It was only the faintest creak she heard, but it came from a corner of the room where the door leading to the cupboard stairway was placed. She saw a faint grey line of light appear—the stairway had a glass roof and admitted enough light to show her that the door was slowly opening. She had to bite her lips to stop herself from screaming. To make her escape or to rouse Sir John was impossible, and she opened the attaché case again, and with trembling fingers felt for the little revolver which she had taken from her drawer. She felt safer now, yet she had not the courage to switch on the light.
She saw the figure of a man silhouetted in the opening, then the door closed, and her terror bred of itself a certain courage.
She flashed the light full on his face. The dead silence was broken when she whispered:
“Oh, God! Benson!”
“Who’s that?” he whispered, and snatched the torch from her hand.
He looked at her long and curiously, and then:
“I expected to find that Maxell had taken most of my possessions,” he said, “but I never thought he would take my wife!”
“Let us see what all this is about,” boomed the big voice of John Maxell almost in the man’s ear, he was so close, and suddenly the room was flooded with light.
CHAPTER XIV
THE self-appointed watcher found time pass very slowly. Twelve and one o’clock struck from a distant church, but there was no sign of midnight assassins, and the house, looking very solemn and quiet in the light of a waning moon, irritated and annoyed him. From the roadway where he paced silently to and fro—he had taken the precaution of wearing a pair of rubber-soled shoes—he could glimpse Mary’s window, and once he thought he saw her looking out.