“Yes, yes; Claud’s room. Come quickly, Doctor, pray.”
Pierce Leigh followed the Wiltons along the corridor, hardly knowing where he was going, in the wild turmoil which raged, in his brain. There were moments when he felt as if he were going mad; others when he was ready to think that he was suffering from some strange aberration which distorted everything he saw and heard, till he was brought back to himself by the Squire’s voice which begat an intense desire to know the worst.
“Here, Claud,” he shouted, after thumping hard at his son’s bedroom door without result. “Claud! No nonsense, sir; I want you. Something serious has happened. Answer at once if you are here.”
There was not a sound to be heard, and Mrs Wilton sobbed aloud.
“Oh, my boy, my boy! I’m sure he is dead.”
“Bah!” cried Wilton, angrily. “Here, who has been trying to get in this room?”
No one answered, and Wilton bent down and looked through the keyhole.
“Has anyone pushed the key out to make it fall inside?”
A low murmur of inquiry followed the question, but there was no reply.
“Come round to the front, Doctor,” said Wilton then, and Leigh followed him in silence downstairs and out to where the men were waiting with the ladder.