“Well, sir, I can’t go in. But I’ll call him.”
He drew back, and the moment he did so, Miss Bostal, with amazing boldness and celerity, crept up the steps and out behind his back, as he called to Colonel Bostal from the back doorway.
Clifford stood still, with his heart in his mouth. He was intensely excited; he was listening with all his power. But he did not know whether he wanted the woman to escape or whether he wanted her to pay the penalty she so well deserved. All he knew was that the few moments of suspense seemed never-ending. Then the voice of the policeman, measured and calm, was heard again:
“All right, sir. He’s coming.”
She had got away, then! After all, it was no more than was to be expected of her superhuman cunning. And, in spite of himself, he felt an immense relief that he had helped her to escape. He could meet, if not the policeman, at least the Colonel, with a lighter heart. He took the shovel which was handed to him, and reappeared in the dining-room with the coal.
The Colonel looked at him keenly and shut the door.
“Did you see—her?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes. She got away,” answered Clifford.
The Colonel gave a sigh of relief.
“I knew, when you got the policeman to call me, that it was some ruse of hers,” he said. “You see, Mr. King,” he went on, as the young man reddened with surprise, “I know her tricks. I—I have waited—for some such end as this—for twenty-five years.”