“Oh!” Holmes laughed, unpleasantly. There was no mirth in the laugh, only mockery and contempt. “Really, Miss Mercer–why, where has that little baggage gone to?”
He stared wildly about the room, and Eleanor, startled, looked about her also. Bessie had disappeared; vanished into thin air. In a rage, Holmes darted here and there about the great hall of the house in which they had been standing. But, though he looked behind curtains and all the larger pieces of furniture, and made a great fuss, he found no sign of her. For a moment he was completely baffled, and almost beside himself with rage.
“I always thought villains were clever,” said Dolly, as he stood still. Her voice was scornful. “Why, even a girl like Bessie can fool you! She’s done it plenty of times before now–you didn’t think you could keep her from doing it this time, too, did you?”
“What do you mean!” stormed Holmes, moving toward her, his hand raised as if he meant to strike her. But if he thought he could frighten Dolly he was much mistaken. She faced him calmly.
“You can’t make me tell you anything, even if you do hit me,” she said. “And you won’t find Bessie, either, unless she wants you to. I saw her go–but I’m not going to tell you how she managed it.”
“Oh, I’m not going to hit her,” yelled Holmes. “What good would that do?”
He sprang to a bell, and pushed it violently. In a moment two or three of the men he had dismissed, thus giving Bessie her chance to escape, answered his summons, and he ordered them to start in search of her at once.
“Find her, and you’ll be rewarded,” he shouted. “But if you don’t, I’ll make you pay for it!”
Eleanor had never seen a man in such a furious rage. It was plain that his plan, successful as it seemed to be, was still in danger of being upset, and the knowledge gave Eleanor new hope. It had seemed to her that, with Trenwith turned traitor, there was not one chance in a million to foil Holmes this time. But now everything was changed. He stayed with them only long enough to give them into the keeping of the servant, who came down the stairs just as he finished giving his orders to the men for the pursuit of Bessie.
“If any of them get out, I’ll know it’s your fault,” he said to her. “And you know what I can do to you. You wouldn’t like to go to jail for a few years, I guess. You will, if anyone else gets away from this house to-night.”