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Munro�s maid hurrying down the hall towards the fray and he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her back the other way. She half-stood, half-crouched where she landed and glared at him� �Go back to your room!� he shouted. �GO!� �and Miss Wilkins went. He had to go back to his own room before he could face them; he was not going downstairs without his elephant gun�well, it had been an elephant gun, but one of Dr. Munro�s inventor friends had modified it for him, and to a rather different purpose. He belted on his knife, threw on his coat and stuffed the pockets with as much ammunition he could, loaded the first round, and strode out to meet them. The important thing to remember when hunting is not to rush out without a sense of one�s bearings. His step was quick but quiet, and he came out on the split staircase overlooking the front hall�surveyed the room with a hunter�s eye�the front hall undisturbed, glass unbroken, dainty gilt furniture still upright�his ear caught the noise again, regained the din, he realized it was below him on the first floor, back towards his right�he was down the stairs by the time it crashed open and several figures stormed in, a dark swarm of disguising coats and cloaks and hats. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and took out the first one squarely in the chest. The second shot, however, missed its intended target and hit the second intruder squarely between the eyes. �Damn it,� muttered West, reloading. He was not sure whether they had not expected him at all, or had hoped to catch him unarmed; at any rate, they turned tail and West vaulted over the banister with the intention of leaping down to the first floor but forgot his sprained wrist, which gave way, and hit the carpet but hard, and on his bad leg, too. West was still gritting his teeth on the floor when two of them doubled back and were upon him; he was able only to pull a round of ammunition� which was, after all, a modified stake�from his coat and use it as a dagger, first blocking their knives and then stabbing one, then the other, through the heart. On his feet, he reloaded his rifle; that second target, the misfire, was on the floor trying to wrench the stake out of his face, and West put him down with a second shot. Beyond the left-hand door the maids were screaming, Parkes was clutching his bloody arm��Knife wound?� shouted West, and the butler nodded, and West thought, Thank God for small favors, and told him to round up as many of the servants as he could� �Yes, the footmen, too�no heroics out of you lot, lock yourselves in somewhere, the pantry, the wine cellar, I don�t care. Where did they come in?� Parkes seemed to be pointing towards the service entry behind the dining room when he suddenly turned and fled, and West spun around to find another intruder leap for him; he had the pleasure of punching this one in the teeth before firing the stake. He was reloading again when he saw the little brunette maid�Jane?�run shrieking through the dining room and another one catching up to her, snatching her up and shaking her: �You�ll tell me where he is now, or I�ll�� The stake struck this one in the shoulder, which was the best West could do from that angle; it howled and dropped Jane, turned roaring to West, and whipped off a knife at his head, which he was only just able to duck under and block with the rifle. He ended up bashing the thing in the head with the butt of the rifle and only then reloading, catching his breath, shooting, once it was out cold on the floor� �Pantry!� he shouted at Jane, who ran off without any further persuasion. The trail was easier to follow from there; they seemed to have retreated for certain, and muddy tracks and broken china led him down the service hall going from the dining room to the kitchen (they must have come in from the service door on the street, he thought, reloading)� A shot exploded from behind the kitchen door; West flattened against the wall but then kept sidling down the corridor, head down�there was only a round porthole window in the door, if he could get close enough, low enough, no one would be able to see (can they see though the bullethole in the door?) Was it a pistol or a revolver? Was his quarry reloading or did he already have another round loaded? Give it time, give it time� give him time to wonder where I�ve gone, he thought, creeping inexorably towards the door, calculating: he must be on the hinge side of the door, otherwise he�d have just cracked the door open and not shot through it�Are you sure? Yes, he�d have had better aim that way�Are you sure? I have to be, and he threw all of his weight against the door, his adversary crouching behind it, half-crushed by the door, the pistol went off, his adversary scrambling to reload, the rifle swung out like judgment, they stared each other down, both firing at the same time, all in a breath. But it was West who emerged the victor. However many there had been, the rest seemed to have made their escape by the time he reached the service door to the street, but already he knew something was wrong. The trail had gone cold�there were broken plates on the floor, but no more than