The Earl became aware that someone, from a very long way away, was insistently calling to him. A voice repeated over and over again: “Ger! Ger, old fellow! Ger! ”Its urgency began to tease him, and a faint crease appeared between his brows. The voice, a little nearer now, exclaimed: “He’s alive!” which seemed to him so foolish a remark that he opened his eyes to see who could have uttered it. There was so dense a fog enveloping him that he was unable to see anything at all, but he felt his head being lifted, and was aware of something hard and cool pressing against his lips. A different voice, not urgent, but calm and authoritative, told him to open his mouth. He was disinclined to make so great an effort, for an immense lassitude possessed his every faculty, but the command was repeated, and since it was less trouble to obey it than to argue about it, he did open his mouth. He was then told that he must drink, which irritated him. He was about to expostulate when he found that his mouth was full of some pungent liquid, so he was obliged to swallow this before he could murmur: “Don’t be so foolish!”
The urgent voice, which he now recognized as Lord Ulverston’s, exclaimed joyfully: “He took it! He’s coming round! That’s right, Ger! Stand to your arms, dear boy! not dead this engagement!”
The fog seemed to be clearing away; through it he could hazily perceive the Viscount’s face, which seemed, in some peculiar fashion, to be suspended above him.
“That’s the dandy!” Ulverston said. “Come, now, old fellow!”
Ulverston appeared to have some need of his instant services, which made it imperative for him to try feebly to respond to the appeal. He found himself to be without the strength to thrust away the hand that was preventing him from struggling to raise himself; and he was, on the whole, relieved to hear the other voice say: “Pray do not talk to him any more, my lord! He will do very well if you let him alone.”
He thought this the most sensible remark he had ever heard, and tried to say so. Raising his leaden eyelids again, he found that Ulverston’s face had disappeared, and that it was Miss Morville’s which now hung over him. She seemed to be wiping his brow with a wet cloth; he could smell lavender-water. It was pleasant, but he felt it to be quite wrong for her to be sponging his face. He muttered: “You must not! I cannot think ...”
“There is no need for you to think, my lord. You have only to lie still,” replied Miss Morville, in a voice which reminded him so forcibly of his old nurse that he attempted no further argument, but closed his eyes again.
He desired nothing more than to slide back into the comfortable darkness from which Ulverston’s voice had dragged him, but it had receded. He was aware of being in bed, and soon realized that it must be his own bed at Stanyon, and not, as he had mistily supposed, in some billet in southern France. He heard Miss Morville desire Turvey to tighten a bandage, felt himself gently moved, and was conscious of pain somewhere in the region of his left shoulder.
Ulverston’s voice asked anxiously: “Is it bleeding still?”
“Very little now, my lord,” replied Miss Morville.
“How much longer does Chard mean to be?” Ulverston exclaimed, in a fretting tone. “What if that damned sawbones should be away from home?”
The Earl found these questions disturbing, for they made him think that there was something he must try to remember: something that flickered worryingly at the back of his clouded mind. The effort to collect his thoughts made him frown. Then he heard Miss Morville suggest that Ulverston should go downstairs to receive Dr. Malpas. She added, in a low tone: “Pray remember, my lord, that we do not know how this accident occurred, but think it may have been a poacher!”
“Oh, don’t we know?” Ulverston said, in a savage under-voice. “Poacher, indeed! Chard knows better!”
“I particularly requested him to say nothing more than that,” said Miss Morville. “I believe it is what he would wish.”
A train of thought was set up in the Earl’s mind. He said suddenly: “She does not object to Pug, and they can make up ten beds.”
“That is excellent,” said Miss Morville calmly, sponging his face again. “Now you may rest.”
“What happened to me?” he asked.
“You met with a slight accident, but it is of no consequence. You will be better directly.”
“Oh!” His eyelids were dropping again, but he smiled, and murmured: “You are always coming to my rescue!”
She returned no answer. He sank into a half-waking, half-dreaming state, aware of an occasional movement in the room, but not troubled by it. Once, a firm, light hand held his wrist for a minute, but he did not open his eyes.
But presently he was disturbed, rather to his annoyance, by a new and an unknown voice, which seemed to be asking a great many questions, and issuing a tiresome number of orders. It was interrupted by Ulverston’s voice several times. The Earl was not at all surprised when he heard the strange voice say: “I assure your lordship I should prefer to have no one but Miss Morville and the valet to assist me.”
