“I have tried, sir. The telephone seems to be out of order, sir. Shall I send Oliver down to the village?”
“No‑o. I don’t suppose it’s that serious. Do you think it is anything serious?” he asked me.
I said I didn’t think so, but I was paying more attention to the outside than to him. I had heard a thin screaming that could have come from a distant woman, and a volley of small-arms shots. The racket of the storm muffled these shots, but when the heavier firing we had heard before broke out again, it was clear enough.
To have opened the window would have been to let in gallons of water without helping us to hear much clearer. I stood with an ear tilted to the pane, trying to arrive at some idea of what was happening outside.
Another sound took my attention from the window—the ringing of the doorbell. It rang loudly and persistently.
Hendrixson looked at me. I nodded.
“See who it is, Brophy,” he said.
The butler went solemnly away, and came back even more solemnly.
“Princess Zhukovski,” he announced.
She came running into the room—the tall Russian girl I had seen at the reception. Her eyes were wide and dark with excitement. Her face was very white and wet. Water ran in streams down her blue waterproof cape, the hood of which covered her dark hair.
“Oh, Mr. Hendrixson!” She had caught one of his hands in both of hers. Her voice, with nothing foreign in its accents, was the voice of one who is excited over a delightful surprise. “The bank is being robbed, and the—what do you call him?—marshal of police has been killed!”