And with that it flashed on me what he was after—the roll of notes lying on the floor, between the table and the fireplace, barely a foot beyond the table's edge and perhaps four yards from my hiding place. I knew the spot exactly. Squire Carthew had almost touched the packet with his foot as he stooped to blow out the candle.
I dropped on hands and knees behind my curtain, pushed it softly aside and began to crawl. I could hear nothing now but my own heart drumming. For the next few moments, if I made no sound, it was unlikely either that Leggat would steal back upon me or that the squire could reach me without encountering Leggat. My hand touched the table-leg, and the touch of it, coming unexpectedly, almost made me cry out. A moment later I felt more easy. Once beneath the table I was comparatively safe. But I must get my hand on these notes, and after pausing a second I steered towards the fireplace, poked out my head and shoulders beyond the table, and smoothed my palm across the floor until my fingers touched the packet and closed upon it.
At that moment, in the darkness, to the left, a foil rattled against a chair. The sound was a slight one, but it betrayed Leggat's whereabouts, and, with a gasp of triumph, Carthew came running upon him from the right.
I ducked my head, but before I could slip back he had blundered right across my shoulders, which reached, perhaps, to his knees. He went over me with an oath and a crash, and as he struck the floor his pistol exploded.
I drew back with the smoke of it in my mouth and nostrils—and listened. Not a sound came from Leggat's corner, not a groan from the body stretched within reach. The man was dead, for certain; and we others had no time to lose.
A thud in the corridor outside called me to my senses. "Robert Leggat," I cried, "this is a black night's job for you! Lay down that pistol, find your shoes, and run!"
At this distance of time I would give something to know how it took him—this voice calling his true name out of the darkness and across Carthew's body.
"My God! Who is that?" he asked, and I could hear his teeth chattering.
Before I had need to answer, he broke from his corner and flung up the window, but recollected himself, and ran for his shoes. He had scarcely found them when there came that rush upon the stairs for which I had been listening, and a woman's voice screamed, "The Mistress! They've murdered the mistress!"