“You ass!”
I must have taken him by the shoulders more vigorously than I intended; he went spinning down the passage until the wall brought him to a standstill. Then I went after Miss Moore into the dead man’s room, Miss Adair and Hume hard upon my heels.
CHAPTER XI.
IN THE ONE ROOM—AND THE OTHER
Edwin Lawrence was one of the most finical men I had ever met on the subject of draughts. A properly ventilated apartment set him shivering, even in the middle of summer. The faintest suspicion of a healthy current of air made him turn up the collar of his coat. No room could be too stuffy for him. All his doors and windows he screened with heavy hangings. Behind the curtains which veiled the entrance into his dining-room I lingered, for a moment, to glance between the voluminous folds. Miss Moore was standing about the centre of the room. Something in the expression of her face, and in her attitude, caused me to hesitate. I checked the advance of Miss Adair and Hume, who pressed on me behind.
“Wait!” I whispered. “I want to see what she is going to do.”
I would rather have been unaccompanied; Hume’s society in particular I could have done without. But I could hardly induce him to withdraw without disturbing the girl within. That, all at once, I felt indisposed to do. At any and every risk I wanted light; to bring her back into the full possession of her reason. It needed but a brief glance to perceive that, in her present environment, she might pass through some sort of crisis which would bring about the result I so ardently desired. The constable had followed us into the room. He showed a disposition to require our retreat. I took him by the shoulder.
“Be still, man; you will do your duty best by holding your tongue.”
He perceived that there was reason in what I said. He held his tongue, and I held his shoulder.
Miss Moore was looking round as if something in the appearance of the room struck a chord in her memory, and she was endeavouring to discover what it was. She put her hand up to her forehead with the gesture with which I had become familiar.
“I have been in this room before—surely I have. I seem to know it all quite well; but I can’t think when I saw it, or how. I can’t make it out at all.”