Ulverston seemed to think that Miss Morville could not assist the stranger. He said, in his most imperious tone: “Nonsense! She could not do it!”
“Yes, she could,” said the Earl, roused by this injustice.
There was a moment’s silence, then his wrist was firmly held, and the strange voice said, directly above him: “Oh, so your lordship is awake, eh? That is very well, and we shall soon have you feeling more the thing .... My lord, Miss Morville and I are old colleagues, and I know her to be equal to anything. You need not fear to leave the patient in our hands .... That table, if you please, my man — what’s your name? Turvey? Very good, set it there, and the bowl upon it. Now, my lord, I am afraid I must hurt you a trifle — just a trifle!”
It soon became apparent to the Earl that the stranger had grossly understated the case. The hurt he began to inflict upon his patient was considerable enough first to wrench a groan from him, and then to make him grip his underlip resolutely between his teeth. He was just wondering how long he could endure when a pang, sharper than the rest, took from him all power of resistance, and he felt himself to be falling into an upsurging darkness, and lost consciousness.
He came round to find that he was once again being commanded to drink. He obeyed, and was lowered on to his pillows, and heard a cheerful voice say: “There! You have nothing to do now but to go to sleep, my lord. I shall come to see you in the morning, and I expect to find you much more comfortable.”
“Thank you,” murmured the Earl, wishing that he might be left in peace.
The wish was granted. Silence fell, broken only by the rattle of curtain-rings, drawn along the rods, and the crackle of the fire burning in the hearth.
When the Earl opened his eyes again, it was to shaded lamplight. He saw Miss Morville rise from a chair beside the fire, and cross the room towards him, and said faintly: “Good heavens, what o’clock is it?”
“I have no very exact notion, my lord, but it doesn’t signify,” she answered, laying her hand across his brow. She glanced towards the door leading into the dressing-room, which stood open, and said: “Yes, his lordship is awake, Turvey. If you will come in, I will go and prepare the broth for him.”
“The housekeeper desired me to tell you, madam, that she should not go to bed, and would hold herself in readiness to prepare whatever might be needed.”
“Thank you, I will go to her,” Miss Morville said.
When she returned to the bedchamber, bearing a small tray, Turvey had raised his master a little against his pillows combed out his tumbled gold curls, and straightened the bedcoverings. Beyond thanking him for the various services he performed, the Earl said nothing, nor did Turvey encourage him to speak. He was deft in his ministrations, but quite impersonal, his impassive countenance not betraying his opinion of a household in which such shocking accidents could occur. Upon Miss Morville’s entrance, he moved away from the bedside, and began to pick up some scraps of lint which had been allowed to fall on the floor. He then bowed, and said that he should be in the dressing-room when Miss Morville had need of him, and withdrew, closing the door behind him.
The Earl watched Miss Morville set down her tray on a table drawn up beside his bed, and said: “I remember now. Who — Did Chard see — ?”
“No,” she replied, seating herself, and picking up the bowl from the tray. “The horses, you know, were bolting, and by the time Chard had checked them you had lost consciousness, and he knew that it was more important to bring you home than to try to discover who had wounded you. Will you see if you can swallow some broth now? Oh, no! don’t disturb yourself! I am going to feed you.”
The Earl, who had tried to raise himself, said ruefully: “I seem to be as weak as a cat!”
“You lost a great deal of blood,” she said matter-of-factly. “If I were you, I would not try to talk.”
“Yes, but I must know — ” He broke off, for she had presented a spoon to his lips. He swallowed the broth in it, and said: “This is absurd! I am sure, if you could thrust another pillow behind me, I could feed myself!”
“I expect you could,” she agreed, presenting another spoonful. “You may do so, if you wish it very much.”
“I ought to do so,” he said, smiling, and submitting. “You should be in bed: I am persuaded it must be very late.”
“I shall go to bed when you have had your broth. Do not tease yourself! I settled it with Turvey that I should remain with you for the first part of the night.”
“Indeed, I am very much obliged to you — and very much ashamed to have put you to such trouble!”
“You need not be. It is no hardship for me. I have frequently helped to nurse my brothers.”
He attempted no further expostulation, but after a minute or two said again: “I must know. After I was hit — ”
“I am afraid,” she interrupted apologetically, “that I can tell you nothing, for I have been almost continually in this room, you know. Chard saw no one, and, as I have said, he dared not stop.”
