Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Nobility -- Fiction; Romanies -- Fiction
"Not yet." Miss Greeby darted under the uplifted knife and caught
Gentilla round the waist. The next moment the old woman was flung
against the wall, breathless and broken up. But she still contrived to
hurl curses at the murderess of her grandson.
"I saw you shoot him; I saw you shoot him," screamed Mother Cockleshell,
trying to rise.
"Silver, make for the motor; it's near the camp; follow the path,"
ordered Miss Greeby breathlessly; "there's no time to be lost. As to
this old devil--" she snatched up a lamp as the secretary dashed out of
the house, and flung it fairly at Gentilla Stanley. In a moment the old
woman was yelling with agony, and scrambled to her feet a pillar of
fire. Miss Greeby laughed in a taunting manner and hurled another lamp
behind the sofa. "You'd have given me up also, would you, Garvington?"
she cried in her deep tone; "take that, and that, and that."
Lamp after lamp was smashed and burst into flames, until only one was
left. Then Miss Greeby, seeing with satisfaction that the entire room
was on fire and hearing the sound of hasty footsteps and the echoing of
distant voices, rushed in her turn from the cottage. As she bolted the
voice of Garvington screaming with pain and dread was heard as he came
to his senses to find himself encircled by fire. And Mother Cockleshell
also shrieked, not so much because of her agony as to stop Miss Greeby
from escaping.
"Rye! Rye! she's running; catch her; catch her. Aha--aha--aha!" and she
sank into the now blazing furnace of the room.
The walls of the cottage were of mud, the partitions and roof of wood
and thatch, so the whole place soon burned like a bonfire. Miss Greeby
shot out of the door and strode at a quick pace across the glade. But as
she passed beyond the monoliths, Lambert, in company with a policeman,
made a sudden appearance and blocked her way of escape. With a grim
determination to thwart him she kilted up her skirts and leaped like a
kangaroo towards the undergrowth beneath the leafless trees. By this
time the flames were shooting through the thatched roof in long scarlet
streamers and illuminated the spectral wood with awful light.
"Stop! stop!" cried Lambert, racing to cut off the woman's retreat,
closely followed by the constable.
Miss Greeby laughed scornfully, and instead of avoiding them as they
crossed her path, she darted straight towards the pair. In a moment, by
a dexterous touch of her shoulders right and left, she knocked them over
by taking them unawares, and then sprang down the path which curved
towards the gypsies' encampment. At its end the motor was waiting, and
so vivid was the light that she saw Silver's black figure bending down
as he frantically strove to start the machine. She travelled at top
speed, fearful lest the man should escape without her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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