He reached the house without further adventure, and rang the door-bell with a steady hand. But he was hardly prepared for its response. For at the sound of it Maud Duggan came running toward him, her face white as a dead face, her eyes wild, her hair untidy, and clutching him by the arm fairly hauled him into the hallway, just as the butler—stung out of his calm demeanour by the happenings of that night—appeared from the end of the hall and came toward them.
"Oh, I'm so glad you came, so glad, Mr. Deland!" she shrilled out in a high-pitched, terrified voice. "It was lucky you turned up as—as you promised. But I'm afraid our game of c-cards cannot take place. Because—oh, how can I say it? How? A terrible thing has happened, Mr. Deland, and that which I feared has come to pass, only in a much more awful manner! My—my f-father has been murdered, in full sight of us all, right there in the library, just as he was about to draw up a new will to disinherit Ross. Foully ... murdered ... poor darling!"
Then the sobs caught in her throat, and she turned away a moment and hid her face in her handkerchief, while Cleek, mastering his curiosity and amazement at this curious and amazing statement, waited a moment for her to regain her composure. Then:
"My dear young lady!" he cried in a low-pitched, even voice. "Murdered! And in the presence of you all! Then of course you know who his murderer is."
"I don't, I don't! We none of us know! None of us!" she ejaculated, shutting her hands together and lifting a tear-stained, haggard face to his. "Oh, Mr. Deland, that is the terrible, the mysterious part of it all. It happened in a flash. Suddenly the lights went out; we heard the wheel humming, just as the Peasant Girl said it would hum, and then ... then ... the lights came up again, and there he lay, shot through the temple and stabbed to the heart, quite, quite dead!"
"Whew! Rather a marvellous happening, I must say," gave out Cleek, laying a hand upon her shaking shoulder and edging her tenderly toward the open door of that little ante-room into which he had been shown only that morning, when the old laird himself had entered upon their conversation, with his lady in attendance. And now he was dead! murdered! It seemed indeed hardly credible. "Sit down awhile, and then tell me at your leisure all the happenings which took place. Got any brandy in the house? Or have you had some? No? Well, I've always a flask handy. Now, take a pull at this, and then lean back in that chair and close your eyes. You'll be a different person, I assure you. Here's my flask. Make it a good peg, too."
Dumbly she did as she was bidden, acting as a sick child does, without question, and thankful only for a directing hand. Meanwhile, Cleek stood over her, watching how the colour ebbed slowly back into her pallid cheeks and the red crept again into her blue lips, and congratulating himself that he had been just in time, and no more, before she would have fainted.
She shut her eyes as he had told her, and when a few minutes had elapsed, Cleek leaned forward and touched her gently upon the wrist.
"Now let's hear all about it—if you're able. Where is your stepmother?"
"Upstairs in her room—prostrate." She spat the words out with positive venom. "Ross is with his father, bowed down with grief, poor old boy; while his fiancée, Cynthia Debenham, who came back with him, and her cousin, Catherine Dowd, are in the house somewhere, seeing to the necessary household arrangements."