Muffled shouts. Banging of doors. Lights. A white figure came blundering through the arcade; it was Bim Bagley.
“Some one’s been murdered!” Grant greeted him. “A dagger—through my window!”
Came others—servants with blankets clutched around them. Bim directed them to run to the great door in the outer wall and catch any skulker they might find in the gardens beyond the house. Only dimly aware himself of something untoward, the big man could give no more specific directions.
Then Benicia, bare-footed, her hair fallen down over a blue robe she drew together across her breast. Grant started towards her.
“Where is father?” she cried in a woman’s divination, and Grant noted Don Padraic’s absence. He saw the girl make a quick step for a closed door behind her. Unreasoned instinct prompted him to put himself before the door, denying her.
“No; let me,” he commanded. She made a swaying step towards Grant but was met by the door swiftly closing in her face. Inside the chamber, he turned the key in the lock and struck a match to grope for a candle wick.
In the pallid flicker he saw the figure of Don Padraic on his high bed. A dagger wound was in his breast.
And the girl outside the locked door stood very still. Her eyes, wide with horror, were fixed upon the spot where she had seen Grant put his hand in pushing open the door.
Three small smears of blood there.