Crossing over to the hearth, on which burned a small fire lighted by Ethel to take the chill off the room, Ogden drew first one document out of his pocket and then another, tossing them in succession into the blaze. “I’ve got to do it,” he muttered between clenched teeth, and the firelight showed the dogged determination of his set, stern face. “Barclay, well, Barclay’s got to”—he closed his outspread hands slowly, forcefully, and turning about, again sat down, this time nearer the fire and where his gaze would not fall on his wife, still sleeping peacefully. Sleep, however, was far from Ogden’s eyes as he sat brooding over the fire. So great was his absorption that he never heard Julian Barclay, his footsteps lagging and weary, pass down the hall to his bedroom.
Once in his bedroom Barclay threw his coat and waistcoat on the nearest chair, kicked off his shoes, and flinging himself on the bed drew up the outer sheet and quilt, and was soon asleep, the heavy dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion.
No sound broke the stillness except Barclay’s even breathing, and the moonlight flooding his bedroom fell softly across the bed where he slept. A movement of the bedclothes caused a ripple in the moonlight, then a shadow appeared, a shadow which moved ever nearer Barclay’s head until a hand was outlined on the white pillow. The groping fingers, with touch as delicate as a woman’s, at last found the object they sought, but the soft sign of triumph which came from the side of the high four-post bedstead was premature.
Barclay felt the breaking of the cord which held Ethel’s miniature suspended around his neck, and throwing out his hands, his fingers closed on a human wrist which tore and writhed in his grip. Struggling to retain his hold and sit up at the same instant, Barclay was horrified to hear Ethel’s voice raised in a scream of terror.
“Help, Julian, for God’s sake, help!”
The hand was torn from his grasp as his fingers relaxed their hold, and Barclay, forgetting all else, rushed to Ethel’s aid. He stopped bewildered in the hall; there was no sign of Ethel, and half crazed at the thought of her in peril, he ran madly down the staircase, her voice, fainter now, guiding his footsteps. As he bounded down stairs he collided with a man racing upward, and the contact brought them both to the floor. Through the blinding stars produced by his head coming in violent contact with the sharp edge of the newel post, Barclay glimpsed Yoshida Ito just staggering to his feet, and made a futile grab at him. The agile Japanese avoided his hand and fled upward, two steps at a time. Barclay was quick to follow, his fury lending wings to his feet, and one idea obsessing him—the Japanese had frightened, perhaps injured Ethel before he could get there to save her.
As he ran upward Barclay became dimly conscious that others were keeping step with him. Who they were he never stopped to see; a stinging pain in the back of his head and warm blood trickling down his back dazed his senses. Another pajama-clad figure appeared in one of the doorways as Barclay sped down the second floor hall, and stared aghast at him.
“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” Barclay panted. “Hurry, Norcross, he’s just ahead of you; there, jump for him.”
The Japanese, apparently confused by the chase, had lost his bearings and cut back on his tracks, and a second later he and Norcross went to the floor, locked in each other’s arms. Barclay, struggling to lend his aid to Norcross, bent over the fighting men, but which was which was more than his failing sight could distinguish. A strong hand pulled him back, and Mitchell, with the aid of Dr. McLane, dragged the men apart.
Barclay leaned weakly against the wall and stared at the writhing Japanese, at the panting professor, and last at Walter Ogden. His eyes were certainly deceiving him. With difficulty he checked an hysterical laugh.