"It's a lie," came the hissing reply. "Your cursed husband told you so much about us, he may have explained some of the means we employ to make unwilling tongues speak. I'll have the truth out of you."
One of the men must have sat close to her, for her sudden cry of fear was instantly smothered, and there was the sound of struggle and rough usage.
"Now—quickly," whispered Quarles; and the man who had followed us to the cellars had struck with a stout piece of iron between the door and its framework. The wood splintered immediately, and, almost before I was prepared, we were facing our enemies, and Quarles was shouting for the other men in the house to come to us.
"Hands up!" I cried.
They were unprepared, that was our salvation. Not one of the three had any intention of surrender, that was evident in a moment, but they had to get their hands on their weapons, and, fortunately, only one of them had a revolver. The other two rushed upon us with knives.
I think Quarles was the first to fire, and he was not a thought too soon. He said afterward that he meant to maim and not to kill, but his bullet passed through the man's brain, and he dropped like a stone. He was the one with the revolver, and, regardless of his own safety, he meant to silence the woman for ever.
The weapon was at her head when the villain dropped, and I have sometimes thought that, whatever his intention the moment before, in the act of pressing the trigger the professor realized that only the man's death could save the woman.
It was hot work for a moment. The man who had burst open the door got a nasty knife thrust, and I had been obliged to fire at my assailant before our comrades rushed to our aid. There is no enemy more dangerous than a man armed with a knife when he knows how to use it, and when the space to fight in is so confined that to use firearms is to endanger your friends. Indeed, I thought the woman had been shot, but she had only fainted, although it was quite impossible to question her fully until next day.
"Those papers may be useful," said Quarles, when our captives had been taken to the police station, pointing to the documents which had fallen from a little table pushed aside in the struggle. "The ends of a big affair are in our hands, I fancy, and, with the help of Mrs. Fitzroy, we may get several more dangerous fanatics under lock and key."
Late that night I was with the professor in Chelsea. He had gone straight home from Hambledon Road, and, after a visit to the police station and a long consultation with Scotland Yard over the 'phone, I followed him. There were several questions I wanted to ask, for his handling of this affair seemed to me so near to the marvelous that I wondered whether he had had some knowledge of this gang before we had heard of the house in Kew.