Raffles had been on his feet some time, unable to sit still or to stand, moving excitedly about the room. But now he stood still enough, his elbows on the cast-iron mantelpiece, his head between his hands.
“Dead?” I whispered.
And he nodded to the wall.
“There was not a sound in the cave. There was no answer to my voice. Then I went in, and my foot touched hers, and it was colder than the rock ... Bunny, they had stabbed her to the heart. She had fought them, and they had stabbed her to the heart!”
“You say ‘they,’” I said gently, as he stood in heavy silence, his back still turned. “I thought Stefano had been left behind?”
Raffles was round in a flash, his face white-hot, his eyes dancing death.
“He was in the cave!” he shouted. “I saw him—I spotted him—it was broad twilight after those stairs—and I went for him with my bare hands. Not fists, Bunny; not fists for a thing like that; I meant getting my fingers into his vile little heart and tearing it out by the roots. I was stark mad. But he had the revolver—hers. He blazed it at arm’s length, and missed. And that steadied me. I had smashed his funny-bone against the rock before he could blaze again; the revolver fell with a rattle, but without going off; in an instant I had it tight, and the little swine at my mercy at last.”
“You didn’t show him any?”
“Mercy? With Faustina dead at my feet? I should have deserved none in the next world if I had shown him any in this! No, I just stood over him, with the revolver in both hands, feeling the chambers with my thumb; and as I stood he stabbed at me; but I stepped back to that one, and brought him down with a bullet in his guts.
“‘And I can spare you two or three more,’ I said, for my poor girl could not have fired a shot. ‘Take that one to hell with you—and that—and that!’