“Did her husband leave your library—alive?”
“You’d better find that out. So far as I know—I was unconscious for half an hour. Bhag can use a sword——”
Michael did not leave the house till he had searched it from attic to basement. He had every servant assembled and began his interrogation. Each of them except one spoke Dutch, but none spoke the language to such purpose that they made him any wiser than he had been.
Going back to the library, he put on all the lights.
“I’ll see Bhag,” he said.
“He’s out, I tell you. If you don’t believe me——” Penne went to the desk and turned the switch. The door opened and nothing came out.
A moment’s hesitation and Michael had penetrated into the den, a revolver in one hand, his lamp in another. The two rooms were scrupulously clean, though a strange animal smell pervaded everything. There was a small bed, with sheets and blankets and feather pillow, where the beast slept; a small larder, full of nuts; a running water tap (he found afterwards that, in spite of his cleverness, Bhag was incapable of turning on or off a faucet); a deep, well-worn settee, where the dumb servitor took his rest; and three cricket balls, which were apparently the playthings of this hideous animal.
Bhag’s method of entering and leaving the house was now apparent. His exit was a square opening in the wall, with neither window nor curtain, which was situated about seven feet from the ground; and two projecting steel rungs, set at intervals between the window and the floor, made a sort of ladder. Michael found corresponding rungs on the garden side of the wall.
There was no sign of blood, no evidence that Bhag had taken any part in the terrible scene which must have been enacted the night before.
Going back to the library, he made a diligent search, but found nothing until he went into the little drawing-room where he had hidden the night before. Here on the window-sill he found traces enough. The mark of a bare foot, and another which suggested that a heavy body had been dragged through the window.