"I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to step into this back room," said Craig at length to the ladies. "I'm sorry—but we can't be too careful with this intruder, whoever he was."
They rose, surprised, but, as he continued to urge them, they moved into my room.
Elaine, however, stopped at the door.
For a moment Kennedy appeared to be considering. Then his eye fell on a fishing rod that stood in a corner. He took it and moved toward the picture.
On his hands and knees, to one side, down as close as he could get to the floor, with the rod extended at arm's length, he motioned to me to do the same, behind him.
Elaine, unable to repress her interest took a half step forward, breathless, from the doorway, while Susie Martin and Aunt Josephine stood close behind her.
Carefully Kennedy reached out with the pole and straightened the picture.
As he did so there was a flash, a loud, deafening report, and a great puff of smoke from the fireplace.
The fire screen was riddled and overturned. A charge of buckshot shattered the precious photograph of Elaine.
We had dropped flat on the floor at the report. I looked about. Kennedy was unharmed, and so were the rest.