Handyside ran out, and Guidet banged the door after him. "Guard it!" he shouted to Teddy. "Let not the pig-hog escape!"
The little Frenchman was beside himself. "So I suspect you right!" he almost screamed. "You think I was greater fool than you look when you ask me to make clock the same for five hundred pounds! Bah! What idiot you was! For I think a little after you go, and I take not many chances. How to get here most quick, I ask myself. The train to Greenock, the ferry to cross the water, and the legs to run three miles. I do so! I arrive!—behold, I arrive in time!" He laughed wildly. "And so you would try to kill him—my clock!" he yelled, and with that, like a furious bantam, ignoring the pistol, he flew at Bullard, tore away the mask and tossed it against the wall.
"Monsieur Guidet!" cried Alan, running forward and catching his arm.
"Leave him to us."
Guidet shook off the clasp. "Pig-hog," he went on, "behold, I pull your nose! There! Also, I flap your face! One! two! I do not waste a good clean card on you, but I will give you satisfaction when you like—after you come out of the jail!"
Alan had grabbed Bullard's right wrist. "Teddy, take the madman away," he cried, and Teddy removed Guidet, who went obediently, but blowing like a porpoise, to a seat by the wall.
Lancaster, looking ill, had sunk into an easy-chair by the fire. His
daughter, pale but composed, stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder.
She still feared Bullard: even now she was ready for sacrifice. Mr.
Harvie, lost in amazement, had not got beyond the threshold.
As for Bullard, he had gone white to the lips at the Frenchman's affront; his expression was diabolical. Wrenching his wrist from Alan's grasp, he stepped back until he stood framed in the curtains. His black eyes stared straight in front of him, at the clock, perhaps; perhaps into the future.
Alan went back to the door, and whispered to Marjorie: "Go beside Doris, please." Then he turned to Bullard.
"I may as well tell you," he said, "that unless my servant Caw is another of your victims, like Flitch, we shall neither attempt to injure you nor give you in charge; the reason for that is our affair."
At this Teddy found it necessary to restrain Monsieur Guidet.