The fight had ended. I could hear a patter of feet on the rear stairs; I could hear some one near me on the floor, breathing heavily; then fell silence. I tried to yell to Stodger to be up and after them, but the result was only a painful wheezing in my throat. Then the gasping form on the floor groaned, and I managed to get dizzily to my feet.
We received the worst of that fight in more ways than one. When I managed to find a candle and light it, I discovered that Stodger was the one who had groaned. He was sitting up, not badly hurt, and staring dazedly at the candle. His mouth hung ludicrously open. But in a moment he struggled upright.
"Good God, Swift!" he gasped. "You 've been butchered!"
Then I recalled the red-hot poker. I put a hand to my cheek; it came away covered with blood. From the shoulder down, my clothes were saturated with it, and I had left a crimson trail to mark each of my movements since the keen-edged blade had laid my face open.
But enough of the wound. The white pucker of scar which to-day disfigures my face will be a life-long memento of that spirited combat in the dark.
After we were in condition to do so, Stodger and I set about an inspection of the scene.
First of all, we did n't find a trace of our adversaries, or how many of them there might have been, until we came to the snow outside. An open dining-room window indicated their method of ingress, the trampled snow beneath their number. There had been five.
"Why the bath room?" Stodger demanded, in deep perplexity. "Why should everything that happens in this house be pulled off there?"
Why indeed?
"Let's go back there and try to find out," I returned, stiffly, for my cheek was paining under the mass of plaster that Stodger had piled upon it.