I was not hungry, after all. Everything I ate stuck somewhere in my throat and brought tears to my eyes, and Sir George was not hungry, either. He kept walking around the room and eying the door, and once he got out his revolver and put it on the box. Finally, he went to the doorway.
"If you will pass this young woman's jewelry out under the door," he said, "we will see that you are not molested by the police."
"On our honour!" I called eagerly. For, after all, he had been gentle with me when he thought I was stealing the forks. (Although, after all, why should he not have been? They were not his.)
"I'll see you in perdition first!" came the sulky answer. I hoped it was meant for Sir George. And after that there was nothing to do but wait for Bagsby.
VI
We did not talk. Sir George watched the door to the inner room and sneezed frequently. Part of the time he examined his revolver, which he put on the keg in front of him. He was very clumsy with it; I suppose a Prime Minister has an armour-bearer usually, or something of that sort. Once we heard an automobile far off, and Sir George ran out to the gates and closed them. But the machine went past, and from the voices it seemed to be filled with men. I saw it again later.
While Sir George was outside in the rain I emptied his revolver. It is one thing to have a man arrested for stealing one's jewels, and quite a different one to murder him in cold blood. I had the cartridges in my hand when Sir George opened the door, and in my excitement I threw them into the fire. From that moment until we left I stood behind one of the packing-cases and waited for the hearth to open fire on us. But for some reason the cartridges did not explode. Perhaps they fell too far back in the chimney.
(I. E. This would make a good plot for a detective story. Some time I shall try it. Writing is much easier than I had thought it would be, especially conversation. The villain could put a row of shells on a fire-log, pointing toward the hero's easy-chair. The hero comes home and lights the fire, and then the heroine, whom the villain loves, comes on some agonised errand to the hero's room at night, sits in his chair and is murdered. Of course, the hero is suspected, or perhaps the villain jumps from behind a curtain to save the lady, kneels on the hearthrug and gets a broadside that finishes him. You can see the possibilities.)
Sir George was growing distinctly less agreeable. He made another appeal to the prisoner to give up the necklace and put it out under the door, but the prisoner did not make any reply.
At three o'clock Bagsby came. We hurried out to the little porch and watched him stop the car just beside us, with its nose at the gates. As he was getting out, muttering, to open them, Sir George caught him by the shoulder and held the revolver under his nose.