if a maid had dropped a few, startled; the service door was still locked, untouched, cold. He doubled back, not quite understanding why the scattered tracks, the streaks of mud, the stray drops of slush here and there�the trail was sparse in the hall because they had been running, he reasoned�finally coalesced, where they had all come in before separating, was at a service door leading to�the garden? The first thing he saw outside was the garden gate to the street hanging open. The next was the body of the blonde maid, the plump one. He knelt down beside her and put two fingers to the untorn side of her throat; there was no pulse. And then, out of the corner of his eye�hearing nothing, still half-deaf from the pistol shots�he saw a dark figure crouching over something, a crumpled trail of fabric and lace under its feet� West had thought himself immune to shock after all these years, but found that he was still capable of feeling a sinking horror at realizing that Munro�s daughter was done for. Rather than risk the noise of reloading he pulled out a stake and hurled it at the creature�s back like a knife-thrower�it threw back its bloody face and howled at West, bared its dripping teeth, more feral than the others, clutching at the stake in its back� West took out his Bowie knife and strode forward. The thing left Miss Munro�s body and fled deeper into the garden, into the small ornamental wood, all but the evergreens laid bare in the winter, that made up the second part of the garden. The early January twilight had already fallen and the thing would have eluded anyone else by now, but West had run these creatures down before, felt the branches whip his face in black forests in Bavaria, Bohemia, Bodensee, and no one had ever escaped him through speed alone. One village told stories of how he had once even run down a man on horseback, which was one of the reasons people sought him by name across Europe. The other reason was his relentless killing fury. The thing was within reach. He grabbed the stake still in its back and wrenched it, not out, but to the side to throw the thing off balance; it fell against an oak tree with a shriek and West lunged in with his knife, severing its head against the bark. Gasping for breath he leant against a pine and dropped his trophy; after a moment, the thing�s body buckled, and fell to the ground. The garden lay on a hill; he could see the police wagons coming from his vantage point and ran back to the house, shouting for the servants until he remembered (God damn it!) he had told them to stay in the pantry. Fortunately, Parkes had found enough gumption to come out by then. �The police are on the way, sir,� said the butler, mustering a smile of relief as he applied a tea towel to his arm. �It was a trick getting to Dr. Munro�s telephone, but�� �Damn you! That�s the last thing we want!� he shouted, startling Parkes. �Look, you take the footmen and go through the house�take all of them, there ought to be seven, down to the cellar furnace, they have to be burnt before anyone else gets here, or at least hidden. And put the maid�s body in my room for the moment�don�t let them in until you�ve done it, go, hurry!� He lifted Rose Hannah�s body�she was still breathing, though hoarsely, but had gone a haunted shade of white from blood loss. The body in the woods will just have to stay there for the moment, he thought. He carried her back into the house, back over the trail of the battle and up those front hall stairs to the left side of the house, and kicked on doors, his hands full, until her maid cried out hesitantly, �Who is it?� �Come out now�I need Miss Munro�s door opened!� Nell came out and went livid at the sight of Rose Hannah hanging limp in West�s arms; she opened her mouth but nothing came out. �You�ve played nurse for Miss Munro before, haven�t you?� Nell nodded, mute with horror. �Look, then�she�s in a desperate state and I can�t leave her. Get Miss Munro�s bag and do the best you can for Parkes downstairs. Been stabbed in the arm, nothing too awful, but it needs a proper binding. As soon as you�re done, dash up here and I�ll put you to work. Right?� Nell nodded. Munro�s daughter was bleeding badly from the throat; he stanched it the best he could with a nearby towel so he could retrieve his own bag from his room on the other side of the house, and as he passed the front hall landing he heard the police pounding on the door, and wondered how long Parkes would be able to hold them off. �I�ve been the death of her,� he muttered to himself. Dr. Munro came home from his club to see half a dozen police wagons and carriages at his front gate, a herd of bobbies to push through in the foyer, and Mrs. Parkes weeping in the front hall. |
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| e was so deep in Dr. Munro�s library, so deep in his maps, that he heard the first scream as only a very faint, high-pitched innuendo of a sound. By the second scream, though, he was sure that something was up, and was racing for the door. At the breaking of glass West knew for sure that whoever had attacked Bonneville�s house was here as well; coming out of the library he ran into Miss |
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