“Is all right there, Master Richard?” he shouted. Still there was silence within.
“Put your shoulders to it, lads!” Eben and Tom were at it in a moment, while strong Rob, springing from the far side of the passage, burst the lock and sent the door back against the inner wall, the hinges snapped clean through.
Mr. Richard was sitting in a quiet room, his head leaning forward on his hands. His loaded riding whip was flung in a corner. The window was wide open, and the night black and quiet without. Sweet odours of flowers came in from the little garden. The lamp burned peacefully and nothing in the room was disturbed. But Mr. Wringham Pollixfen was not there, and when we touched him, Mr. Richard Poole was dead, his head dropped upon his arms.
PART III
CHAPTER XXII
BOYD CONNOWAY’S EVIDENCE
The loop of the riding-whip on Mr. Richard’s wrist was broken, and behind his ear there was a lump the size of a small hen’s egg. There were no signs of a struggle. The two men had been sitting face to face, eye to eye, when by a movement which must have been swift as lightning, one had disarmed and smitten the other.
Tom, Eben and Rob armed themselves and went out. But the branches of Marnhoul wood stood up against the sky, black, serried and silent. The fields beneath spread empty and grey. The sough of the wind and the fleeing cloud of night was all they saw or heard. They were soon within the house again, happy to be there and the door barred stoutly upon them.
Except for little Louis, who was already in bed on the other side of the house where his chamber was, and so knew nothing of the occurrence till the morning, there was no sleep for any that night at Heathknowes. At the first clear break of day Tom and Eben took the cart-horses and rode over to tell Dr. Gillespie, General Johnstone, and Mr. Shepstone Oglethorpe, who were all Justices of the Peace, of what had happened. They came, the General the most imposing, with a great army cloak and a star showing beneath the collar.