facing the door wasagain riddled with pellets.
"They seem to have a battery," the inspector said, when we were oncemore in the hall. "We shall need to starve them out," he observedlater. "There's no other alternative that I see. I've never seen sucha thing as this before in all my years in the Rutland constabulary."
"Starve them!" I exclaimed. "And how long will that take? For aughtwe know, they may be well-provisioned."
"It's the only thing to do, sir," he repeated doggedly. "We can't smokethem out; and we can't very well burn them out; and I doubt if the lawwill let us shoot them, though they shoot at us."
"That may be so," Whichelo cut in quietly. "But I tell you this now--I'm going to take the law into my own hands."
The officer looked alarmed.
"You can't," the inspector exclaimed, as if unable to believe his ears.To your average police-officer the thought of a man's audacity to "takethe law into his own hands," seems incredible. "You can't, sir," herepeated. "You can't, indeed!"
"You think not?" Whichelo said, coolly, gazing down upon them all fromhis great height. "Come along, Ashton," he called to me. "I'm going toteach a lesson to those vermin upstairs."
I followed him out to the back premises, and thence along a passage tothe gun-room, the door of which stood open. As we entered, Whichelouttered an exclamation.
And no wonder, for the room had been ransacked. The glass front of thegun-rack had been smashed, several shot-guns had been removed--Iremembered there had always been three or four guns in thisbaize-covered rack, now there was only one--and about the floor wereempty cartridge-boxes, their covers lying in splinters, as though theboxes had been hurriedly ripped open. The repeating-gun that had beenfired at us was probably the Browning which Sir Charles used forduck-shooting, for this was among the missing weapons.
"They intend to hold a siege," Whichelo said, after a pause. "They'veprovided themselves with a stack of ammunition. This is going to be abig affair, Ashton, a much bigger affair than even we anticipated."
Carefully he took down the only gun left in the rack.
"This is of no use," he said, looking at it contemptuously. "It's atwenty-eight bore."
The outlook certainly was very black. True, there were nine of us. Hadwe been twenty, however, the situation would hardly have been better.For there, up in that attic, in a position commanding the full length ofthe corridor, were two desperate men, armed with guns, and provided withhundreds of rounds of ammunition, which, as we knew, they would nothesitate to use. The question which occurred to us, of course, was: howwere they provisioned? Given food and drink to last a week, and whocould say what damage they might do?
I went with Whichelo out into the Park. The woods were lookingglorious. It was a perfect evening, too, soft and balmy, with thatdelightful smell of freshness peculiar to the English countryside andimpossible, adequately, to describe in print.
We were perhaps ninety yards from the house, with our backs to it, as westrolled towards the copse. All at once a double shot rang out behindus on the still, evening air. At the same instant I felt sharp pointsof burning pain all over my back and legs. Whipping round, I saw afigure on the roof, outlined against the moonlit sky, just disappearing.
Whichelo too, had been badly peppered. Fortunately we wore thickcountry tweeds, and these had, to some extent, protected us.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
THE UNKNOWN TO-MORROW.
Take it from me. It is not pleasant to be wounded, even in a goodcause.
To be shot in the back by a man standing upon a roof, with ascatter-gun, is not merely physically painful; it is, in addition,humiliating, because it also wounds one's _amour propre_.
At once I decided not to tell Vera what had happened. She was kind,sympathetic, and for many other things I loved her, but instinctively Iknew that she would laugh if I told her the truth, and I was in no fitstate then to be laughed at.
Indeed, merely to laugh gave me pain--a great deal of pain. It seemedto drive a lot of little sharp spikes into the holes made by thepellets.
Doctor Agnew--for I had returned to town that night, being extremelyanxious to see Thorold again--to whom I exposed my lacerated back, madefar too light of the matter, I thought--far too light of it. He saidthe pellets were "just under the skin"--I think he murmured somethingabout "an abrasion of the cuticle," whatever that may mean--and that hewould "pick them all out in half a jiffy." I hate doctors who talkslang, and I hinted that I thought an anaesthetic might be advisable.
