The financier departed with his charges. The four men remained, facing each other over the dead body. Rain was falling heavily.
"Poor girl," said the clergyman huskily.
"That such a brute should be at large," the manager added.
Copplestone's gaze again became rivetted to the ground. He seemed unconscious of their presence. He was like a man alone and dazed in a strange world.
Then the storm burst over them with all its fury. The rain poured down in torrents, the lightning was incessant. It was as if the elements themselves, in their rage, were seeking to complete the work of destruction.
"We can't leave her out in this—police or no police," the clergyman shivered.
Copplestone bent down again. The manager moved to assist, but Tranter put him aside, and assisted Copplestone to lift the ghastly burden in his arms. Then they picked their way slowly along the winding paths to the house.
When they entered the decorated room, Copplestone's strange immobility flashed upon him with startling suddenness. Uttering a oath, he placed what he had previously been carrying with dull indifference roughly on a couch, and hurled himself furiously upon the confusion of decorations, tearing and crushing everything into a smashed heap on the floor. So overwhelming was his violence that no one dared attempt to stop him. He dashed the lights to the ground, and rent the flags with appalling ferocity. In a few moments a shattered pile was all that remained of the medley of illumination. He stood on the pile and ground his heels into it.
Then all the energy was snuffed out of him like the switching off of an electric current. The dull heavy cloud descended on him again. He stared vacantly at the others, shrugged his shoulders slightly, and turned his back on them.
The silence remained unbroken until a loud ringing at the front door bell announced the arrival of the police.