Then a score of things seemed to happen at once. The waiting men threw themselves into the room, the man at the end of the passage dashed out into the area, he who had been left at the kitchen-door rushed into the back-yard and whistled.
The breakfast-room was in total darkness; but for the brilliant electric torches carried by the assailants. For a moment there was wild confusion, a shot was fired and then all was quiet.
"Got him, Thompson?" It was Malcolm Sage who spoke; but from a physical substance that was not Malcolm Sage.
"Got them and it, sir," was the response.
"Are you hit?"
"Only in the arm, sir. Nothing to write home about," was the cheery response.
"Here, switch on the light someone," said Malcolm Sage, and a moment after there was a click and a three-lamp electrolier burst into light.
"Get a window open, Thompson; thrust all that greenery stuff out," cried Malcolm Sage.
"Right, sir."
With the aid of the fire-irons, Mr. Montagu Naylor's little greenhouse was soon demobilised and lay a heap of ruins in the area.