The sound of a measured step, of some one walking,
of a careful foot on a stairway, was quite distinct. I even
remarked the slight stumble that I had noticed before.
We were all so intent on those steps in the wall that
we were off guard. I heard Bates yell at me, and Larry
and Stoddard rushed for Pickering. He had drawn a
revolver from his overcoat pocket and thrown it up to
fire at me when Stoddard sent the weapon flying through
the air.
"Only a moment now, gentlemen," said Bates, an odd
smile on his face. He was looking past me toward the
right end of the fireplace. There seemed to be in the
air a feeling of something impending. Even Morgan
and his men, half-crouching ready for a rush at me, hesitated;
and Pickering glanced nervously from one to the
other of us. It was the calm before the storm; in a moment
we should be at each other's throats for the final
struggle, and yet we waited. In the wall I heard still
the sound of steps. They were clear to all of us now.
We stood there for what seemed an eternity-I suppose
the time was really not more than thirty seconds-inert,
waiting, while I felt that something must happen; the
silence, the waiting, were intolerable. I grasped my pistol
and bent low for a spring at Morgan, with the overturned
table and wreckage of the chandelier between me
and Pickering; and every man in the room was instantly
on the alert.
All but Bates. He remained rigid-that curious
smile on his blood-smeared face, his eyes bent toward the
end of the great fireplace back of me.
That look on his face held, arrested, numbed me; I
followed it. I forgot Morgan; a tacit truce held us all
again. I stepped back till my eyes fastened on the
broad paneled chimney-breast at the right of the hearth,
and it was there now that the sound of footsteps in the
wall was heard again; then it ceased utterly, the long
panel opened slowly, creaking slightly upon its hinges,
then down into the room stepped Marian Devereux.
She wore the dark gown in which I had seen her last,
and a cloak was drawn over her shoulders.
She laughed as her eyes swept the room.
"Ah, gentlemen," she said, shaking her head, as she
viewed our disorder, "what wretched housekeepers you
are!"
Steps were again heard in the wall, and she turned to
the panel, held it open with one hand and put out the
other, waiting for some one who followed her.
Then down into the room stepped my grandfather,
John Marshall Glenarm! His staff, his cloak, the silk
hat above his shrewd face, and his sharp black eyes were
unmistakable. He drew a silk handkerchief from the
skirts of his frock coat, with a characteristic flourish
that I remembered well, and brushed a bit of dust from
his cloak before looking at any of us. Then his eyes
fell upon me.