“Oh!” gasped Natalie. “That’s—that’s the man who struck me. He—he struck me!” she repeated, like an incredulous child.
“Throw up your hands!” I told him savagely.
The man’s hands went up over his head with a certain airy grace. “And, pray, who are you?” he demanded calmly, in a slightly mincing voice, and in excellent English. “He was at the luncheon,” Natalie gasped. “Mrs. Fawcette introduced him to me and he took me in to the next room to show me some pictures. Then something pricked my arm, and when I woke up I was here—and—and he struck me!”
“Search him, Larry!” I cried.
Larry produced a long, slender sheathed knife from the inside of the man’s trouser band, and a small instrument, the duplicate of the air-revolver Moore had taken from the stranger he shot in my room. Then I threw my own revolver on the couch and started for the airy and well-dressed newcomer.
It was not a pretty sight. But I don’t believe Natalie minded that side of it much. The Russian knew something about boxing, and he evidently knew what was coming when I started for him, for he put up his hands in the most approved style. My own hands were still raw and sore from the encounter in Moore’s house the day before, and they were almost devoid of flesh on the knuckles when I got through with the Russian. But I’m sure I did not mind that; for I left him raw and bleeding, lying in the corner, his clothes torn and his face unrecognizable. Even then I only refrained from dragging him to his feet again for some more because Natalie cried out in pity. “And that’ll teach you to strike women, you swine!” I told him at last. But the Russian only moaned.
Larry went to the bathroom on that floor and came back with some face towels. We gagged both men with their own handkerchiefs and neckties, in some novel and effective way which Larry seemed to have at his finger-tips. Then we rolled the other fellow out from under the couch. And we tied the hands of all three of them with the towels. Larry darted out of the door and down the stairs, and presently he was back again with some cord, evidently torn from the curtains on the first floor.
“This’ll kape thim apart, sor,” he observed. And together we tied the three of them, one on the couch, one in a chair and one on the bed in the next room. Then I turned to Natalie.
“Did anybody else hit you?” I asked her grimly.
“Oh, no,” she breathed. “That’s enough, p-please! Look at your poor hands.” There is a Viking spirit in every woman, however gently reared; for her eyes were shining in spite of the pity in them.