Part 37 (2/2)
The officer looked alarmed.
”You can't,” the inspector exclaimed, as if unable to believe his ears.
To your average police-officer the thought of a man's audacity to ”take the law into his own hands,” seems incredible. ”You can't, sir,” he repeated. ”You can't, indeed!”
”You think not?” Whichelo said, coolly, gazing down upon them all from his great height. ”Come along, Ashton,” he called to me. ”I'm going to teach a lesson to those vermin upstairs.”
I followed him out to the back premises, and thence along a pa.s.sage to the gun-room, the door of which stood open. As we entered, Whichelo uttered an exclamation.
And no wonder, for the room had been ransacked. The gla.s.s front of the gun-rack had been smashed, several shot-guns had been removed--I remembered there had always been three or four guns in this baize-covered rack, now there was only one--and about the floor were empty cartridge-boxes, their covers lying in splinters, as though the boxes had been hurriedly ripped open. The repeating-gun that had been fired at us was probably the Browning which Sir Charles used for duck-shooting, for this was among the missing weapons.
”They intend to hold a siege,” Whichelo said, after a pause. ”They've provided themselves with a stack of ammunition. This is going to be a big affair, Ashton, a much bigger affair than even we antic.i.p.ated.”
Carefully he took down the only gun left in the rack.
”This is of no use,” he said, looking at it contemptuously. ”It's a twenty-eight bore.”
The outlook certainly was very black. True, there were nine of us. Had we been twenty, however, the situation would hardly have been better.
For there, up in that attic, in a position commanding the full length of the corridor, were two desperate men, armed with guns, and provided with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, which, as we knew, they would not hesitate to use. The question which occurred to us, of course, was: how were they provisioned? Given food and drink to last a week, and who could say what damage they might do?
I went with Whichelo out into the Park. The woods were looking glorious. It was a perfect evening, too, soft and balmy, with that delightful smell of freshness peculiar to the English countryside and impossible, adequately, to describe in print.
We were perhaps ninety yards from the house, with our backs to it, as we strolled towards the copse. All at once a double shot rang out behind us on the still, evening air. At the same instant I felt sharp points of burning pain all over my back and legs. Whipping round, I saw a figure on the roof, outlined against the moonlit sky, just disappearing.
Whichelo too, had been badly peppered. Fortunately we wore thick country tweeds, and these had, to some extent, protected us.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
THE UNKNOWN TO-MORROW.
Take it from me. It is not pleasant to be wounded, even in a good cause.
To be shot in the back by a man standing upon a roof, with a scatter-gun, is not merely physically painful; it is, in addition, humiliating, because it also wounds one's _amour propre_.
At once I decided not to tell Vera what had happened. She was kind, sympathetic, and for many other things I loved her, but instinctively I knew that she would laugh if I told her the truth, and I was in no fit state then to be laughed at.
Indeed, merely to laugh gave me pain--a great deal of pain. It seemed to drive a lot of little sharp spikes into the holes made by the pellets.
Doctor Agnew--for I had returned to town that night, being extremely anxious to see Thorold again--to whom I exposed my lacerated back, made far too light of the matter, I thought--far too light of it. He said the pellets were ”just under the skin”--I think he murmured something about ”an abrasion of the cuticle,” whatever that may mean--and that he would ”pick them all out in half a jiffy.” I hate doctors who talk slang, and I hinted that I thought an anaesthetic might be advisable.
”Anaesthetic!” he echoed, with a laugh. ”Oh, come, Mr. Ashton,” Agnew added, ”you must be joking. Yes--I see that you are joking.”
I had not intended to ”joke.”
”Joking” had been the thought furthest from my mind when I suggested the anaesthetic. But, as he took it like that, and spoke in that tone, naturally I had to pretend I really had been joking.
Agnew picked out all the pellets, as he had said he would, ”in half a jiffy,” and I must admit that the pain of the ”operation” was very slight. I should, in truth, have been a milksop had I insisted upon being made unconscious in order to avoid the ”pain” of a few sharp pin-p.r.i.c.ks.
Next day I went to see my love, and found her in tears.
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