CHAPTER XX.
Rudolph Smolenski had relieved the intense gloom that had settled over his inhospitable drawing-room by lighting two oil lamps and several candles, much to the satisfaction of his unwelcome guests. The pistol-shot that had emphasized their proximity to crime had for an instant seemed to nail down the curtain of night at one blow. Rudolph’s activity in making the apartment more cheerful had greatly tended to relieve the strain of the situation.
“I am in a quandary,” Benedict had said to Kate. “I hesitate to leave you here at this moment, but there is a great mystery to be solved at once.”
Rudolph’s hand trembled perceptibly as he held a match to a candle’s wick. There was something in his manner that affected Kate Strong unpleasantly. Her overwrought nerves exaggerated the uncanny features of her surroundings, and she grew cold at the thought of Benedict’s departure.
At that instant a door opened at the rear of the lodge, and Mrs. Brevoort and Ned Strong, groping through a dark hall-way toward a gleam of light, burst into the room.
“What is the matter, Kate?” cried Mrs. Brevoort, rushing toward her friend, while her companion stood in the centre of the room, scrutinizing, with a puzzled expression in his eyes, the disturbed faces of Benedict and Rudolph.
“Rudolph,” cried Ned Strong, suppressed excitement in his voice, “a crime has been committed at the house—perhaps a murder. What do you know about it?”
Norman Benedict had been relieved of all responsibility, so far as Kate Strong was concerned.