“He was at my dressing-table that night;” she murmured in French, as though to herself, “then it was he who did it!”
She spoke rapidly to Barbara.
“This man who tied you up... you didn’t see him?”
Barbara shook her head.
“I could see nothing; I don’t even know that it was a man. He seized me so suddenly that in the dark I could distinguish nothing... it might have been a woman... yourself, for instance, for all I know!”
Nur-el-Din clasped her hands together.
“It was he, himself, then,” she whispered, “I might have known. Yet he has not got it here!”
Heavy footsteps resounded in the room above. Rass cried out something swiftly to the dancer, thrust the pistol into her hands, and dashed up the ladder. The next moment there was a loud report followed by the thud of a heavy body falling. Somewhere in the rooms above a woman screamed.
Nur-el-Din’s hands flew to her face and the pistol crashed to the ground. Two men appeared at the head of the cellar stairs. One was Strangwise, in uniform, the other was Bellward.
“They’re both here!” said Strangwise over his shoulder to Bellward.