Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/180

172 “Look, Knox!” he whispered—“look!”

I followed the direction of his fixed stare, and through the trees on the hillside a dim light shone out. Someone had lighted a lamp in the Guest House.

A faint, sibilant sound drew my glance upward, and there overhead a bat circled—circled—dipped—and flew off toward the distant woods. So still was the night that I could distinguish the babble of the little stream which ran down into the lake. Then, suddenly, came a loud flapping of wings. The swans had been awakened by the sound of the shot. Others had been awakened, too, for now distant voices became audible, and then a muffled scream from somewhere within Cray’s Folly.

“Back to the house, Knox,” said Harley, hoarsely. “For God’s sake keep the women away. Get Pedro, and send Manoel for the nearest doctor. It’s useless but usual. Let no one deface his footprints. My worst anticipations have come true. The local police must be informed.”

Throughout the time that he spoke he continued to search the moon-bathed landscape with feverish eagerness, but except for a faint movement of birds in the trees, for they, like the swans on the lake, had been alarmed by the shot, nothing stirred.

“It came from the hillside,” he muttered. “Off you go, Knox.”

And even as I started on my unpleasant errand, he had set out running toward the gate in the southern corner of the garden.

For my part I scrambled unceremoniously up the bank, and emerged where the yews stood sentinel beside the path. I ran through the gap in the box hedge just as the main doors were thrown open by Pedro.