“Don’t think so,” said the doctor as he moved Mr. Kempwood’s head and felt the back of it. . . . “Couldn’t speak English; she was frightened. When the men come back we can get someone to help us lift him in a motor. He’s going to come around all right, but that was a blow. . . . Right over the back of the head. You say he lives near here?” I nodded, and then someone came back and helped us lift Mr. Kempwood in a motor.
“What happened in there?” I asked unsteadily, as we moved toward the gate and down the steps.
“One of the guards knocked senseless,” he answered. “Over the back of the head--like this. Busy day for excitement around here--there you are. He is a weight. . . . The guard isn’t hurt badly and nothing broken, but the glass over the little case that held the bracelet is cracked.”
I nodded, feeling more sick and faint than ever, and then we turned toward home. The doctor held up Mr. Kempwood, who was beginning to groan, and I held his cane and said my prayers hard. . . . For I felt that it was all my fault. And that is a terrible feeling. . . .
Somehow, I got through the next hour. I will never know how. . . . They settled Mr. Kempwood, told me he wasn’t going to die and would truly be all right, and I left. Of course, I went back to the Jumel Mansion. I had to.
Here I found the sort of let down that you always find after excitement. Everyone was limp and sat down whenever possible. One of the women told me about it.
“I was in the back room,” she said. “Mr. Kelsey had just come in and shown me your bracelet. He whispered to me: ‘Think I’ll put it up in the cupboard, then if she comes back for it when I’m not here, you can give it to her----’ I nodded, thinking that a safe place. . . . That high cupboard, you know.”
I did. It had always fascinated me. It seemed big enough for a spy to hide in, and I wondered whether one ever had hidden there. . . .
“He put it there,” she went on, “and then went back to the front room. I went to the window and looked out at the crowd which had collected about your friend Mr. Kempwood, and then I heard Mr. Kelsey’s cry. . . . I suppose I was slow about reaching him; you know how your knees act and how fright sometimes slows actions, for before I reached him I heard the blow which I found afterward had been directed at the bracelet case, and when I reached him he was not alone. . . . The old blind man who is around here so much was with him. . . . He was standing in the doorway, saying, ‘Someone is hurt. . . . Someone is hurt. Will no one come to help?’ and there were tears on his cheeks. . . . It, added to all the rest, was almost the last straw.”
“I saw him in the garden before I left,” I said, “and he was all right then.”