Nickson grinned.
Jack peered out into the white-and-red corridor. Nobody was there. The red glass lamp suspended from the ceiling looked to him like a mass of clotted blood.
He took two steps across to the middle door, and listened. Then he returned hastily to Nick. "They're in there! I heard the Duchess's voice. Sounds as if she were angry or frightened, or both. And there are two or more men. You and I have got to open the door, locked or unlocked."
"That's it, sir!" said Nickson. "But it won't be locked. Why should it? They don't suspect nothin', and if there's two men, 'er Grice couldn't get past 'em. You let me make a dash and see wot 'appens, sir!"
"No," Jack decided, "the dash is my job. You stand by, and if there's any dashing from the wrong side of the door, you'll know how to stop it, male or female."
"Yes, sir!"
Manners went again to the middle door. As he moved, Nickson closed in behind him, a substantial bulk, and in his eyes the light which made "Old Nick" his right name. He stood in such a position that if any one rushed for the front door or even some back exit, escape could be made only over his body. He saw that Captain Manners took hold of the doorknob with his left hand. The right hand was in the outer pocket of his coat, and Nickson knew what else was there. A similar thing was in a similar pocket of his own coat. It had been given to him by the Captain, whom he now liked and respected next to the Duke.
Suddenly Manners turned the handle and flung the door wide open with such violence that it struck the wall. He strode into the room. Nickson blocked the doorway, but seeing with one glance that there was a door leading to another room, he took a step back to guard both.
It was a very green room—green as arsenic, he thought—lighted by one lamp, like a big emerald, on a centre table. Looking in from across the threshold, however, Nick could see four figures besides Manners'. There was the Duchess, tall and strangely white in a black dress and wide hat. There was another woman without a hat, also in black; a big, common hussy she looked to Nickson, with an eye like a fierce snake's. And there were two men.
About the pair an odd thing was that they had some thin black stuff tied over their faces. Captain Manners went for one man—the one who seemed to show fight, and when the other (who hadn't spied Nick yet) made for the door, Nick received him in open arms.