With a little chirrupping cry, the black cat, which had been sleeping in the chair in the kitchen, came running along the passage. It was a slim, small-headed, short-coated cat, not yet of full growth; it rubbed against Hi’s legs and purred; Hi leaned down to stroke it, but watched the passage to the kitchen.
“That man has come in by way of the kitchen,” Hi thought. “He has scared the cat, or let in a draught upon him. I’ll be out of this.”
The office window seemed to be the exit most likely to bring him out beside his horse: he slipped into the office and closed the door behind him. Then he listened, with a beating heart, for some swift, stealthy footstep in the corridor or outside the window. “Perhaps,” he thought, “I shan’t hear any footsteps, only the brute’s hand on the latch. He’s a spy and a Red, that devil. Listen.”
In that silence, the beating of the clock clanged like the tolling of a bell. The cat, left to preen his fur in the hall, padded back towards the kitchen. Hi was on the point of turning to open the inner shutter of the window, when a little shrill whirring bell began to scream like an alarm-clock upon some metal hooks on a stand at the table end. The shock of the sound made his hair stand stiff upon his head. He saw the instrument shaking on its hooks with the vehemence of the bell. He had read and heard of these things, but had never before seen one. It rang for ten seconds, then paused, then rang for five seconds and paused again. Then it rang again with determination for half a minute on end, as though bent on having an answer. Someone was telephoning to that house of the dead.
His courage came back in a few seconds. Someone was telephoning: why should he not answer? Possibly an English voice would speak to him or someone who knew English. Even if there were a Red outside the door, he owed it to Carlotta to run the risk, if by running it he could learn where he was and where he should go next. He did not know how to take the call. He lifted the instrument from its hooks and listened, now at one end, now at the other, to silence. “The thing is stopped,” he said. “I don’t know how to work the beastly thing. Yes?” he called. “Yes? Who is there? What is it?”
No answer come to him, not even the murmur of other voices which sometimes comes over the telephone. Then suddenly the thought came to him that perhaps the wire had been cut, or the unseen speaker shot down somewhere far away. He put down the instrument, moved to the window and opened the shutter. As he pulled it aside, the bell tinkled a little, whimpered again, as though about to ring again, and then stopped. “The wires are cut,” he muttered, “that devil the spy has done it.”
Peering out of the window, he could see nothing but a darkness which gradually took shapes to itself of trees swaying in the wind, palms clicking and clacking, and stars which became brighter as he gazed. “Here goes,” Hi thought, “I cannot see that devil; I’ll risk it.” So he scrambled out, landed on his feet, and then stood for an instant lest someone should spring upon him. No one sprang; there was neither sight nor sound of anyone, only his horse nosing at the earth, and the wind shuffling and clicking. He unhitched his rein, mounted and cautiously rode forward.
At the space near the door he halted to listen and to try to see. No one was there.
“They’ll be where the spy was,” he thought, “crouched out of this cold wind. I’ll see and make sure.” He edged his horse a little and a little to the corner of the house, where he held him ready for a dash. Very cautiously he craned forward along his horse’s neck, till he could see round the corner. Then he stared with all his might at the space lit by the windows of the living-room. No horsemen were gathered there out of the wind, but at the lit window the figure of the spy still stood with his hand reached back for his gun and his brow pressed upon the pane. He was staring into the window: Hi could not see his face.
“Golly,” Hi thought, “he’s still there. He’s come here again.” He did not move a muscle for fully fifteen seconds; the spy did not move. Hi waited for that right hand to flash up suddenly with the gun, but it did not come.