CHAPTER XCII.
THE WHER-WOLF.
About a quarter of an hour before this, Mr. Paul Dangerfield was packing
two trunks in his little parlour, and burning letters industriously in
the fire, when his keen ear caught a sound at which a prophetic instinct
within him vibrated alarm. A minute or two before he had heard a
stealthy footstep outside. Then he heard the cook walk along the
passage, muttering to herself, to the hall-door, where there arose a
whispering. He glanced round his shoulder at the window. It was barred. Then lifting the table and its load lightly from before him, he stood erect, fronting the door, and listening intently. Two steps on tip-toe brought him to it, and he placed his fingers on the key. But he recollected a better way. There was one of those bolts that rise and fall perpendicularly in a series of rings, and bar or open the door by a touch to a rope connected with it by a wire and a crank or two.
He let the bolt softly drop into its place; the rope was within easy
reach, and with his spectacles gleaming white on the door, he kept
humming a desultory tune, like a man over some listless occupation.
Mr. Paul Dangerfield was listening intently, and stepped as softly as a
cat. Then, with a motion almost elegant, he dropt his right hand lightly
into his coat-pocket, where it lay still in ambuscade.
There came a puffing night air along the passage, and rattled the door; then a quiet shutting of the hall-door, and a shuffling and breathing near the parlour.
Dangerfield, humming his idle tune with a white and sharpening face, and
a gaze that never swerved, extended his delicately-shaped fingers to the
rope, and held it in his left hand. At this moment the door-handle was
suddenly turned outside, and the door sustained a violent jerk.
'Who's there?' demanded the harsh, prompt accents of Dangerfield, suspending his minstrelsy. 'I'm busy.'
'Open the door—we've a piece of intelligence to gi'e ye.'
'Certainly—but don't be tedious.' (He drew the string, and the bolt
shot up). 'Come in, Sir.'
The door flew open; several strange faces presented themselves on the
threshold, and at the same instant, a stern voice exclaimed—
'Charles Archer, I arrest you in the king's name.'
The last word was lost in the stunning report of a pistol, and the
foremost man fell with a groan. A second pistol already gleamed in
Dangerfield's hand, and missed. With a spring like a tiger he struck the
hesitating constable in the throat, laying his scalp open against the
door-frame, and stamping on his face as he fell; and clutching the third
by the cravat, he struck at his breast with a knife, already in his
hand. But a pistol-shot from Lowe struck his right arm, scorching the
cloth; the dagger and the limb dropped, and he staggered back, but
recovered his equilibrium, and confronted them with a white skull-like
grin, and a low 'ha, ha, ha!'
It was all over, and the silver spectacles lay shattered on the floor, like a broken talisman, and a pair of gray, strangely-set, wild eyes glared upon them.
The suddenness of his assault, his disproportioned physical strength and
terrific pluck, for a second or two, confounded his adversaries; but he
was giddy—his right arm dead by his side. He sat down in a chair
confronting them, his empty right hand depending near to the floor, and
a thin stream of blood already trickling down his knuckles, his face
smiling, and shining whitely with the damp of anguish, and the cold low
'ha, ha, ha!' mocking the reality of the scene.
'Heinous old villain!' said Lowe, advancing on him.
'Well, gentlemen, I've shown fight, eh?—and now I suppose you want my
watch, and money, and keys—eh?'
'Read the warrant, Sir,' said Lowe, sternly.
'Warrant! hey—warrant?—why, this is something new—will you be so good
as to give me a glass of water—thank you—hold the paper a moment
longer—I can't get this arm up.' With his left hand he set down the
tumbler-glass, and then held up the warrant.
'Thank ye. Well, this warrant's for Charles Archer.'
'Alias Paul Dangerfield—if you read, Sir.'
'Thank you—yes—I see—that's news to me. Oh! Mr. Lowe—I did not see
you—I haven't hurt you, I hope? Why the plague do you come at these
robbing hours? We'd have all fared better had you come by daylight.'
Lowe did not take the trouble to answer him.