The apartment in which Midge sought sleep after the fatigues of the day, was the kitchen, and was on the first floor, directly under Lady Leroy's room. She had quartered Rob Nettleby in the adjoining apartment—a big, draughty place, where the rats held grand carnival all the year round. Midge, like all honest folks in her station, who have plenty of hard work, and employ their hands more than their heads, was a good sleeper. But on this stormy August night Midge was destined to realize some of the miseries of wakefulness. She had not dared to go to bed during the first fury of the storm; for Midge was scared beyond everything by lightning and thunder; but after that had subsided, she had ventured to unrobe and retire. But Midge could not sleep. Whether it was the heat, or that the tempest had made her nervous, or why or wherefore, Midge could never afterward tell; but she tossed from side to side, and listened to the didoes of the rats, and the whistling of the wind about the old house, and the ghostly moonlight shimmering down through the fluttering leaves of the trees, and groaned and fidgeted, and felt just as miserable as lying awake when one wants to go asleep, can make any one feel. There were all sorts of strange and weird noises and echoes in the lonely old house; so when Midge fancied she heard one of the back windows softly opened, and something on the stairs, she set it down to the wind and the rats, as Nathalie had done. She heard the clock overhead in Lady Leroy's room—the only timepiece in the house—strike eleven, and thought it had come very soon; for it hardly seemed fifteen minutes since it had struck ten. But she set this down to her fidgetiness, too; for how was she to know that the black shadow in the room above had moved the hands on the dial-plate before quitting? But that other noise! this is no imagination, surely. Midge starts up with a gasping cry of affright. A man's step is on the stairs—a man's hurried tread is in the hall—she hears a smothered oath—hears him turn and rush past her door—hears a leap—and then all is still. The momentary spell that has made Midge speechless is broken. She springs to her feet—yes, springs, for Midge forgets she is short and fat and given to waddling, in her terror, throws on the red flannel undergarment you wot of, and rushes out of her room and up-stairs, shrieking like mad. She cannot conceive what is the matter, or where the danger lies, but she bursts into Nathalie's room first. Nathalie, aroused by the wild screams from a deep sleep, starts up with a bewildered face. Midge sees she is safe, and still uttering the most appalling yells, flies to the next, to Lady Leroy's room, Nathalie after her; and Mr. Rob Nettleby, with an alarmed countenance and in a state of easy undress, making his toilet as he comes, brings up the rear.
"What is it? Is Mrs. Leroy worse?" he asked, staring at the shrieking Midge.
"There's been somebody here—robbing and murdering the house! Ah—h—h——!"
The shriek with which Midge recoiled was echoed this time by Nathalie. They had entered the fatal room; the lamp still burned on the table, and its light fell full on the livid and purple face of the dead woman. Dead! Yes, there could be no doubt. Murdered! Yes, for there stood the open and rifled box which had held the money.
"She's killed, Rob Nettleby! She's murdered!" Midge cried, rushing headlong from the room; "but he can't have got far. I heard him going out. Come!"
She was down the stairs with wonderful speed, followed by the horrified Nettleby. Midge unlocked and flung open the hall-door, and rushed in the same headlong way out. There was a man under the trees, and he was running. With the spring of a tigress Midge was upon him, her hands clutching his collar, and her dreadful yell of "Murder!" piercing the stillness of the night. The grasp of those powerful hands was not to be easily shaken off, and Rob Nettleby laid hold of him on the other side. Their prisoner made no resistance; he was too utterly taken by surprise to do other than stand and stare at them both.
"You villain! you robber! you murderer!" screamed Midge, giving him a furious shake. "You'll hang for this night's work, if anybody hung yet! Hold him fast, Rob, while I go and send your brother to Speckport after the p'lice."
The address broke the spell that held their captive quiet. Indignantly endeavoring to shake off the hands that held him, he angrily demanded what they meant.
Rob Nettleby, with a shout of astonishment, released his hold—he had recognized the voice. Midge, too, loosed her grasp, and backed a step or two, and Charley Marsh, stepping from under the shadow of the trees into the moonlight, repeated his question with some asperity.
"Charley!" Midge gasped, more horror-stricken by the recognition than she had been by the murder.