‘Hurry to the back door, Fenwick!’ he said; and Fenwick, throwing down the creel, but grasping the long landing-net, flew to the back way.  Logan opened the drawing-room window, took out his matchbox, with trembling ringers lit a candle, and, with the candle in one hand, the rod in the other, sped through the hall, and along a back passage leading to the gunroom.  He had caught a glimpse of the Earl running down the main staircase, and had guessed that the trouble was on the ground floor.  As he reached the end of the long dark passage, Fenwick leaped in by the back entrance, of which the door was open.  What Logan saw was a writhing group—­the Prince of Scalastro struggling in the arms of three men:  a long white heap lay crumpled in a corner.  Fenwick, at this moment, threw the landing-net over the head of one of the Prince’s assailants, and with a twist, held the man half choked and powerless.  Fenwick went on twisting, and, with the leverage of the long shaft of the net, dragged the wretch off the Prince, and threw him down.  Another of the men turned on Logan with a loud guttural oath, and was raising a pistol.  Logan knew the voice at last—­knew the Jesuit now. ‘Rien ne va plus!’ he cried, and lunged, with all the force and speed of an expert fencer, at the fellow’s face with the point of the rod.  The metal joints clicked and crashed through the man’s mouth, his pistol dropped, and he staggered, cursing through his blood, against the wall.  Logan picked up the revolver as the Prince, whose hands were now free, floored the third of his assailants with an upper cut.  Logan thrust the revolver into the Prince’s hand.  ‘Keep them quiet with that,’ he said, and ran to where the Earl, who had entered unseen in the struggle, was kneeling above the long, white, crumpled heap.

It was Scremerston, dead, in his night dress:  poor plucky little Scremerston.

* * * * * *

Afterwards, before the trial, the Prince told Logan how matters had befallen.  ‘I was wakened,’ he said—­’you were very late, you know, and we had all gone to bed—­I was wakened by a banging door.  If you remember, I told you all, on the night of your arrival at Rookchester, how I hated that sound.  I tried not to think of it, and was falling asleep when it banged again—­a double knock.  I was nearly asleep, when it clashed again.  There was no wind, my window was open and I looked out:  I only heard the river murmuring and the whistle of a passing train.  The stillness made the abominable recurrent noise more extraordinary.  I dressed in a moment in my smoking-clothes, lit a candle, and went out of my room, listening.  I walked along the gallery—­’

‘It was your candle that I saw as I crossed the lawn,’ said Logan.