“I don’t suppose that Mrs. Jasher will be dangerous,” he remarked. “We’ll get what we can out of her, and then arrange what is best to be done to recoup her fallen fortunes.
Then she can go where she chooses, and we can,—as the French say—return to our muttons.”
“I think Donna Inez and Lucy would be annoyed to hear themselves called muttons,” laughed Archie, and the two men left the room.
The night was darker than ever, and a fine rain was falling incessantly.
When they left the dimly lighted archway of the fort through the smaller, gate set in the larger one they stepped into midnight blackness such as must have been spread over the land of Egypt.
In accordance with the primitive customs of Gartley inhabitants, one of them at least should have been furnished with a lantern, as it was no easy task to pick a clean way through the mud.—-However, Archie, knowing the surroundings better even than Random, led the way, and they walked slowly through the iron gate on the hard high road which led to the Fort.
Immediately beyond this they turned towards the narrow cinder path which led through the marshes to Mrs. Jasher’s cottage, and toiled on cautiously through the misty rain, which fell continuously.
The fog was drifting up from the mouth of the river and was growing so thick that they could not see the somewhat feeble lights of the cottage.
However, Archie’s instincts led him aright, and they blundered finally upon the wooden gate.
Here they paused in shocked surprise, for a woman’s scream rang out wildly and suddenly.
“What, in heaven’s name, is that?” asked Hope, aghast.
“We must find out,” breathed Random, and raced through the white cotton-wool of the fog up the path.
As he reached the veranda the door opened and a woman came running out screaming.
But other screams inside the cottage still continued.
“What is the matter?” cried Random, seizing the woman. She proved to be Jane.
“Oh, sir, my mistress is being murdered—”
Hope plunged past her into the corridor, not waiting to hear more.
The cries had died down to a low moaning, and he dashed into the pink parlor to find it in smoky darkness.
Striking a match, he held it above his head.
It showed Mrs. Jasher prone on the floor, and a dark figure smashing its way through the flimsy window.
There was a snarl and the figure vanished as the match went out.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A CONFESSION
Jane was still being held by Sir Frank at the floor, and was still screaming, fully convinced that her captor was a burglar, in spite of having recognized him by his voice.
Random was so exasperated by her stupidity that he shook her.
“What is the matter, you fool?” he demanded. “Don’t you know that I am a friend?”
“Y-e-s, s-i-r,” gasped Jane, fetching her breath again after the shaking; “but go for the police.
My mistress is being murdered.”
“Mr. Hope is looking after that, and the screams have ceased.
Who was with your mistress?”
“I don’t know, sir,” sobbed the servant. “I didn’t know anyone had called, and then I heard the screaming. I looked into the parlor to see what was the matter, but the lamp had been thrown over and had gone out, and there was a dreadful struggle going on in the darkness, so I screamed and ran out and then I—oh—oh” Jane showed symptoms of renewed hysteria, and clutched Random tightly, as a man came cautiously round the corner.
“Are you there, Random?” asked Hope’s voice. “It’s so infernally dark and foggy that I have missed him.”
“Missed who?”
“The man who was trying to murder Mrs. Jasher, He got her down when I entered and struck a match.
Then he dashed through the window before I could catch him or even recognize him.
He’s vanished in the mist.”
“It’s no use looking for him anyhow,” said Random, peering into the dense blackness, which was thick with damp. “We had better see after Mrs. Jasher.”
“Whom have you got there?”
“Jane—who seems to have lost her head.”
“It’s a mercy I haven’t lost my life, sir, with burglars and murderers all about the place,” sobbed the girl, dropping on to the veranda.
Random promptly hauled her to her feet.
“Go and get a candle, and keep calm if you can,” he said in an abrupt military voice. “This is no time to play the fool.”
His sharpness had great effect on the girl, and she became much more her usual self.
Hope lighted another match, and the trio proceeded through the passage towards the kitchen, where Jane had left a lamp burning.
Seizing this from its bracket, Sir Frank retraced his way along the passage to the pink parlor, followed closely by Hope and timorously by Jane.
A dreadful scene presented itself.
The dainty little room was literally smashed to pieces, as though a gigantic bull had been wallowing therein.
The lamp lay on the floor, surrounded by several extinguished candles.
It was a mercy that all the lights had been put out when overturned, else the gim-crack cottage would have been long since in a blaze.
Chairs and tables and screens were also overturned, and the one window had its rose-hued curtains torn down and its glass broken, showing only too clearly the way in which the murderer had escaped.