XXII
“Dick!”
It was a girl’s voice, sharp with fear, that came from the hall below.
“Dick!”
The thing with the knife dropped the weapon and, cringing back toward the door, hesitated a second, and slipped out.
“Dick!”
Again the voice, and Dick woke. Was he dreaming? Slipping out of bed, he threw open the door and walked on to the landing.
“Who’s calling?” he asked, husky with sleep.
“It is I—Leslie! Dick, I want you.”
He went back to his bedroom, pulled a dressing gown from a hook and raced down the stairs, dressing as he went. She was standing in the gloom of the hall, a slim figure. She had no hat; her bare feet were thrust into slippers, and she wore an overcoat over what was evidently a hastily assumed skirt.
“What is the matter, dear?”
He pushed open the door of his study and led her in. She was trembling from head to foot.
“I don’t know. Something dreadful has happened,” she gasped. “I thought my car would wake you—didn’t you hear it?”
“Something dreadful has happened? What?” he asked quickly.
“I don’t know. I suppose I’ve got everything out of proportion—I saw Arthur fighting with a man on the lawn. It was dreadful. I thought I must have been mistaken and went to his room, but the bed was empty and had not been slept in. By the time I could get downstairs on to the lawn, they had disappeared. Oh, Dick, what can have happened?”
“Fighting?” He was incredulous. “I saw Arthur—I don’t know how long ago; it may have been an hour or two. I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping.”
It was daylight now; the clock over the mantelpiece showed it to be a quarter past five.
“Just wait a moment. I’ll be with you in a jiffy.”
He ran up the stairs and in five minutes rejoined her, dressed, and, lifting her into the car, he sent the little machine flying down the drive.
“How did you get into the house?”
“I came through your study. I rang the bell at the door, but nobody answered me. And then I tried your French windows and they were open.”
“I’m always forgetting to lock them. I’m glad I did. And they will never be locked in the future,” said Dick. “Now, just tell me what happened?”
She told her story coherently. Her very association with this man had restored her failing courage. And as she grew calmer, she became penitent.
“What a scare cat you will think I am!” she said ruefully. “I don’t know what time it was—about half an hour ago, I think—but I was sleeping when I heard voices. I went to the window and looked out. It was still rather dark; there are an awful lot of trees before the house, but I could see two men, and I wouldn’t have known one of them was Arthur, only I heard him speaking angrily.”
“Did you hear anything he said?”
“No, they were too far away. They were near the laurels that hide the house from the road. And then I saw Arthur strike the man, and they began to struggle, and that is all I saw. By the time I’d got downstairs they had disappeared.”
“But you say you saw him? How could you?”
Dick gave a version of his encounter with the lawyer that was more flattering to Arthur than was deserved.
“But that couldn’t be true!” she said, in perplexity. “He hadn’t been to bed at all. What is the meaning of it, Dick?”
“The Lord knows!” said Dick piously. “I wish my friend Puttler were here.”
The car ran through the cutting and took the long, straight road to Willow House, they were turning into the drive when Dick saw a man walking in front of him.
“There’s your Arthur,” he said, and she uttered a little cry of thankfulness.
It was Arthur with a difference. His nose had been bleeding, his eye was slightly discoloured. In other circumstances Dick would have laughed, but the girl was so concerned with her brother’s injuries that it would have been brutal even to find anything amusing in the discomfiture of this dandified young lawyer.
“It was nothing,” he said gruffly. “I met a poacher and had a slight argument with him.”
The knees of his new golfing knickers were soiled and torn; the knuckles of his hand were red and bleeding. Dick felt that it was not the moment to ask him questions, and followed the brother and sister into the house, an interested and cautious observer of events.
The servants had been roused and one of them brought some coffee, and Dick, who had been half dead from sleepiness, accepted the steaming cup gratefully.
“What do you think has happened, Dick?” she asked, when Arthur had gone up to his room to treat his injuries, having refused all the assistance she offered.
“I think he has told us what has happened. He had trouble with a poacher. In other words, he had a vulgar fight. It is one of those distressing happenings that the best of men cannot always avoid.”
She shot a suspicious glance at him.
“You don’t mean that, Dick. And it couldn’t have been a poacher. I’m perfectly sure it was Mr. Gilder.”
Dick was not prepared to contest this point of view. The probability of Arthur’s assailant being his head clerk was one that had occurred to him. But why should Gilder be in the vicinity of Willow House at that hour of the morning? At a suitable opportunity he would ask Arthur Gwyn for the truth.
He was conscious that she was looking at him, and, meeting her eyes, he saw something that made him catch his breath.
“What shall I ever do without you?” she asked, with a gesture of helplessness. “I run to you crying every time I am hurt, and you appear by magic whenever I’m in trouble! Dick, one of these days I’m going to be a disgrace to my sex!”
“I hope not, Leslie,” he smiled. “What particularly outrageous thing have you in mind?”
She nodded wisely.
“You will see,” she said. “I also can be mysterious!”
He declined the loan of her car and returned on foot to the house. Unless Harry’s sleeping draught had taken effect, he would have heard the car, for his room faced the drive. But no sound came from the King’s Chamber, as his sleeping apartment was magniloquently termed, and Dick went to his room and took off his clothes.
He was getting into bed when his foot touched something hard and shiny, and, stooping, he picked it up.
“Moses!” said Dick under his breath, and switched on the light.
The knife was a new one, its edge razor-sharp. He turned it over and over in his hand and frowned. Then, walking to the door, he locked it; and Dick did not usually sleep behind a locked door. But he realized that the twenty-four hours through which he was passing were pregnant with unpleasant possibilities.