Page:Vance--The false faces.djvu/315

Rh wrought. Velasco, the first to stir, ran forward and dropped to his knees beside the dead man. Others followed.

Gently Lanyard drew the door to, locked it on the outside, and at the sound of a choking cry from Cecelia Brooke, whirled smartly round, prepared if need be to make good his promise to clear with gun-play a way to the street though opposed by every inmate of the establishment.

But the first face he saw was Crane's.

The Secret Service man stood within a yard. To him as to a rock of refuge Cecelia Brooke had flown, to his hand she was clinging like a frightened child, trying to speak, failing because she choked on sobs and gasps of horror.

Behind him, on the landing at the head of the staircase, running up from below, ascending to the upper storeys, were a score or more of men of sturdy and business-like bearing and indubitably American stamp. Of these two were herding into a corner a little group of frightened German servants.

Lanyard's stare of astonishment was met by Crane's twisted smile.

"My friend," he said, as quietly as anyone could with his accent of a quizzical buzz-saw, "I sure got to hand it to you. Every time I try to pull anything off on the dead quiet you beat me to it clean. Everywhere I think you ain't and can't be, that's just where you are. But I ain't complaining; I got to admit, if you hadn't staged your act to occupy the minds of those gents in