"It's happening now!"
Krech hissed the words in a fierce whisper. His eyes had automatically followed the detective's glowing cigarette and had been attracted by something farther off, barely visible through the deepening dusk. Almost before Miss Ocky and Creighton could sense the meaning of his words, he had sprung to his feet and vaulted the veranda railing. Thanks to a downhill slope of the ground at this point the piazza floor was a full nine feet from the grass lawn, and they heard a hearty grunt as Krech alighted. Then he recovered his footing and sped with extraordinary swiftness for so large a man across the sward in the direction of that woods that edged it.
"What is it?" gasped Miss Ocky. "Oh—what is it?"
"The monk!" cried Creighton. "The monk!"
His glance, darting ahead of the speeding Krech, had discerned an unmistakable figure outlined against a clump of white birch as though the monk had deliberately chosen a background against which he would be most conspicuous to the group on the piazza. He was standing there motionless, apparently indifferent to the rushing menace of Krech, and through the detective's brain, searing it like a flame, shot the memory of something Sherwood had said, "I thought the fellow would run, but instead of that he waited!" He was waiting now!
"Krech!" cried the detective. "Careful—careful!"
His hands were on the rail of the veranda. It had not taken two seconds for him to size the situation and shout his warning, and those same seconds were occupied in getting out of his chair and dashing to the rail. He had one leg over this when two hands like steel clamps circled his right arm and gripped him fiercely.
"Please—oh, please!" stammered a frightened voice.
"Ocky!" he gasped in furious protest. "Leggo!"
He wrenched himself free and went sprawling over the rail, a wordless prayer in his heart that no broken legs or sprained ankles were to be his portion. He landed unhurt in a providential flowerbed, and struggled again to his feet to discover that both the monk and Krech had vanished.