But suddenly Edith started to her feet with an exclamation. “There were three men: went upstairs,” she cried, “but only two of them have come down! Why has not the third man come down with the others?”
“Are you quite sure that you are not mistaken?” asked Mrs. Garside, anxiously.
“Quite sure, aunt—only too sure. I cannot bear to be shut up here any longer. Better to know the worst at once. I will go and see for myself.”
And before Mrs. Garside had time to interpose, Edith had opened the door almost without a sound, had passed out of the room, and was gliding noiselessly upstairs, so as not to be heard by the men in the dining-room.
Edith was right. Three men had gone upstairs and only two had come down. The laggard was Mr. Drayton’s second in command—Sergeant Tilley.
Mr. Tilley was a tall, lanky, weak-kneed man, with watery eyes, and a slow, hesitating way of speaking, rather uncommon among gentlemen of his profession. He had been on duty for the last twelve hours, and, feeling thoroughly worn out, had sat down to rest for a moment on a corner of the sofa in Edith’s dressing-room, and there he was left by Mr. Drayton and the other constable when they followed Martha Vince downstairs. He sat down to rest for a minute, and his thoughts flew home to Mrs. Tilley and the five little Tilleys, who had to be fed, clothed, and lodged—after a fashion—out of his scanty wage. “Ah!” he sighed to himself, “if I could but spot this Mr. Dering, and get the reward, what a happy man I should be! But there’s no such luck. Bill and Kitty will have to go without their shoes for another week or two; and as for the old woman’s new gown, why——”
Sergeant Tilley never finished his sentence. Deceived by the silence in the room, believing all danger to be at an end, and cramped in every limb from standing so long in one position without moving, Lionel Dering touched the spring, pushed open the false back of the wardrobe, and prepared to emerge from his hiding-place. The first object that met his startled gaze was the terror-stricken face of Sergeant Tilley, who, seated on the extreme edge of the sofa, was gazing at him as though he were some unsubstantial ghost come to revisit the pale glimpses of the moon.
Lionel changed colour, and his heart sank within him. To go back was useless—impossible. Instead of retreating, he advanced a step or two into the room, and then stood still.
The sergeant rose to his feet. His presence of mind was coming back to him. Visions of four hundred golden sovereigns floated before his dazzled eyes. He too advanced a step or two. “You are my prisoner,” he said, and he stretched forth his hand as if to arrest Lionel. But that very instant his hand was seized, and Edith was before him—her white, pleading face, tearful and agonized, uplifted to his, her white and slender fingers clasped tightly round his bony wrist.
“No—no—no!” she cried, in low, hurried accents. “You must not—you shall not arrest him! You are a man, a husband, a Christian! He is my husband, and he is innocent. I swear before Heaven that he is innocent! Arrest him, and his blood will lie at your door, and be a curse upon you and yours for ever.”