"Well, what if I do? Mind, I don't say that I do. But what if I do?"
Her manner had grown fiercely defiant by the time she came to the last word. Max found the desire to escape becoming even stronger than his curiosity. The half-guilty look with which his companion had made her last admission caused a new light to flash into his mind. This "Granny" of whom the girl spoke, and who was alleged to have disappeared, was a woman who had known something of the Horne family. Either she or this girl might have been the writer of the letter Dudley had received while at The Beeches, which had summoned him so hastily back to town. What if this old woman had accomplices—had attempted to rob Dudley? And what if Dudley, in resisting their attempts, had, in self-defence, struck a blow which had caused the death of one of his assailants? Dudley would naturally have been silent on the subject of his visit to this questionable haunt, especially to the brother of Doreen.
"I think," cried Max, as he strode quickly to the door by which he had come in, "that the best thing you can do is to sacrifice your things, whatever they are, and to get out of the place yourself as fast as you can."
As he spoke he lifted the latch and tried to open the door. But although the latch went up, the door remained shut.
Max pulled and shook it, and finally put his knee against the side-post and gave the handle of the latch a terrific tug.
It broke in his hand, but the door remained closed.
He turned round quickly, and saw the girl, with one hand on her hip and with the candle held in the other, leaning against the whitewashed wall, with a smile of amusement on her thin face.
What a face it was! Expressive as no other face he had ever seen, and wearing now a look of what seemed to Max diabolical intelligence and malice. She nodded at him mockingly.
"I can't get out!" thundered he, threateningly, with another thump at the door.
The girl answered in the low voice she always used; by contrast with his menacing tones it seemed lower than ever: