The hall porter was just opening the great outer door of the mansion when he arrived. “Cold morning, sir,” said the porter. “Bitter,” he replied, mechanically, and he sprang up the stone stairs.
CHAPTER IX
He threw off his dress clothes with the repulsion that every man feels for such garments after an all-night sitting. He was tired out, capable only of attending to the trivial and personal things that immediately concerned him; thanked God, with the fervour which the average man expresses for none but the trifling mercies of Providence, that no case compelled his attendance in court at ten o’clock; stretched himself, yawned, stumbled shiveringly into bed, where, drawing the bedclothes tightly around him, he sank at once into the heavy sleep of the weary man. A confused sound broke upon his slumbers. In a waking dream it seemed to him that Minna was battering with a hammer at some formless material object which his mind identified as marriage. He awoke to find the noise that of knocking at his door. In reality, he had slept some hours, but he was conscious of only a few minutes’ repose. He called out angrily to be left alone. The knocking continued. He called out again. Then a strange voice was heard “Can I see you for a minute, sir?”
Exasperated, he jumped out of bed and opened the door.
“What the devil is it?”
He recoiled in some astonishment at the sight of Israel Hart’s butler, Samuels. The man looked greasy, unkempt, agitated. Behind him flashed the retreating figure of Mrs. Parsons, the porter’s wife.
“Come in, if you want to speak to me,” said Hugh, for the cold draught was sweeping down the passage through the open flat-door. Samuels obeyed.
“An awful thing, sir. I think you had better come round at once. My master was murdered during the night.”