Again the loud, firm voice:
“Come out! We want to see you, Oliver Baxter.”
Oliver raised the window and leaned out. “Who is it? What do you want?” he demanded.
“We are your father’s friends,” came the reply. “That’s all you need to know. Come out!”
“What have you got down there? A mob? I’ll see you in hell before I’ll come out! If you’re after me, you’ll have to come and get me. But I warn you! I’ve got a gun up here and, so help me God, I’ll shoot to kill. I’m not afraid of you. Wait till to-morrow, men. You will be glad if you do. It is not my father’s body they found. It will be proved to you. Go home, for God’s sake, and don’t attempt to do this thing you are—”
A deep growl rose from a hundred throats, stilled almost instantly as the clear voice of the leader rang out again.
“We will give you one minute to come out. If you are not out here on the porch by that time we’ll smash your damned doors in and we’ll drag you out.”
Oliver glanced over his shoulder. Mrs. Grimes and Lizzie, with blanched faces, had come to his bedroom door.
“Telephone for the police, Lizzie,” he cried out sharply. “No! Wait! Get out of the house yourselves. Don’t think of me. You mustn’t be here if that mob breaks in and—”
He did not finish the sentence. In the middle of it he uttered a shout of alarm and sprang toward the bureau on the opposite side of the room. There was a rush of footsteps in the hall, then the two women were flung aside and into the room leaped three, four, half a dozen men. As Lizzie fell back against the wall, she shrieked: