Mold thought for a moment or two before beginning his tale.
“I’m trying to remember how many people there were in the room just before the lights went out,” he explained at last, “but somehow I don’t quite seem able to put a figure on it, Sir Clinton. I’ve a sort of feeling that some of ’em must ha’ got away before I stopped the door—sneaked off in the dark. At least I know I felt surprised when I saw how few I’d got left when they began to come up to me to be let out. But that’s all I can really say, sir.”
Sir Clinton evidently approved of the keeper’s caution.
“Now tell us exactly what happened when the light went out. This is the bit where I want you to be careful. Tell us everything you can remember.”
Mold fixed his eye on the corner of the room near the safe.
“I was patrollin’ round the room, sir, most of the night. I didn’t stand in one place all the time. Now just when the light was about to go out, I was walkin’ away from this case here”—he nodded towards the rifled central case—“and as near as may be, I’d got to the entrance to that second-last bay, just before you come to the safe. I just turned round to come back, when I heard a pistol goin’ off.”
“That was the first thing that attracted your attention?” questioned Sir Clinton. “It’s an important point, Mold.”
“That was the first thing out o’ the common that happened,” Mold asserted. “The pistol went bang, and out went the light, and I heard glass tinkling all over the place.”
“Shot the light out, did they?” Sir Clinton mused.
He glanced up at the carved wooden ceiling, but evidently failed to find what he was looking for.