IV
With an incoherent bellow of rage and astonishment Morphew reared up out of his chair, over-turning it. But that was all: instantaneously something like a paralysis of consternation laid hold of him, so that he stood with huge hands fluttering feebly and knees quaking under his great weight, the light dimming behind the bleached flesh of his face, jaw sagging, stunned eyes seeking the doorway.
Through this last, a froth of noise upon the uproar from below, came sounds of scuffling and voices angry and expostulant. In the corridor a confused movement became visible, a knot of figures fell apart, Liane Delorme broke through and, ghastly with pallor beneath her war-paint, strode breathlessly into the room, one strong sweep of a perfectly modelled arm brushing aside the gibbering Theodore.
Mallison followed her closely, like a fearful child tagging at its mother's skirts, with the slinking tread and something of the witless look of a cowed animal peering through the sleek surface of his comeliness. And that this look little belied his state of mind was shown by the nervous shy he gave when Lanyard, satisfied there was nothing to be gained by more delay, made for the door.
The corridor was choked with people, flustered waiters mixed in with guests whom the alarm had routed out of the other private rooms, all aimlessly milling about and questioning one another with vacant eyes and babbling tongues. Nobody offered to stay Lanyard, on the other hand nobody offered to get out of his way. Pagan passed him, plying busy elbows, his habitual leer erased. Of Mrs. McFee one saw nothing.
Half-way to the head of the staircase Lanyard found the jam on the narrow landing too dense to be penetrated other than by main strength and ill will; and, crowded against the banisters, waited for some general movement that might permit him to proceed.
Looking down over the handrail, he commanded a view of the first landing, the stage of a more lively scene, as guests and employees stampeding for the stairs were checked, hustled, and bullyragged by a squad of police, readily to be picked out by their flat-topped blue caps, and by a number of plain-clothes men, quite as conspicuously badged by those weather-worn derbies lacking which self-respecting police detectives consider themselves no sportsmen in their attitude toward lawbreakers.
Hectoring cries of authority, plain profanity of an unimaginative citizenry, and yammering of hysterical women manufactured a clamour that drowned out all lesser noises till somebody near Lanyard used stentorian lungs to suggest the roof as a possible way of escape; upon which advice the whole body of people surged toward the third flight of stairs.
In that moment, while clinging to the banister-rail to keep from being swept along, Lanyard heard his name shrilled in a pathetic voice, and saw Mrs. McFee struggling in the rush, the violet eyes darkly dilate with dismay, the mouth of a child tremulous with appeal. Immediately he threw himself toward her. Tripped and jostled till her strength began to fail, his arms alone saved the young woman from going down under those panic feet. Then putting his shoulders to the press, he dragged her out of the worst of it and into the semi-shelter of a jog in the wall, in front of which he planted himself as a shield.