Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/110

88 I sprang past her, pulled down the burning curtains, and threw them into the hall, where Higgins, who had run up the stairs, stamped out the flames. The room was full of smoke, but it was evident that the fire had spread no farther. I opened the window, and the smoke was whirled away.

“That was lucky,” was Higgins’s comment, as he stood panting in the doorway. “By cricky! I’m all in a tremble. I thought it was another murder!”

I couldn’t help laughing as I looked at him gasping excitedly for breath.

“You’ve got murder on the brain,” I said. “I hope there won’t be any more at the Marathon.”

“So do I,” he agreed, and gathering up the fragments of the curtains, turned to go.

“Ah, bon dié!” cried Mrs. Tremaine, in a queerly broken but very charming mixture of French and English. “What a chance! What good fortune that you were in your room, missié!”

She had closed the window with a nervous shiver at the cold, and then stepped back into the full light. I fairly gasped as I looked at her. Charming she had been gowned according to the New York fashion; now she was radiant in a costume whose gorgeousness seemed just the setting her beauty needed. At the moment, it completely dazzled me, but I was able afterwards, in a calmer mood, to analyse it—the crimson petticoat, the embroidered chemise with its fold upon fold of lace, showing through the silken shoulder-scarf; the necklace of gold beads, and bracelets, studs, brooches—what not The sight of Higgins standing