“He hadn’t come to, up to the time I left,” replied Bat. “I suppose I must have hit him harder than I meant to do.”
“Oh, well,” said the drawn man, tolerantly, “things of that sort will happen. They are hardly to be avoided, in fact.”
He yawned and stretched his arms wide; the light over his head smashed as he struck it and went out. There came the rattle of the automatic, and the splintering of window glass; the dogs, always at large in the courtyard at night, barked furiously. Bat heard the voice of Kretz from the wall; the rifle sounded sharply, and then silence, broken only by the sound of running feet beyond the wall.
CHAPTER XII
SPEAKS OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE GATES OF SCHWARTZBERG WERE OPENED
THROUGH the fragments of the window sash and the shreds of the blind, Bat Scanlon looked out upon the moonlit night. Directly under the window was a roof, as near as he could judge, that of the stable. Between this and the top of the wall there was a space of some twelve feet.
“And the fellow with the cough took it like a broad jumper,” commented Bat. “Well, well, we live and learn.”
Then a light illuminated the room behind him; he turned and met the wondering face of Miss Knowles.
“What has happened?” she asked, rather breathlessly.
Bat surveyed her with much composure. He had been right in his estimate of her beauty; that wasn’t to be denied. He was sure he’d never seen a more splendid example of her type. Her figure was like that of the queen in a story-book. Her complexion was like snow and rose petals; her eyes were as deep and as blue as the sea.
“If I hadn’t regular good reasons for believing what I do, one look at her would scatter the whole fleet of suspicion,” was Bat’s thought as he gazed. “She does it well. I never saw a better attempt at bluff. Ten minutes ago she was talking to the crook; now here she is, asking as innocently as you please: ‘What has happened?’”