"Anaesthetic!" he echoed, with a laugh. "Oh, come, Mr. Ashton," Agnewadded, "you must be joking. Yes--I see that you are joking."
I had not intended to "joke."
"Joking" had been the thought furthest from my mind when I suggested theanaesthetic. But, as he took it like that, and spoke in that tone,naturally I had to pretend I really had been joking.
Agnew picked out all the pellets, as he had said he would, "in half ajiffy," and I must admit that the pain of the "operation" was veryslight. I should, in truth, have been a milksop had I insisted uponbeing made unconscious in order to avoid the "pain" of a few sharppin-pricks.
Next day I went to see my love, and found her in tears.
Her father was, alas, worse, His temperature had risen. At the hospitalthey feared the worst. All the previous night he had been delirious.The sister had told her that he had "said the strangest things," whilein that condition.
I tried to comfort her, but I fear my efforts had but little avail.
"Did they tell you what he said while he was delirious?" I askedquickly.
"They told me some of the things he said. He kept on, they declared,talking of some crime. He seemed to see things floating up before him,and to be trying to keep them from him. And he talked about gold, too,they said. He kept rambling on about gold--gold. The nurses didn'tlike it. One of them, I saw, had been really frightened by his wildtalk."
This was serious. That a crime had been committed, in which Sir CharlesThorold had, in some way, been concerned, I had felt sure ever sincethat discovery in the house in Belgrave Street. It would be toodreadful if, while delirious, he should inadvertently make statementsthat might arouse grave suspicion.
Statements uttered by a man in delirium, could not, of course, be usedas evidence in a Court of Law, but they might excite the curiosity ofthe hospital staff--they had, indeed, already done that--and though I amno believer in the foolish saying that women cannot keep a secret, I doknow that a good many nurses are strangely addicted to gossip.
"We must, at any cost, stop his talking," Vera declared very earnestly."What can we do, Dick? What do you suggest?"
What could I suggest? How deeply I felt for her. It would, of course,be possible to keep him quiet by administering drugs, to deaden theactivity of his brain, but the doctors would never agree to such aproposal. Besides, such a suggestion would arouse their curiosity; itmight make them wonder why we so earnestly wished to prevent the patienttalking.
They might jump at all sorts of wrong conclusions, especially as theyknew Sir Charles to be the man whose name had recently figured soprominently in the newspapers on two occasions.
No, the idea of drugging him, to keep his tongue quiet, must be at onceabandoned.
We had just come to that conclusion, when somebody knocked. A page-boyentered with a telegram, which Vera opened.
"No answer," she said, and handed it to me.
The messenger retired. Scanning the telegram, I saw it ran as follows--
"Just heard terrible news. Also where you are. Returning at once.Engage rooms for me your hotel.--Mother."
The telegram had been handed in at Mentone.
Vera seemed a good deal relieved at the thought of seeing her motheragain. At this I was not surprised, for, in a sense, she had feltherself responsible for Lady Thorold's evident ignorance of herhusband's mishap and illness. She had felt all along, she told me, thatshe should have kept in touch with her mother.
"If my father dies, without my mother having heard of his illness, Ishall never forgive myself," she had said to me once.
Lady Thorold arrived at the _Grand Hotel_ next evening. She hadtravelled by the Mediterranean express without stopping, and had hardlyslept at all. Nevertheless, she insisted upon going at once to thehospital, to see her husband.
He was a little better, the doctor told her. He had recoveredconsciousness for a short time that evening, and his brain seemedcalmer. Several times, while conscious, he had asked why Lady Thorolddid not come to him, and where she was. Her absence evidently disturbedhim a good deal.
On leaving the hospital, I looked in at Faulkner's club. He was in thehall, talking to the porter, and