"I think I must have dropped asleep, and dreamed--yes, I fancy I've been dreaming."
Mr. Osborne staggered, rather than walked, to the door, keeping one hand in the inside pocket of his coat. The Colonel followed him with his eyes.
"Frank's ageing fast," was his mental comment as Mr. Osborne disappeared. "He'll be an old man yet before I am."
He seated himself in Geoffrey Fleming's chair.
It was, perhaps, ten minutes afterwards that Edward Jackson went into the smoking room--"Scientific" Jackson, as they call him, because of the sort of catch phrase he is always using--"Give me science!" He had scarcely been in the room a minute before he came rushing to the door shouting--
"Help, help!"
Men came hurrying from all parts of the building. Mr. Griffin came from the billiard-room, where he is always to be found. He had a cue in one hand, and a piece of chalk in the other. He was the first to address the vociferous gentleman standing at the smoking-room door.
"Jackson!--What's the matter?"
Mr. Jackson was in such a condition of fluster and excitement that it was a little difficult to make out, from his own statement, what was the matter.
"Lanyon's dead! Have any of you seen Geoff Fleming? Stop him if you do--he's stolen my pocket-book!" He began mopping his brow with his bandanna handkerchief, "God bless my soul! an awful thing!--I've been robbed--and old Lanyon's dead!"