“Oh no! I have not left my room. It is late, and time for your bed. Good-night. A thousand thanks!”
Martin returned to the basement, bade good-night to Susan, and went to bed. But he found it impossible to sleep. He lay tossing on his bed, worrying about the future, listening to the church clocks striking the hours.
It was some time after midnight when the stillness was broken by what seemed to be a low whistle from the patch of waste ground outside and a little above Martin’s window. The sound was not repeated, and Martin almost believed he was mistaken; but a few seconds later he was roused by another sound; a slight creaking, as if a window somewhere had been opened, then closed again.
On so hot a night anyone might open a window for air. It was the closing, after the whistle, that caused Martin to get up, go to his window and look out upon the waste ground. No one was in sight. There were no more sounds, and Martin went back to bed.
Just as he was at last dozing off to sleep he was roused by a slight sound in the house. In old buildings the stairs often creak without apparent cause, and Martin was not startled or disturbed. But a minute or two later he heard a louder sound, like wood breaking, and then shouts and the stamping of heavy feet.
Springing out of bed he rushed into the passage and up the stairs as quickly as he could in the dark. The noise appeared to be coming from the neighbourhood of Mounseer’s room. When he reached the landing he was hurled back against the wall by the impact of a heavy figure that seemed to have come through the open door.
Before he could recover his footing he heard someone stumbling down the stairs. He darted to the banisters and was just able to see a dark form rush along the passage and through the front door, which he banged after him.
“What is it? What ever is it?” cried Susan from the door of her room. Lucy shrieked with alarm and fear.
“Don’t worry,” Martin called. “He has gone.”
He went into the Frenchman’s room, and by the faint starlight he saw a scene that surprised him. In the middle of the floor stood the old gentleman, rapier in hand, his coat wrapped round his left arm, as duellists were accustomed to wear their cloaks. A chair was overturned, and there was broken wood near the door.