With these wild words, like bullets from a Gatling gun rattling in my ears, I seized Philippa’s hand.
Something fell, and would have rattled on the hard high road had it not been for the snow.
I stooped to pick up this shining object, and with one more wild yell of ‘My quarter’s salary!’ Philippa waltzed again into the darkness.
Fatigued with the somewhat exhausting and unusual character of the day’s performances, and out of training as I was, I could not follow her.
Mechanically, I still groped on the ground, and picked up a small chill object.
It was a latch-key! I thrust it in my pocket with my other keys.
Then a thought occurred to me, and I chucked it over the hedge, to serve as circumstantial evidence. Next I turned and went up the road, springing my rattle and flashing my bull’s-eye lantern on every side, like Mr. Pickwick when he alarmed the scientific gentleman.
Suddenly, with a cry of horror, I stopped short. At my very feet, in the little circle of concentrated light thrown by the lantern, lay a white crushed, cylindrical mass.
That mass I had seen before in the warm summer weather—that mass, once a white hat, had adorned the brows of that masher!
It was Sir Runan’s topper!