The tall, thin body stiffened as he looked, and without turning he flung an
open hand behind him and snapped a demand in Chinese. Somebody slipped a
revolver into his palm. Levelling it he sent a volley crashing through the
peephole. Yells responded, and in the hush that fell upon the final shot a
noise of fugitive feet scraping and stumbling on cobbles. A bullet struck
the door a sounding thump and all but penetrated, raising a bump on the
inner face of its thick oaken panels; and Victor shut the slide and turned
back.
Subservient silence saluted him. He spoke in Chinese, issuing (Sofia
gathered) instructions for the defense of the house. One by one the men
designated dropped out of the group about her. Three shuffled off into a
room adjoining the hallway. Two others ran briskly up the stairs. A sixth
Victor directed to stand by the barred door. His chauffeur and another
Chinaman he told off for his personal attendance.
The maid Chou Nu was left to shift for herself, and while Sofia could see
her she did not shift a finger from her pose of terror, flattened to the
wall. When Sofia came back that way, the girl had vanished, however. Nor
was she seen again alive.
Her arms held fast, Sofia was partly led and partly dragged down the hall,
Victor herding the group on past the staircase and into a bare room at the
back of the house, where a solitary lamp burning on a deal table discovered
for all other furnishing broken chairs, coils of tarred rope, a rack of
ponderous oars and boat-hooks, a display of shapeless oilskins and
sou'westers on pegs.
Pages:
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251