twice during the journey to london leloir entered the compartment where sir anthony was, once bringing him tea, and again, just after leaving normanton, bringing him the evening papers.
one of the dining-car attendants, who was a friend of leloir’s, afterwards deposed that there was something very strange about the man’s manner.
“he looked startled and white,” ran his deposition, “looked like a man who had seen a ghost. i’ve known him a year, met him first on the run to carlisle, then i met him in town by appointment and we went to a music hall together. he was always a good companion, and spent his money freely, but when he came into the car-kitchen for his master’s tea he had no sense in him; i asked him how his master was, he took me by the buttonhole and he says, ‘parsons, do you believe in the supernatural?’
“‘no,’ i says, ‘i don’t. what makes you ask me?’
“‘because,’ he says, and then he stopped, for the head attendant was calling to me.
“i’d give a dollar,” concluded mr parsons, “to know what he did mean, and i’d bet a dollar it was something queer.”
at st pancras two broughams were waiting; gyde got into the first, leloir got on the box, and they drove off; the secretary and the dispatch boxes followed in the second brougham.
it was half-past eleven when they arrived at 110b piccadilly.
sir anthony went to his own room, followed by his valet; the secretary went to his own room and to bed, as did raymond the butler who was a man who kept early hours.
at midnight the house was as silent as the tomb.
now, mr folgam’s apartments were on the same floor as sir anthony’s bedroom, and he was lying in bed reading the count of monte cristo, when, very shortly after midnight, he heard a cry.
it was exactly like the howl of a dog. it was not like the sound a human being would emit, he afterwards deposed; and in this mr folgam, who was not a student of inarticulate sounds, was wholly wrong; for it was exactly like the cry of a man in the extremity of terror or mental agony. a sound which, fortunately, very few of us have ever heard.
but it was in the house, he was sure of that, and getting out of bed he came down the corridor towards sir anthony’s room.
the electric lamps were shut off in the corridor, but the place was dimly illuminated by the flood of light streaming through the secretary’s bedroom door.
he had reached the door of sir anthony’s room, when it was opened, and sir anthony himself, fully dressed and carrying a black bag in his hand, appeared.
on seeing folgam he started, like a person who has received a shock.
“i thought i heard a cry,” said folgam. “i thought some one might be ill, sir—”
“ah!” said the other, “i heard nothing. go to your room and tell them in the morning not to awaken me till ten. i shall be at work till late.”
folgam apologized for his mistake and withdrew, and sir anthony, retiring into his room, shut the door.
ten minutes later, had anyone been watching, they would have perceived gyde, bag in hand, passing down the corridor.
he was holding one of those small electric lamps that light on pressure of a button. he came down the broad staircase, making as little sound as a cat.
he unbarred and unchained the front door, and if the bars and chains had been covered with velvet he could not have made less noise.
closing the door behind him, he stood upon the steps.
a late hansom was passing; he hailed it, gave an address to the cabman, and drove away.
the clocks chimed the hours away, and the night-prowler and the policeman passed the house in piccadilly, the house with the great marble pillars on either side the door, which every habitué of the west end knew to be the mansion of gyde, the millionaire.
two o’clock, three and four o’clock passed, and the dawn peeped into the bedroom of sir anthony gyde, where, on his back, upon the floor, lay the valet, leloir, dead, without scratch or wound, his arms outspread, and upon his face an expression of horror, caught and made immutable by death.
