'My dear c.o.x, we should have got into trouble anyhow. We may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. I'm going for the gloves.'

'Hung! Don't talk about hanging. You make a cold shiver go down my back. You haven't--killed her?'

'Killed her? You innocent! She's the sort who take a deal of killing.

My good chap, when she comes to, she'll curse a little and go on generally; but she'll forgive me in the end. I know her; she's a dear!'

While the three men stood looking down at the unconscious woman, there came a knocking at the outer door.

CHAPTER XV

AN HONOURABLE RETREAT

It was not what they expected. Their faces showed it; they were so unmistakably startled. They looked at each other, then at the unconscious woman, then back again at one another. Mr Burton bit his lip.

'Who the deuce is that?'

'Servants, perhaps.'

'The suggestion was the Flyman's.'

'Then confound the servants! Why can't they take a little extra time to-night? They know their mistress is away.'

The knocking came again--a regular rat-tat-tat.

'That's no servants. They wouldn't make that row.'

'You can never tell. Nowadays they make what row they please; they fancy themselves. Brutes!'

'Visitors, perhaps.'

'Confound them, whoever it is!'

They spoke in whispers, an appreciable pause between each man's speaking, as if each in turn waited for something to happen. Mr Burton was outwardly the most self-possessed, being the kind of man who would probably smile as he mounted the gallows. The Flyman had his eyes nearly shut, his fists clenched, his shoulders a little hunched, as if gathering himself together to resist a coming attack. Mr Thomas c.o.x was visibly tremulous; his great head twitched upon his shoulders; he was apparently in danger of physical collapse. It was curious to observe the contrasting att.i.tudes of the three men as they stood about the rec.u.mbent woman.

The knocking was repeated, still more loudly, as if the knocker waxed impatient.

'We shall have to let 'em in. Anyhow, we shall have to see who's there. They'll knock the door down.'

This was the Flyman. Mr c.o.x suggested an alternative.

'Can't we--can't we get away? Isn't there another way out?'

Mr Burton enlightened him.

'My dear c.o.x, there's only one way into a flat, and there's only one way out, unless you try the window, which means a drop of perhaps a hundred feet. I'm not dropping. The Flyman's right; we shall have to see who's there. There needn't be trouble, unless you give yourself away. It depends who it is. I'll lay this dear little girl of mine upon her bed; she'll be more comfortable there, and not so conspicuous. I know which is her room. Then we'll see who's come to call on you.'

Displaying a degree of strength with which one would hardly have credited his slight figure, lifting Miss Casata off the floor, he bore her from the room. During his absence there came the knocking for the fourth time, this time furiously. When he returned, a marked change had taken place in his appearance. There were signs of strange disorder on his countenance, as if during his brief withdrawal he had been unstrung by some overwhelming shock. The Flyman at once observed his altered looks.

'What's happened? What's the matter?'

'Curse you, Flyman!'

'What have I done now?'

'I say, curse you!'

'Is she--dead?'

'No, she's not. I'm going to open the door. If it's the servants, I'll send them away, pretending to give them a message from her; if it's callers, I'll tell them a lie; if it's anybody who wants to make himself unpleasant, you two look out. I'm not going to be bluffed out of this before I've got that ruby.'

'Burton, be careful what you do, for all our sakes.'

This was Mr c.o.x. The retort was hardly courteous.

'You be hanged!'

Mr Burton reached the front door as the knocking was recommencing.

From where they were they could not see what he did, but they could hear. They heard him open; a feminine voice inquire, in tones of indignation,--

'What's the meaning of this? Why am I kept waiting?'

Then the front door slammed, the drawing-room door was thrown violently open, and two young ladies came through it, one after the other, with such extremely indecorous rapidity as to suggest that they could scarcely be entirely responsible for their own proceedings, as, indeed, they were not. Mr Horace Burton had propelled them forward with his own right arm before they themselves had the least idea what was about to happen. And, following right upon their heels, he closed the drawing-room door, turned the key and stood with his back against it, surveying them with his habitual, benignant smile.

It was what they call upon the stage a tableau, The smiling gentleman, the two bewildered ladies, the two other almost equally bewildered men, for it was an open question which were the more surprised by the singularity of Mr Burton's behaviour--Miss Bewicke and Miss Broad or Mr Thomas c.o.x and the Flyman.

The peculiar nature of her reception seemed to have driven Miss Broad's wits completely from her. She gazed around like a woman startled out of sleep, who has no notion of what has roused her. Miss Bewicke had apparently retained some fragments of hers. She looked at Mr Burton, then at Mr c.o.x and the Flyman, then back at the gentleman who stood before the door. She eyed him up and down with a mixture, as it seemed, of amus.e.m.e.nt, anger and contempt. Could a voice have stung, hers would have stung him then. But this gentleman was pachydermatous.

'So it's you?'

'I guess it is.'

'How dare you come here?'

'That's the problem.'

'It's one which will soon be solved.'

She moved across the room. He checked her.

'It's no good your ringing the bell. There's no one to answer.'

As she turned to face him, Miss Broad spoke, with an apparent partial return to consciousness.

'Who is this person?'