Sir Richard's answer was to pull open a drawer in the writing-table, by which he was standing, and whip out a pistol.
What exactly he may have intended, he was never allowed to announce. An explosion shook the room, coming from the doorway, upon which Mr. Caryll had turned his shoulder; there was a spurt of flame, and Sir Richard collapsed forward onto the table, and slithered thence to the ground.
Jerry, taking fright at the sight of the pistol Sir Richard had produced, had forestalled what he supposed to be the baronet's intentions by firing instantly upon him, with this disastrous result.
Confusion ensued. Mr. Caryll, with no more thought for the tipstaves than he had for the smoke in his eyes or the stench of powder in his nostrils, sped to Sir Richard. In a passion of grief and anxiety, he raised his adoptive father, aided by Bentley, what time Mr. Green was abusing Jerry, and Jerry was urging in exculpation how he had acted purely in Mr. Green's interest, fearing that Sir Richard might have been on the point of shooting him.
The spy went forward to Mr. Caryll. “I am most profoundly sorry—” he began.
“Take your sorrow to hell,” snarled Mr. Caryll, his face livid, his eyes blazing uncannily. “I believe ye've murdered him.”
“Ecod! the fool shall smart for't if Sir Richard dies,” grumbled Mr. Green.
“What's that to me? You may hang the muckworm, and what shall that profit any one? Will it restore me Sir Richard's life? Send one of your ruffians for a doctor, man. And bid him hasten.”
Mr. Green obeyed with alacrity. Apart from his regrets at this happening for its own sake, it would suit his interests not at all that Sir Richard should perish thus. Meanwhile, with the help of the valet, who was blubbering like a child—for he had been with Sir Richard for over ten years, and was attached to him as a dog to its master—they opened the wounded man's sodden waistcoat and shirt, and reached the hurt, which was on the right side of the breast.
Between them they lifted him up gently. Mr. Green would have lent a hand, but a snarl from Mr. Caryll drove him back in sheer terror, and alone those two bore the baronet into the next room and laid him on his bed. Here they did the little that they could; propping him up and stemming the bleeding, what time they waited through what seemed a century for the doctor's coming, Mr. Caryll mad—stark mad for the time—with grief and rage.