“No!” I shouted, above the increasing hubbub. “IT’S THE PURR OF THE CAT! The purr of the cat means death! Clear the Hall!”
But I was too late. A glaring light leaped from nowhere, light so intense it pierced the brain. The walls and roof blazed with white fire. The persons in the Hall were like figures of clay, presented and fixed for all eternity in one or another cast of horror. Some had cowered back beneath the gallery, some had their hands before their faces, some were forever fleeing, foot lifted, toward the door.
The Constable and one of the sisters had retreated from the chimney-piece, while the other woman stooped low before the fireplace. A thing with the size and form of a man had been lying there at their feet, unseen. In this white instant I saw the woman grasp this figure, raising it above her head.
The collapse of the mantelshelf—a black projectile flying toward me and veering away—a stunning crash—a long greedy laughter rising from below, clutching us, tearing us, subsiding in a sudden burst of silence.
Darkness succeeded light. The strong arm of the Delambre woman still held the man upright: a headless body.
XXVIII.
The Crash
Again I smelt powder.
In tingling silence some of us crossed the Hall and regarded the headless thing. Belvoir lit the other chandelier, and in its sparkle, to my immeasurable relief, the figure proved to be the scarecrow which had served in the sisters’ field. The woman who had stooped in the fireplace and held the effigy in the path of the leaping, swinging bar sat in her chair, again impassive. I noted her admirable hands, strong and hairy like a man’s, her face, broad and full of flesh, but firm and capable. The bumpkinish policeman touched me on the sleeve and pointed to the table, a sign we should keep to our own end of the Hall.
I noted a disturbance there. Crofts, towering over the American girl, shook her with rude fingers clamped into her shoulders.
“You—you—”