Its latch clicked. The door swung
back against the wall with a muffled bump. Two pairs of furtive feet padded
in the little private hallway. The flash of an electric hand-lamp flickered
hither and yon like a searching poignard, picked out the door to the one
bedchamber and vanished. There was guarded whispering, then a thud as one
of the intruders gained the middle of the bedchamber in a bound. An instant
later a switch snapped, and the room was flooded with light.
Beneath the chandelier stood a man in evening dress the worse for
misadventure, one knee of his trousers cut open, both legs caked with
a film of half-dry mud, his linen dingy with mud-stains, his top coat
shockingly bedraggled. He was bareheaded, apparently having lost his hat; a
black smear across one cheek added emphasis to the pallor of newly shaven
jowls; and his eyes were blazing.
"Stole away!" he muttered briefly in disgust, then called: "Ed!"
As quietly as a shadow a second man joined him, greeting him with a "Hush!"
This gentleman was in far more presentable repair and a more equable frame
of mind.
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