He moved restlessly, frowning. “Yes, but — Lucy must not — I seem to remember hearing him say something! To you, was it?”
“He did say something to me, but there is no need for you to fret yourself, my lord. We are agreed that it would be most improper to give utterance to suspicions for which there may be no real grounds.”
A slight smile touched his lips. “You mean that you have prevailed upon Lucy to hold his peace. I might depend on you for good sense!”
“Certainly you might, but it will be better if you think no more on this subject until you are a little stronger,” she replied.
“Don’t let Lucy quarrel with Martin!”
“He will not do so.”
“You don’t know him! He must not tax Martin with this, and that is what I fear he may have done.”
“I assure you, upon my word, he has not.”
“What has Martin said?”
She turned away to put the bowl back on the tray, and answered, without looking at him: “Nothing, my lord.”
“ Nothing? ”
“I have been busy,” she reminded him. “I have not seen Martin.”
“I daresay you might not, but — ”
“I can only tell you that there has been no quarrel with him.”
His eyes followed her as she carried the tray across the room. When she turned towards him again she perceived the strain in them, and she said: “I think your wound is paining you, my lord. Dr. Malpas left a sedative draught for you, and if you will take it you will feel more comfortable.”
“It is not that. But while I lie here, with no strength even to pull myself up, and quite shut off from the household — ”
“Tomorrow you will find yourself a good deal restored, if only you will be quiet now,” she promised. “Nothing has happened at Stanyon that you would not wish, and, you know, it is past two o’clock now, so that even if you could rise from your bed there is nothing you could do, for everyone has been in bed these many hours.”
He was obliged to acknowledge the justice of this reminder, but murmured with something of his sweet, mischievous smile: “You have always a reasonable answer, Miss Morville!”
She returned the smile, but did not answer, merely going to the door into the dressing-room to summon Turvey to relieve her watch. She stayed only until she had seen the Earl swallow his sedative draught, and then, directing Turvey to remove two of the pillows that were propping him up, bade her patient sleep well, and went away to her own bedchamber.
She had not left it when Dr. Malpas arrived, before nine o’clock, and it was Lord Ulverston who escorted the doctor to the Earl’s room. He found the patient, as Miss Morville had prophesied, very much more comfortable, though still very weak.
“Weak, my lord! Ay, no wonder!” the doctor said, taking the Earl’s pulse. “A trifle of fever, too, which was to be expected. I shall not cup you, however, for I think you will go on very well. But a bad business! I cannot conceive how it can have come about! There are poachers enough in the district, but they are not in general so careless as to fire across the roads — no, and I have never known them to go about their work in daylight before! I was speaking about it last night to Sir Geoffrey Acton, whom I was obliged to visit — just a touch of his old enemy, the gout! — and he gives it as his opinion that you might have been shot by one of these discharged soldiers we hear so much about. I daresay many of them are great rascals, and, you know, once they are turned loose upon the world, there is no saying what they will be up to.”
Lord Ulverston uttered an impatient exclamation, but the Earl engaged his silence by a look, and himself said: “Very true.”
The doctor, who had by this time laid bare the wound, seemed to be delighted with it. “Excellent! it could not be better!” he declared. “As clean a wound as you would wish for, and has not touched the lung! I can tell your lordship, though, that it was a near-run thing! Ay, you had bled so freely by the time your man got you home that if it had not been for Miss Morville’s presence of mind and resolution, you might well have died before I had reached your side. She is a very good girl, and one that has a head on her shoulders besides. None of your squeaks and swoons at the sight of blood for her!”
“By Jupiter, yes!” the Viscount said. “I don’t know what we should have been at without her, Ger, for a gorier sight I’ve seldom seen, and how to stop the bleeding was more than I knew!”
“Miss Morville is a very remarkable female,” replied Gervase. “I am sorry, though, that she should have been confronted by such a hideous spectacle as I must have presented.”
“Lord, she made nothing of that! It was her ladyship who went off into a swoon, right at the head of the stairs, when she saw you carried up!” The Viscount gave a chuckle. “There was I, clean distracted, and telling Miss Morville to come to her ladyship, and all she said was that I should call her maid, for she had something more important to attend to! I was ready to have murdered her, for, y’know, Ger, swooning females ain’t in my line, but when I saw how cleverly she set to work on you I was bound to forgive her!”
