For his quick eye had noted that the ink on the nib of the pen that this letter had been written with, was not yet dry.
Then Deede Dawson must have been here a moment or two ago and must have gone in a hurry. That could only mean he was aware of Rupert's return and was warned and suspicious. It is perhaps characteristic of Rupert's passionate and eager temperament that only now did it occur to him that he was quite unarmed and that without a weapon of any kind he was matching himself against as reckless and as formidable a criminal as had ever lived.
For want of anything better he picked up the heavy glass inkpot standing on the table, emptied the contents in a puddle on the floor, and held the inkpot itself ready in his hand.
He listened intently, but heard no sound—no sound at all in the whole house, and this increased his apprehensions, for he knew well that Deede Dawson was a man always the most dangerous when most silent.
It was possible of course that he had fled, but not likely. He would not go, Rupert thought, till he had made his preparations and not without a last effort to take revenge on those who had defeated him and in this dramatic way turned the mate he had expected to secure into a win for his opponent.
Still Rupert listened intently, straining his ears to catch the least sound to hint to him where his enemy was, for he knew that if he failed to discover him his first intimation of his proximity might well come in the shape of the white-hot sting of a bullet, rending flesh and bone.
Then, too, where was Ella, and where was her mother?
There was something inexpressibly sinister in the utter quietness of the house, a quietness not at all of peace and rest but of a brooding, angry threat.
Still he could hear nothing, and he left the room, very quickly and noiselessly, and he made sure there was no one anywhere in any of these rooms on the ground floor.
He locked the front door and the back to make sure no one should enter or leave too easily, and returned on tiptoe, moving to and fro like a shadow cast by a changing light, so swift and noiseless were his movements.