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"You've done me," he cried, and lay still.

The woman looked at him intently and ground her heel into his upturned face.

She looked again, but there was no sound or movement.

I heard a sharp rustle, the night air blew into the heated room, and the avenger was gone.

No interference upon our part could have saved the man from his fate; but as the woman poured bullet after bullet into Milverton's shrinking body I was about to spring out, when I felt Holmes's cold, strong grasp upon my wrist.

I understood the whole argument of that firm, restraining grip - that it was no affair of ours; that justice had overtaken a villain; that we had our own duties and our own objects which were not to be lost sight of.

But hardly had the woman rushed from the room when Holmes, with swift, silent steps, was over at the other door.

He turned the key in the lock.

At the same instant we heard voices in the house and the sound of hurrying feet.

The revolver shots had roused the household.

With perfect coolness Holmes slipped across to the safe, filled his two arms with bundles of letters, and poured them all into the fire.

Again and again he did it, until the safe was empty.

Someone turned the handle and beat upon the outside of the door.

Holmes looked swiftly round.

The letter which had been the messenger of death for Milverton lay, all mottled with his blood, upon the table.

Holmes tossed it in among the blazing papers.

Then he drew the key from the outer door, passed through after me, and locked it on the outside.

"This way, Watson," said he; "we can scale the garden wall in this direction."

I could not have believed that an alarm could have spread so swiftly.

Looking back, the huge house was one blaze of light.

The front door was open, and figures were rushing down the drive.

The whole garden was alive with people, and one fellow raised a view-halloa as we emerged from the veranda and followed hard at our heels.

Holmes seemed to know the ground perfectly, and he threaded his way swiftly among a plantation of small trees, I close at his heels, and our foremost pursuer panting behind us.

It was a six-foot wall which barred our path, but he sprang to the top and over.

As I did the same I felt the hand of the man behind me grab at my ankle; but I kicked myself free and scrambled over a glass-strewn coping.

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