Mary Wayne, following all this with blazing eyes and panting bosom, wholly free to sense the combat in its larger aspects because she knew nothing of its superb technique, was leaning half-way across the banisters, a battle-cry hovering on her lips, when her quick ear caught the sound of a key turning in a lock. It had the effect of a cold shock. She was the civilized woman again.
Fear and apprehension turned her eyes in the direction of the front door. Yes, it was opening. Police? No!
Aunt Caroline Marshall, Bill Marshall, the butler, and a file of the Marshall servants!
[CHAPTER XXIV]
Aunt Caroline—Referee
As Bill stepped into the hall he glanced in dull surprise at the single light that was burning there. And soon he became aware of a din in the library. For an instant his bewilderment increased. Then came sickening comprehension. The Kid was pulling it off to-night. He had changed the date. Why? And why, again, had fate summoned Aunt Caroline to the feast? Bill put a hand against the wall to steady himself. He turned fearful eyes toward his aunt.
She was already in action. On occasion she was a brisk lady, despite her years; she was not timorous. Something she did not understand was taking place in her house. She proposed to look into the matter herself. Before Bill could clutch her arm she darted along the hall and flung open the door of the library.
She never really appreciated the beauty of what she saw. Like Mary Wayne, she was untutored in its scientific nicety and its poetic movement. She merely sensed that it was red carnage, titanic, horrific. Just what happened is most easily described by referring to the official version of the eighth round, which was uncompleted in the last chapter.