At that moment a gentle knock fell on the door. Turvey moved to open it, and ushered in Miss Morville herself. The Viscount said gaily: “Ah, here she is! Come in, ma’am! I have been telling St. Erth what a stout heart you have! And here is the doctor saying that you don’t squeak and swoon at the sight of blood!”
“I believe,” said Miss Morville prosaically, “that my sex is, in general, less squeamish than yours, my lord.” She then bade the doctor good-morning, observed with satisfaction that the Earl was looking better, and desired Dr. Malpas to visit the Dowager before he left Stanyon.
“Tell her I beg her pardon!” the Earl said, smiling, and stretching out his right hand, in an unconsciously welcoming gesture.
She looked at it, but she did not move from where she stood. In her most expressionless voice, she said: “Certainly, my lord.”
Dr. Malpas, having applied a fresh dressing to the wound, and bound up the Earl’s shoulder, had only to issue his instructions before announcing that he was ready to go to her ladyship. He made his patient grimace by prescribing thin gruel and repose; warned him that if he should try to exert himself too soon he would end in a high fever; and followed Miss Morville to the Dowager’s apartments.
The Earl, who was more exhausted by the doctor’s visit than he would own, dismissed Turvey; and, when the valet had withdrawn from the room, turned his head on the pillow to look at his friend. “Now, if you please, Lucy!”
“Dear old boy, no need to tease yourself! All’s right!”
“It teases me more to be kept in ignorance. You are hiding something from me, you and Miss Morville!”
“Fudge!” said the Viscount unconvincingly.
“Lucy, whatever may be your suspicions, don’t let anyone say that it was Martin who shot me! This story which the doctor and his gouty patient have set up will do very well! It must not be whispered all over the county that Martin tried to kill me!”
The Viscount was silent, fiddling with the bed-curtains. After a moment, Gervase said more strongly: “Lucy, I’m in earnest! Good God, only think what you would feel yourself!”
“I know that. I wouldn’t think of it, if I were you, Ger. No use!”
“What has Martin said?” Gervase demanded, watching him under knit brows. “Where is Martin?”
“That’s more than I can tell!” said the Viscount, with a short laugh.
“What do you mean?”
The Viscount hesitated, and then said: “Listen, Ger! If I know anything of the matter, it’s already all over the county that Martin tried to murder you! Martin ain’t here!” He looked up, saw the startled look in the Earl’s eyes, and said: “Hasn’t been seen since he went off yesterday, saying he would try for a shot at those kestrels. That’s why your stepmother wanted to see the doctor! True, she swooned when she saw you carried in, but it wasn’t that which upset her.”
“Oh, my God!” Gervase said sharply. “Go on! Tell me the whole!”
“Don’t think I should, dear boy!” said Ulverston regarding him in some alarm. “Ought to be quiet, y’know!”
“You’ll tell me the whole, or I’ll get up out of this bed!”
“No, no, don’t do that! It’s only this, Ger! — his gun has been found. Shot-belt, too.”
“Who? — Where?”
“Chard. Good fellow, Chard! Rode off to the place where you were hit as soon as he’d fetched the sawbones over last night. Thought he might discover some trace. Well, he did. Found Martin’s gun thrust down a rabbithole, and his shot-belt in a gorse-bush. Looks as though he had got rid of ‘em quickly, because the end of the stock wasn’t hidden well. That’s all, but everyone here knows you’ve been shot at, and your brother ain’t to be found — and if you think that news won’t spread, you’re a sapskull, Ger!”
“Martin would not take ball out for kestrels!”
“Daresay he wouldn’t. Nothing to stop him loading his piece with ball, if he went for bigger game!” said the Viscount brutally. “No wish to distress you, but he had a couple of rounds in his belt. Seen ‘em — not gammoning you!”
The Earl pressed a hand to his brow. “A couple of rounds in his belt .... Yes, and what more?”
“Nothing. No trace of him to be found. Thought he had done for you, of course! Took fright! Just the sort of hothead who would do so!”
“Very well. And then?”
“Got my own notion about that,” said Ulverston darkly.
“What is it?”
“Nearest port. If he took fright, dared not stay — only thing to do, get out of the country!”
