The Frenchman set his bags down beside the metal chest, moved swiftly forward, pushed the swinging door open, and stepped silently through into what was obviously the dining room. And Runnells, beside him, whispered hoarsely again, but this time with a sort of amazed admiration in his voice.
"Gawd!" said Runnells. "Neat, I calls that! Neat! What?"
Two men lay upon the floor, gagged, bound and apparently unconscious. One, from his livery, was a servant in the house; the other was in civilian clothes.
Paul Cremarre pointed to the latter.
"The man that came out from London with the box from the bank," he observed complacently. He pushed Runnells back through the swinging door into the pantry. "Well, my Runnells, you were grumbling over a few minutes' delay, let us see if we can be equally as expeditious and efficient with infinitely less to do." He reached the chest and examined it. "Padlocks, eh? Let me see if I can persuade them!" He bent over the chest, and from his pocket came a little kit of tools.
Runnells stood silently by. There was no sound now save the breathing of the two men, and, as the minutes passed, an occasional faint, metallic rasp and click from Paul Cremarre at work.
And then the Frenchman flung back the lid, and straightened up.
"Quick now, Runnells—to work!" he said briskly. "Père Mouche is waiting for his ragoût!"
"My eye!" said Runnells with enthusiasm, as the electric torch bored into the interior of the box. "Pipe it! I've served with the swells, I have, and Lord Seeton was one of the biggest of 'em, but I never saw the likes of this before. Gold plate to eat off of! My eye!"
"They are very beautiful," said the Frenchman judicially; "but it would be a sacrilege against art to appraise them in haste and in a poor light. Work quickly, Runnells! And do not fill any one of the bags too full. You will find it heavy. The four will hold it all comfortably."
"Gawd!" said Runnells eagerly, as he bent to his task.
The men worked swiftly now, without words, transferring the Earl of Cloverley's priceless service of gold plate to the four travelling bags. The Frenchman, the quicker of the two, completed his task first, and locked his two bags. And then suddenly he touched Runnells on the shoulder.
"Listen!" he whispered. "What's that?"
Faintly, scarcely audible, there came a curiously padded, swishing sound—like slippered feet. It came from the direction, not of the swing door where the two guards lay, but from beyond the door through which Runnells and the Frenchman had entered the pantry.
"It's some one coming, all right," Runnells whispered back.
"But only one," said the Frenchman instantly. "Quick! Finish your job—but don't make a sound." There was a sudden, vicious snarl in his whisper. "Pull that hat of yours down over your eyes. I'll answer the door, as you English say!"
He moved back along the pantry with the noiseless tread of a cat, and took up his position against the wall at the edge of the closed door. From his pocket he drew a revolver. It was quite black, quite silent now—save for the approaching footsteps.
Perhaps a minute passed.
And then the door opened, and a light went on. A grey-whiskered little man in a dressing gown, with bare feet thrust into slippers, stood on the threshold. He cast startled eyes on a crouching figure in the centre of the pantry, the tell-tale travelling bags, the gaping treasure chest, and wrenched a revolver from the pocket of his dressing gown. But the Frenchman, reaching out, struck from the edge of the doorway. The revolver sailed ceilingwards from the other's hand, and exploded in mid-air. And coincidently the Frenchman struck again—with the butt of his own weapon—and the man went limply to the floor.
Runnells came staggering forward under the load of the bags.
"Strike me dead!" he gasped, "if it ain't the nosey old bird himself! Serves him proper—sneaking around to make sure he ain't paying money for nothing, and hoping he'll catch 'em asleep on sentry-go!"
The Frenchman snatched up two of the bags.
"Quick!" he said tersely.
Captain Francis Newcombe raised his head from his pillow, and propped himself up on his elbow. A door nearby suddenly opened. Other doors were being rapped upon. Voices came.
The ex-captain of territorials sprang from his bed, thrust his feet into slippers, threw a bathrobe over his pajamas, opened his door and stepped out into the hall. Some one had already turned on a light. He found himself amongst a group of fellow guests, whose number was being constantly augmented. From other doorways, wary of their extreme dishabille, women's faces peered out timidly—their voices, less restrained, demanding to know what was the matter, added an hysterical note to the scene.
"A shot was certainly fired somewhere in the house, though I couldn't place where it came from," declared some one. "I am quite sure of it."
"There is no question about it," corroborated another. "It woke me up, and I ran out here into the hall."
"The Earl is not in his room!" announced a third excitedly. "I've just been there."
"Ring for the servants!" screeched an elderly female voice. "Some one may be killed!"
"For God's sake!" snapped a man gruffly. "I didn't hear it myself, but if a shot was fired it's fairly obvious by now that it wasn't fired up here! What are you standing around like a pack of sheep for?"
"That's what I was wondering," said Captain Francis Newcombe softly to himself—and joined the now concerted rush down the stairway.
Lights were going on all over the house now, and the men servants began to appear. The rush scurried from one room to another. A cry went up from some one ahead. It turned the rush into the dining room, and there, in their motley garbs, chorusing excited exclamations, the crowd surrounded the two gagged and bound guards.
Then some one else shouted from the pantry that the metal chest had been broken open, and that the gold service was gone. There was another rush in that direction. Captain Francis Newcombe accompanied this rush. On the floor lay a revolver. The ex-captain of territorials picked it up.
"Hello!" he ejaculated. "It's rather queer this has been left behind—or perhaps it belongs to one of the two out there in the dining room."
"No, sir," said one of the servants at his elbow. "It's the Earl's, sir. I'd know it anywhere. And, begging your pardon, sir, it's a bit strange that he hasn't been seen since—"
"Here he is!" cried a voice from beyond the farther pantry door. "Here, lend a hand! The Earl's been hurt."
Captain Francis Newcombe aiding, the Earl was carried back to the dining room, and restoratives hastily applied. Here, the man in livery, released now, his voice weak and unsteady, was telling his story; his companion was still unconscious.
"... Gawd knows," the man was saying. "We was in the pantry, and Brown there 'e thought 'e 'eard a sound out 'ere in the dining room. And 'e gets up and pushes the swinging door open and goes through, and a minute later I 'ears what I thinks is 'im calling me. ''Ere, quick, Johnston!' 'e says. And I goes through the door, and something bashes me over the 'ead, and I goes out. What 'appened though is as clear as daylight now. Brown goes through the door and gets hit on the 'ead, and I goes through the door and gets hit on the 'ead. And it wasn't Brown as called to me, it was the blighter that did us in, and—"
The Earl's voice broke in suddenly.
"I'm all right, I tell you!" he insisted weakly. "There were two of them ... one behind the door knocked the revolver out of my hand as I fired, and smashed me over the head with something ... bags, travelling bags for the plate ... that's the way they're carrying it ... I—"
The Earl's voice trailed off.
"It can't have been more than five minutes ago then," said the man with the gruff voice, "for they were therefore in the house when the shot was fired.