“He is a person of authority?”
“To my certain knowledge,” Peter replied, “he has the implicit confidence of the French Government.”
Sir John Dory made a sign. In another moment Bernadine would have been arrested. It seemed, indeed, as though nothing could save him now from this crowning humiliation. He himself, white and furious, was at a loss how to deal with an unexpected situation. Suddenly a thing happened stranger than any one of them there had ever dreamed of, so strange that even men such as Peter, Sogrange and Dory, whose nerves were of iron, faced one another, doubting and amazed. The floor beneath them rocked and billowed like the waves of a canvas sea. The windows were filled with flashes of red light, a great fissure parted the wall, the pictures and book-cases came crashing down beneath a shower of masonry. It was the affair of a second. Above them shone the stars and around them a noise like thunder. Bernadine, who alone understood, was the first to recover himself. He stood in the midst of them, his hands above his head, laughing as he looked around at the strange storm, laughing like a madman.
“The wonderful Carl,” he cried. “Oh, matchless servant. Arrest me now, if you will, you dogs of the police. Rout out my secrets, dear Baron de Grost. Tuck them under your arm and hurry to Downing Street. This is the hospitality of the High House, my friends. It loves you so well that only your ashes shall leave it.”
His mouth was open for another sentence when he was struck. A whole pillar of marble from one of the rooms above came crashing through and buried him underneath a falling shower of masonry. Peter escaped by a few inches. Those who were left unhurt sprang through the yawning wall out into the garden. Sir John, Sogrange and Peter, three of the men—one limping badly, came to a standstill in the middle of the lawn. Before them, the house was crumbling like a pack of cards, and louder even than the thunder of the falling structure was the roar of the red flames.
“The Baroness!” Peter cried, and took one leap forward.
“I am here,” she sobbed, running to them from out of the shadows. “I have lost everything—my jewels, my clothes, all except what I have on. They gave me but a moment’s warning.”
“Is there any one else in the house?” Peter demanded.
“No one but you who were in that room,” she answered.
“Your companion!”