Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob.
“Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!”
“Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?”
Mrs. Hignett drew herself up stiffly.
“What an odd question, Mr. Mortimer! I am in my own house!”
“But you rented it to me for the summer. At least, your son did.”
“Eustace let you Windles for the summer!” said Mrs. Hignett, incredulously.
Jane Hubbard returned from the drawing-room, where she had been switching off the orchestrion.
“Let us talk all that over cosily to-morrow,” she said. “The point now is that there are burglars in the house.”
“Burglars!” cried Mr. Bennett aghast. “I thought it was you playing that infernal instrument, Mortimer.”
“What on earth should I play it for at this time of night?” said Mr. Mortimer irritably.
It appeared only too evident that the two old friends were again on the verge of one of their distressing fallings-out: but Jane Hubbard intervened once more. This practical-minded girl disliked the introducing of side-issues into the conversation. She was there to talk about burglars, and she intended to do so.
“For goodness sake stop it!” she said, almost petulantly for one usually so superior to emotion. “There’ll be lots of time for quarrelling to-morrow. Just now we’ve got to catch these….”
“I’m not quarrelling,” said Mr. Bennett.
“Yes, you are,” said Mr. Mortimer.
“I’m not!”
“You are!”
“Don’t argue!”
“I’m not arguing!”
“You are!”
“I’m not!”
Jane Hubbard had practically every noble quality which a woman can possess with the exception of patience. A patient woman would have stood by, shrinking from interrupting the dialogue. Jane Hubbard’s robuster course was to raise the elephant-gun, point it at the front door, and pull the trigger.
“I thought that would stop you,” she said complacently, as the echoes died away and Mr. Bennett had finished leaping into the air. She inserted a fresh cartridge, and sloped arms. “Now, the question is….”
“You made me bite my tongue!” said Mr. Bennett, deeply aggrieved.
“Serves you right!” said Jane placidly. “Now, the question is, have the fellows got away or are they hiding somewhere in the house? I think they’re still in the house.”
“The police!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, forgetting his lacerated tongue and his other grievances. “We must summon the police!”
“Obviously!” said Mrs. Hignett, withdrawing her fascinated gaze from the ragged hole in the front door, the cost of repairing which she had been mentally assessing. “We must send for the police at once.”
“We don’t really need them, you know,” said Jane. “If you’ll all go to bed and just leave me to potter round with my gun….”
“And blow the whole house to pieces!” said Mrs. Hignett tartly. She had begun to revise her original estimate of this girl. To her, Windles was sacred, and anyone who went about shooting holes in it forfeited her esteem.
“Shall I go for the police?” said Billie. “I could bring them back in ten minutes in the car.”
“Certainly not!” said Mr. Bennett. “My daughter gadding about all over the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!”
“If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream.”
“Where is Bream?” said Mr. Mortimer.
The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented itself to the company.
“Where can he be?” said Billie.
Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is broad-minded enough to see the humor of the situation even when the joke is at her expense.
“What a silly girl I am!” she said. “I do believe that was Bream I shot at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!”
“You shot my only son!” cried Mr. Mortimer.
“I shot at him,” said Jane. “My belief is that I missed him. Though how I came to do it beats me. I don’t suppose I’ve missed a sitter like that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course,” she proceeded, looking on the reasonable side, “the visibility wasn’t good, and I fired from the hip, but it’s no use saying I oughtn’t at least to have winged him, because I ought.” She shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. “I shall be chaffed about this if it comes out,” she said regretfully.