The Earl’s hand dropped. “Yes. I think I see.”
Ulverston perceived that he was looking very pale, and said in a conscience-stricken tone: “Shouldn’t have told you! Don’t put yourself into a fret, dear boy! Only want you to tell me what you wish done!”
“Chard. Send him up to me!”
“Can’t. At least, not immediately, Ger! Told him to ride over to fetch your cousin! Seemed to me he’s the man we need.” He paused, and then, as Gervase said nothing, but only stared frowningly before him, he added: “I know you didn’t like it when Frant kept Martin under surveillance. Told him you didn’t need a watch-dog, didn’t you? Well, it’s precisely what you did need, Ger! While Frant was here, and Martin knew he was alive to his little game, he dared not pursue his damned purpose. No sooner was Frant out of the way, and Martin knew he was no longer being watched, than he seized the first chance that offered! Daresay this engagement of mine inflamed him.”
The Earl’s eyes travelled to his face. “If Martin tried to kill me, it was so that he should inherit my dignities. He could not more surely brand himself as my murderer than by running away!”
“Ay, thought of that myself!” agreed Ulverston. “Stupidest thing he could do, of course; but the more I think about it the more I think he’s just the sort of rash young fool who would do it! No head, Ger! no head at all! Might even have repented of it as soon as he’d pulled the trigger. Lord, I haven’t been staying here this while without learning a few things about your precious Martin! Done a lot of wild things in his time, because he wouldn’t stop to think before he gave way to his passions! Wouldn’t surprise me at all if he’d taken fright as soon as he realized what he’d done, and run for it. No, and I’ll tell you another thing, Ger! It won’t surprise me if he comes back, and tells us some hoaxing story to account for his having gone off like that. Just as soon as he’s had time to get over his fright and see the folly of running away!”
“I must get up!” the Earl said, in a fretting tone. “I must get up!”
Rather alarmed at the consequence of this unguarded talk, Ulverston said hastily: “No, no, what good would that do? Dash it, I wish I hadn’t told you!” He looked round quickly, as he heard the door open, and hailed Miss Morville’s entrance with a mixture of relief and guilt. “Here, ma’am, come and tell St. Erth he must stay where he is! You won’t like it, but I’ve told him his brother ain’t been seen since yesterday, and what must he do but declare he shall get up?”
“It seems to me a great pity,” said Miss Morville acidly, “that you cannot be left to bear Lord St. Erth company for a bare quarter of an hour without throwing him into a fever, my lord! I beg your pardon if I seem impolite, but I must desire you to go away!”
“Well, you do, ma’am! Devilish impolite!” said the Viscount indignantly. “Dash it, St. Erth had to know it!”
“If you do not go, my lord, I fear I shall become still more impolite!” Miss Morville warned him.
The Viscount retreated in no very good order, and Miss Morville, after a glance at her patient, went to the table and picked up a glass from it. Into this she poured a dose from an ominous bottle she had brought into the room.
Gervase said in a tired voice: “More of your sedative draughts, Miss Morville?”
“It is merely the medicine Dr. Malpas ordered me to give you at this hour,” she replied, bringing it to him.
He took it from her, but he did not at once raise the glass to his lips. “Lucy was right. I had to know.”
“To be sure, but not now.”
He again put his hand to his brow. “I wish I could think! My head feels like a block of wood!”
“Very likely. It will be better when you have recovered your strength, and that you may do by being patient, and doing as you are bid.”
He smiled wryly, but lifted the glass, and drank its contents. “Does my stepmother know what is being said?”
“She does, of course. It is painful for her, but you cannot cure that.”
“Poor woman! Assure her I shall not die! Ought I to see her?”
“No, you will see no one but Turvey and me until tomorrow.”
He sighed, but even as she uttered the words the door opened, and Theo came softly into the room.
He was looking pale, and very grim. He said in a low voice to Miss Morville: “Ulverston told me I might see my cousin. How is he?”
“He is excessively tired, and would be the better for sleeping,” answered Miss Morville.
He came farther into the room, and looked towards the bed. He saw that the Earl was awake and dreamily regarding him, and stepped closer, saying in a moved voice: “Gervase! How is it, my dear fellow?”
“Excellent! I could not wish for a cleaner wound.”
“Chard told me the whole. I came at once — knowing I should never have left Stanyon!”
“Not now, if you please!” said Miss Morville.
