But even as Cleek looked in upon it the picture changed.  Swift, sharp, and sudden came the rattle of flying feet on the outer stairs.  Margot flung aside her cigarette and jumped up, the song and the laughter came to an abrupt end, the door flew open, and with a shout and a cheer a man bounced into the room.

“Serpice!  Ah, le bon Dieu! it is Serpice at last!” cried out Margot in joyous excitement, as she and the others crowded round him.  “Soul of a sluggard, don’t waste time in laughing and capering like this!  Speak up, speak up, you hear?  Are we to fly at once to the mill and join him?  Has he succeeded?  Is it done?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” shouted back Serpice, throwing up his cap and capering.  “It is done!  It is done!  Under the very nose of the cracksman, too!  Merode’s got them—­got them both!  The little lordship and the Mademoiselle Lorne, too!  They took the bait like gudgeons; they stepped into the automobile without a fear, and—­whizz! it was off to the mill like that!  La, la, la!  We win, we win, we win!”

The shock of the thing was too much for Cleek.  Carried out of himself by the knowledge that the woman he loved was now in peril of her life, discretion forsook him, blind rage mastered him, and he did one of the few foolish things of his life.

“You lie, you brute—­you lie!” he shouted, jumping up into full view.  “God help the man who lays a hand on her!  Let him keep his life from me if he can!”

“The cracksman!” yelled out Serpice.  “The cracksman!  The cracksman!” echoed Margot and the rest.  Then a pistol barked and spat, the light was swept out, a bullet sang past Cleek’s ear, and he realised how foolish he had been.  For part of the crowd came surging to the window, part went in one blind rush for the door to head him off and hem him in, and, through the din and hubbub rang viciously the voice of Margot shrilling out:  “Kill him!  Kill him!” as though nothing but the sight of his blood would glut the malice of her.

It was neck or nothing now, and the race was to the swift.  He dropped through a gap in the ragged roof—­sheer down, like a shot—­into the rubble and refuse below; he lurched through the shed to the door, and through that to the black passage leading to the street—­the clatter on the higher staircase giving warning of the crowd coming after him—­and flew like a hare hard pressed toward the outer door, and then—­just then, when every little moment counted—­there was a scrambling sound, a chorus of oaths, a slipping, a sliding, a bang on one step and a bump on another; and, as he darted by, and sprang out into the street, the hall was filled with a writhing, scuffling, swearing mass of glue-covered men struggling in a whirling waste of loose brown paper.

“This way! come quickly, for your life!” he shouted to Dollops, as he came plunging out into the street.  “They’ve got them—­got his little lordship!  Got Miss Lorne—­in spite of me.  Come on! come on! come on!”—­and flew like an arrow from crossing to crossing and street to street with Dollops, like a shadow, at his heels.