dirty goat. Sits down in that crooked village an’ leaves us to get the wet. I know ’is ⸻ idea of keepin’ the background warm. Oysters an’ girls an’ movies an’ a skinful every night.”
“He had his orders,” said Rose Noble, “an’ he’s broken ’em twice. If he’d done as I told him, we shouldn’t have had this fuss. But maybe it’s as well. It don’t amuse me to suckle an insubordinate ⸻ that’s let me down.”
This definite intimation that no claim by Jute would be paid was greeted by Punter and Bunch with the highest glee, partly, no doubt, because each was expecting to profit by such a rule, but mainly, I think, because they detested Jute and the thought of his losing his share did their hearts good. Indeed, had they known the truth—that Jute was no longer alive to lodge his claim, they could not have been better pleased. They crowed and giggled like children, abused the dead man with a relish which must have made him turn in his grave, and showed an impatience for action which all their approaching welfare had failed to inspire.
Punter shook his fist at the castle and cried aloud.
“Come out, you one-legged ⸻, and take your gruel.”
“Easy now,” said Rose Noble. “He knows that he’s for the high jump, and I guess you’d straighten your tie before buying that hop.”
“Rose,” says Bunch, all of a twitter, “are you sure we’d better not spread? You know. Just in case—”
Rose Noble sat up.
“If and when I say so, but not before. What the hell’s the use of spreading before they show up? Or even then?”
“None whatever,” said Mansel.
Then a shot was fired just behind me, and Rose Noble fell back, staring, with the blood running into his eyes.
Himself, Mansel unbound me and took the gag from my mouth, while Carson and Bell, who were with him, stood covering Punter and Bunch—in a way, a needless precaution, for the two seemed stupefied and gazed about them slowly, as though they had just been translated into another world. And so, I suppose, in a sense, they had been, for Rose Noble was stone dead, shot through the brain.
When he saw the state of my mouth, Mansel drew in his breath. Then his hands went under my arms, and he lifted me up.
There was a rill in the wood—we had heard the fuss of its water, whenever we used the drive. This we sought in silence, for I was past speaking, and Mansel held his tongue. Indeed, he had his hands full, for though I could walk, I had lost my sense of balance and but for his arms, must have fallen a score of times.
The water revived me, but, when I would have spoken, Mansel stopped me at once.
“All in good time,” said he. “Those swine must be disposed of, and the cord’s way back with the cars. You will stay here and rest, and I’ll come back and find you as soon as ever I can.”
With that, he was gone, and I turned again to the water and drank my fill. …
After a little, I lay back and gazed at the sky.
To tell the truth, I was thankful to be alone.
I had been just as much shaken as Punter and Bunch, and the world seemed out of focus to my labouring brain.
One moment the enemy was rampant, and the next Rose Noble was dead: before he had left the castle, Mansel had appeared in the wood: the inevitable had not happened, the impossible come to pass.
More than once an absurd fear seized me that it was all a dream, and, indeed, I was still uneasy when I heard a comfortable sound—the sigh of one of the Rolls.
Ten minutes later Tester was licking my face. …
“It’s very simple,” said Mansel, filling a pipe. “The whole of the credit is yours. You cut the Gordian knot: and when, because of my failure, our case was ten times worse than it had been before, you pulled the whole show round and did the trick.”
To this I demurred, but he brushed my protests aside.
“Listen,” he said. “They carried me in and laid me down on a bed in the middle room of the tower. They took my pistol and knife, locked them up in a cupboard and took the key. Then they locked every door, except the door to the roof and that of the room in which I lay. Well, that washed out George and the servants, for they were in the oratory, very properly biding their time. Then they handcuffed Adèle to my bedpost, and, when she slipped out of the cuff, they clipped her ankle instead. Then Rose Noble sat down and watched me—from a chair at the foot of the bed. Adèle told me afterwards that he never took his hand from his pocket or his eyes from my face. … If you can conceive a tighter place than that, I’d like to hear what it is.
“Well, the ‘doctor’ appeared, and, before he’d said thirty words, Rose Noble was out of the room. When I rose to follow, Adèle almost bent it again. She started up, forgetting her ankle was fast to the leg of the bed. I just managed to catch her in time. …
“I shut the door to the roof and started to look for the keys. I found them at last, high up in a niche in the wall. Then I unlocked the doors. I had no idea where George and the servants were, and, as luck would have it, I tried the oratory last. Not until then did I go back to the ‘doctor’ and ask about you. To my horror, I learned he had left you up on the roof. …
“Of course I realized I had shut the door in your face, and, when I