Theo glanced at her. “No. You are very right! But Ulverston sent me to try what I could do to set his mind, at rest. I believe I know your will, Gervase. I will do whatever it is you wish me to do. If you want this affair to be hushed up, I will do my possible, upon my honour!”
“Yes, I knew I could depend upon you for that,” Gervase said. “The doctor’s story will answer the purpose as well as any other. I have now come to my senses, and I have disclosed to you that I caught a glimpse of a thick-set man in homespuns, skulking in the undergrowth. But Martin must be found!”
“He will be,” Theo said soothingly. “Only do not fret, Gervase! I can take care of this for you, and I will.”
“Thank you,” Gervase said, his eyes half-closed.
Miss Morville signed to Theo to go, and he nodded, and went away without another word. She found the Earl’s pulse to be tumultuous, and could only hope that rest and quiet would restore its even tone.
The Earl spent the remainder of the day between dozing and waking. His two nurses found him docile, swallowing nourishment and the medicine they gave him, and acquiescing in Miss Morville’s ban on visitors; but his pulse continued to be agitated, and his brief spells of sleep were uneasy. Towards night, he seemed to be more comfortable; and, rousing himself from his abstraction, he resolutely opposed Miss Morville’s scheme to share the night watch with his valet. There was no real need for a watch to be kept, and perceiving that insistence would only tease him, Miss Morville consented to go to bed. It was arranged that Turvey should spend the night on a truckle-bed set up in the dressing-room; and with a silent resolve to pay at least one visit to the sick-room during the night, Miss Morville withdrew to her own bedchamber. She was, in fact, extremely weary, and although her conscience told her that she ought to visit the Dowager before retiring, she felt quite unequal to the strain of a conversation with that lady.
It was ten o’clock when she laid her head on the pillow, and she almost instantly fell asleep, waking rather more than two hours later, within ten minutes of the time she had set for herself. She lit her candle, and got up. She had removed only her dress and her slippers on going to bed, and these were soon resumed, and her hair tidied. Picking up her candle, she stole down the gallery, and round the angle of the court into the gallery on to which the Earl’s bedroom opened. The house was very silent, but a lamp had been set on a table outside the Earl’s door, and dimly lit the gallery. Miss Morville stealthily opened the door, and crept into the room.
Here too a lamp was burning low, set at a little distance from the bed, that its light should not worry the Earl. He seemed to be sleeping, but the tumbled bedclothes indicated that he was restless. The sound of heavy and rhythmic breathing coming from the dressing-room informed Miss Morville that Turvey, at all events, was enjoying an excellent night’s repose. She saw with displeasure that the fire had been allowed to die down, and went softly to lay more wood upon it. Then she returned to the bedside, and ventured, very cautiously, to draw the quilt, which was slipping off the bed, over the Earl’s exposed shoulder. He stirred, but he did not open his eyes, and after standing still for a moment she began to tiptoe towards the door.
She had almost reached it when she was checked by a sound she could have sworn was a footstep. It was muffled, but even as she decided that she had been mistaken she heard it again. She was puzzled, for it came neither from the gallery nor from the dressing-room, but seemed rather to be located opposite the dressing-room. It was followed by a sound so like the brushing of a hand across a door that her heart jumped. She moved swiftly back to the bed, and stood there, staring through the dim light at the wall to the right. One swift, uncertain glance she cast towards the dressing-room, as though she would have called to Turvey; then she closed her lips, and again searched with her eyes the other side of the room.
The wall was panelled, like the rest of the room, the sections masked by carved pilasters, and the dado and skirting mitred round in an unbroken line. The light of the flames, which were beginning to lick round the logs she had laid on the fire, flickered over the interlaced arches, and the elaborately carved capitals. The brushing sound was heard again, like someone groping in darkness. Then there came the unmistakable click of a lifting latch. Miss Morville stood rigidly still. Suddenly she knew that the Earl was awake; she heard him move, and before she could turn to look at him felt his hand grasp her wrist warningly. She looked quickly down, and saw that he too had his eyes fixed on the panelling. He said, so softly that she scarcely heard him: “Quiet!”
Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast, but she knew her presence to be safeguard enough, and she had not meant to raise the alarm.
The woodwork creaked; one of the sections of the wainscot was sliding behind another, and the lamplight showed a hand grasping the edge of it.