‘Come,’ Aribert almost shouted, with a sudden access of energy—a wild impulse for action. And, snatching the lantern from Racksole, he rushed into the dark room where they had heard the conversation of Miss Spencer and the lady in the red hat. For a moment Racksole did not stir from the threshold of the window. ‘Come,’ Prince Aribert repeated, and there was an imperious command in his utterance. ‘What are you afraid of?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Racksole, feeling stupid and queer; ‘I don’t know.’
Then he marched heavily after Prince Aribert into the room. On the mantelpiece were a couple of candles which had been blown out, and in a mechanical, unthinking way, Racksole lighted them, and the two men glanced round the room. It presented no peculiar features: it was just an ordinary room, rather small, rather mean, rather shabby, with an ugly wallpaper and ugly pictures in ugly frames. Thrown over a chair was a man’s evening-dress jacket. The door was closed. Prince Aribert turned the knob, but he could not open it.
‘It’s locked,’ he said. ‘Evidently they know we’re here.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Racksole brusquely; ‘how can they know?’ And, taking hold of the knob, he violently shook the door, and it opened. ‘I told you it wasn’t locked,’ he added, and this small success of opening the door seemed to steady the man. It was a curious psychological effect, this terrorizing (for it amounted to that) of two courageous full-grown men by the mere apparition of a helpless creature in a cellar. Gradually they both recovered from it. The next moment they were out in the passage which led to the front door of the house. The front door stood open. They looked into the street, up and down, but there was not a soul in sight. The street, lighted by three gas-lamps only, seemed strangely sinister and mysterious.
‘She has gone, that’s clear,’ said Racksole, meaning the woman with the red hat.
‘And Miss Spencer after her, do you think?’ questioned Aribert.
‘No. She would stay. She would never dare to leave. Let us find the cellar steps.’
The cellar steps were happily not difficult to discover, for in moving a pace backwards Prince Aribert had a narrow escape of precipitating himself to the bottom of them. The lantern showed that they were built on a curve.
Silently Racksole resumed possession of the lantern and went first, the Prince close behind him. At the foot was a short passage, and in this passage crouched the figure of a woman. Her eyes threw back the rays of the lantern, shining like a cat’s at midnight. Then, as the men went nearer, they saw that it was Miss Spencer who barred their way. She seemed half to kneel on the stone floor, and in one hand she held what at first appeared to be a dagger, but which proved to be nothing more romantic than a rather long bread-knife.