Burning with vexation, I started after him, but suddenly he stopped.

“Listen!” he whispered.

I heard something rattle against the other side of the wall; then a dark figure appeared on the coping.

I felt Godfrey press me back, and descended cautiously.  A moment later, something slid down the wall, and I knew that the person at the top had lifted the other ladder over.  Then the figure descended, and then a distorted face stared into the circle of Godfrey’s torch.

For a breath, I did not recognise it; then I saw that it was Swain’s.

I shall never forget the shock it gave me, with its starting eyes and working mouth and smear of blood across the forehead.  Godfrey, I knew, was also startled, for the light flashed out for an instant, and then flashed on again.

“What is it, Swain?” I cried, and seized him by the arm; but he shook me off roughly.

“Stand back!” he cried, hoarsely.  “Who is it?  What do you want?”

“It’s Lester,” I said, and Godfrey flashed his torch into my face, then back to Swain’s.

“But you’re not alone.”

“No; this is Mr. Godfrey.”

“Mr. Godfrey?”

“Whose house we’re staying at,” I explained.

“Ah!” said Swain, and put one hand to his head and leaned heavily against the ladder.

“I think we’d better go to the house,” Godfrey suggested, soothingly.  “We all need a bracer.  Then we can talk.  Don’t you think so, Mr. Swain?”

Swain nodded vacantly, but I could see that he had not understood.  His face was still working and he seemed to be in pain.

“I want to wash,” he said, thickly.  “I cut my wrist on that damned glass, and I’m blood all over, and my head’s wrong, somehow.”  His voice trailed off into an unintelligible mumble, but he held one hand up into the circle of light, and I saw that his cuff was soaked with blood and his hand streaked with it.

“Come along, then,” said Godfrey peremptorily.  “You’re right—­that cut must be attended to,” and he started toward the house.

“Wait!” Swain called after him, with unexpected vigour.  “We must take down the ladders.  We mustn’t leave them here.”

“Why not?”

“If they’re found, they’ll suspect—­they’ll know ...”  He stopped, stammering, and again his voice trailed away into a mumble, as though beyond his control.

Godfrey looked at him for a moment, and I could guess at the surprise and suspicion in his eyes.  I myself was ill at ease, for there was something in Swain’s face—­a sort of vacant horror and dumb shrinking—­that filled me with a vague repulsion.  And then to see his jaw working, as he tried to form articulate words and could not, sent a shiver over my scalp.

“Very well,” Godfrey agreed, at last.  “We’ll take the ladders, since you think it so important.  You take that one, Lester, and I’ll take this.”

I stooped to raise the ladder to my shoulder, when suddenly, cutting the darkness like a knife, came a scream so piercing, so vibrant with fear, that I stood there crouching, every muscle rigid.  Again the scream came, more poignant, more terrible, wrung from a woman’s throat by the last extremity of horror; and then a silence sickening and awful.  What was happening in that silence?