The Coward Behind the Curtain. Marsh Richard

the meaning of this?" Receiving no answer-the waiter was again stroking his bristly chin with the fingers of his left hand, with about him still that suggestion of the anxious rabbit-he addressed himself to the figure in the chair. "Mr Emmett! Sir!" No notice being taken he repeated his former futile inquiry: "What the deuce does this mean?" Then he added, as if the notion had all at once occurred to him: "He's dead!"

      "I'm afraid he is, sir."

      The personage went on from discovery to discovery.

      "He couldn't have done it himself-look at his head-he couldn't have smashed it like that-someone must have done it for him."

      "Looks as if that were the case, sir."

      "Then who can have done it? – in my hotel; with the house full of people; in a private sitting-room; seated at his own dinner-table! What have you been doing?"

      "Several things; there have been a great many things, sir, to do, with the house so busy. I've seen and heard nothing of what was taking place in this room since I came to say there was a gentleman wished to see him."

      "A gentleman? What gentleman?"

      "That I couldn't say, sir. A message and a note were brought to me; which I brought in to Mr Emmett; and he went out to see the gentleman."

      "Went out, did he? He didn't bring the gentleman in here?"

      "Not so far as I am aware, sir. They ought to be able to tell you better about that downstairs."

      The personage was looking about him.

      "What's all this broken glass? – and what's that?"

      He was pointing to the splintered neck of the bottle which the stranger had left on the table.

      "Seems, sir, as if a bottle had been broken."

      "A champagne bottle-perhaps-" The personage looked at the waiter; the waiter looked at him. Possibly it was because of what each saw in the other's eyes that the speaker left his sentence unfinished. He broke into petulant anger. "Nice thing this is to happen in my house right at the beginning of the race week, about the only time in the year when one does have a chance of making a little money-goodness only knows what mischief it may do me when it gets known. Who's that at the door? Shut it at once! You can't come in here!"

      It seemed that someone could come in, because someone did-a woman. She was what is sometimes described as a fine woman, still in the prime of life; big and well covered, she would probably have turned the scale at sixteen stone. She wore a black silk dress, which had a generous train; her ample bust glittered with chains and gewgaws. Unmistakably this was the hostess, the personage's wife. She stood in the doorway.

      "What's the matter?" she asked.

      "First of all, Mrs Elsey, be so good as to shut that door. Then, when you've done that, if you'll take the trouble to walk as far as this, you will see what is the matter for yourself."

      Shutting the door, she walked to the table-and saw.

      "Why, whatever! Good gracious! Who's done it?"

      "Seems as if someone had-by the looks of him."

      "Bob! – what a sight he is! Goodness knows he never was much in the way of looks, but who'd have thought he ever could have looked like that? Don't you know who did it?"

      "I'd make it hot for him if I did-doing a thing like this in my house, in my busiest season!"

      "There's plenty who might have done it-plenty. No one ever had much love for him-and small blame to them. Why I only heard, with my own ears, a man say to him this afternoon: 'By God, Emmett, for two pins, I'd have your life'-sounded as if he meant it too."

      "Perhaps someone gave him the two pins."

      This was the waiter. Whether the remark was meant to be humorous, or merely a suggestion, was not clear. No one heeded him. The personage went on:

      "What man was that? Be careful what you say, Mrs Elsey."

      "No need for you to tell me to be careful; I can be that without your telling me-as careful as anyone. What I say I heard I did hear-I'm ready to swear to it anywhere, though who the man was I don't know; he was a stranger to me-but I should know him again among a hundred. He was a smallish man, with a sharp, clean-shaven face, and a brown suit, and a white billycock, which he wore a little on one side-he'd something to do with horses, of that I'm sure. But he's not the only one who had a grudge against George Emmett. Who, who had anything to do with him, hadn't? Why, if it comes to that, we'd no cause to love him."

      "Now, Mrs Elsey, none of that sort of talk, if you please; that's a sort of talk I won't have. It doesn't follow that because a man has a grudge against another man he wants to kill him."

      "Doesn't it? It depends on the man. But whatever did he do it with? I never saw such a sight as he has made of him!"

      "Seems as if he did it with a bottle-a champagne bottle."

      "He must have hit him a crack, to make a sight of him like that-why, his head's all smashed to pulp."

      "You can hit a man a crack with a champagne bottle, if you mean business, and know how to. But this sort of thing won't do-the first thing we've got to do is to send for the doctor and the police; and, till they've been, nothing's to be touched; let them find things just as we did, then they'll be able to draw their own conclusions, and blame no one. So out you go, Mrs Elsey, and you too, Timmins, and I'll lock the door, and keep it locked, and, Timmins, you hang about and see that no one comes near; and, if you want to keep your place, mind you don't say so much as a syllable to anyone about what's in here, till I give you leave."

      It was not such an easy business as, possibly, the personage would have wished, to induce his wife to leave the room: she evinced an uncomfortable curiosity in the details of the scene of which the man in the chair was such a gruesome centre; had she been left alone, she might have pushed her curiosity beyond desirable limits. As it was, her husband had to put his arm through hers, and positively lead her from the room, she remonstrating as she went. So soon as she was out the door was slammed, and the key turned on the other side. And once more, for the third time, Dorothy Gilbert was left alone with her guardian, from whom there seemed to be as little chance as ever of escaping. It was by some ironical stroke of fate that he appeared to guard her better dead than living.

      CHAPTER V

      DOROTHY IS LEFT ALONE WITH HERGUARDIAN FOR THE NIGHT

      With the passing minutes the girl's plight took a different shape. When she had first rushed behind that curtain it had been with a childish desire to hide; to avoid the man who had threatened her with kisses; and perhaps worse-for her maiden soul had warned her that he was one who, if opportunity offered, would not stop at a little. In sheer childish terror she had fled to the first refuge she could think of; as if it were a refuge; as if, after an instant's search, he was not sure to discover her hiding-place, and have her out. The advent of the stranger if, in a way, it had saved her, had also complicated the situation; it was not, then, so much discovery she had to fear, as something it was not good to think of. Indeed, the situation was reversed; because, had she then taken the initiative and discovered herself, not only would she have been saved; but also Mr Emmett, and the stranger. Too late she was beginning to realise that all three were destroyed: the two living, and the one dead. Practically, in killing Mr Emmett, the stranger had killed himself, and her. It might turn out that he had done it actually. And in his action she was aware that she had been an aider and abettor. So in remaining hidden she had thrown away her own salvation.

      The position now, however, wore a different aspect. Her mental faculties were more on the alert than they had been; as it seemed to her, they kept coming and going; so that now she saw clearly, and now not at all. So far as they enabled her to judge, now, again, her only hope of immunity rested on her continuing undiscovered. If they found her all sorts of dreadful consequences would immediately result. For one thing they would quite probably accuse her of having had at least a hand in her guardian's death, if she were not the actual assassin; not unnaturally taking it for granted that her persistent concealment could only have a criminal meaning. She could only disprove the charge, if it could be disproved, by shifting the onus of guilt on to the vanished stranger's