It was evident that more had occurred to make Mrs. Dawson afraid that
she would, or perhaps could, say.
“Wait here,” Rupert said to her. “Don't stir.” The command seemed
superfluous, for she had not at that moment the appearance of still
possessing the power to move. Without speaking again, Rupert left the
room and went quickly to the foot of the narrow stairs that led to the
attics above.
He listened, crouching there, and heard nothing, and a cold fear came to
him that perhaps Deede Dawson had done up above what he wished to do and
then effected his escape while he himself had been lingering in Ella's
room.
Adopting his plan of a rapid rush to disconcert the aim of any one who
might be about to fire at him, he made a swift dash up the stairs and on
the topmost one crouched down again and waited.
But still nothing happened, all was very quiet, and the door of one
attic, the one which had been assigned to him as a bed-chamber, was wide
open so that he could see into it and see that it was unoccupied.
But the doors of both the others were closed, and as he looked he made
out in the gloom, for this landing by the attic was very badly-lighted
by a small and awkwardly-placed skylight, a scattered dozen or so of
hairpins, and a tortoiseshell comb such as he had seen sometimes in
Ella's hair, lying on the floor near the door of the larger of the two
attics, the one in which he remembered well he had found Deede Dawson on
a certain night busy measuring and examining an empty packing-case.
With one quick rush he crossed the landing and flung himself at the
door.
It opened at once, for it was not locked, and within he saw Deede
Dawson, screw-driver in his hand, standing behind a large packing-case,
the lid of which he had apparently that minute finished fastening down.
He looked up as Rupert entered thus precipitately, and he showed no sign
of surprise or alarm.
“You're back early,” he said. “Something gone wrong?”
“What are you doing? What's in there?” Rupert asked, looking at the
packing-case, his mouth and lips so suddenly dry he found it difficult
to speak at all.
Deede Dawson began to laugh, a low and dreadful laughter that had in it
no trace of merriment at all, but only of mockery and malice.
It was such laughter as a devil from the nethermost pit might give vent
to when he saw at last a good man yield to long temptation.
“What's in there?” Rupert said again, pointing to the packing-case, and
it was as though his soul swooned within him for fear of what the answer
might be.
“What do the children say?” Deede Dawson returned with his terrible
smile. “I'll give you three guesses, isn't it? See if you can guess in
three tries.”
“What's in there?” Rupert asked the third time, and Deede Dawson laid
down the screw-driver with which he had just driven home the last screw.
“Oh, see for yourself, if you want to,” he said. “But you ought to know.
You know what was in the other case I sent away from here, the one I got
Ella to take in the car for me? I want you to take this one away now,
the sooner it's away the better.”
“That's it, is it?” Rupert muttered.
He no longer doubted, and for a moment all things swam together before
him and he felt dizzy and a little sick, and so weak he staggered and
nearly fell, but recovered himself in time.
The sensation passed and he saw Deede Dawson as it were a long way off,
and between them the packing-case, huge, monstrous, and evil, like a
thing of dread from some other world. Violent shudderings swept though
him one after the other, and he was aware that Deede Dawson was speaking
again.
“What did you say?” he asked vacantly, when the other paused.
“You look ill,” Deede Dawson answered. “Anything wrong? Why have you
come back so soon? Have you failed?”
Rupert passed his hand before his eyes to clear away the mist that hung
there and that hampered his sight.
He perceived that Deede Dawson held his right hand in the pocket of his
coat, grasping something that bulged out curiously.
He divined that it was a pistol, and that Deede Dawson was ready to
shoot at any moment, but that he wished very greatly to know first of
all what had happened and why Rupert had returned so soon and whether
there was immediate necessity for flight or not.
That he was uneasy was certain, for his cold eyes showed a hesitation
and a doubt such as Rupert had never seen in them before.
“I'll tell you what's happened,” Rupert heard himself saying hoarsely.
“If you'll tell me what's in there.”
“A bargain, eh?” Deede Dawson said. “It's easy enough. You can look for
yourself if you unscrew the lid, but then, after all, why should we take
all that trouble?”
As he spoke his pistol showed in his hand, and at once the heavy glass
inkpot Rupert had held all this time flew straight and true, and with
tremendous force, at Deede Dawson's head.
He avoided it only by the extreme rapidity with which he dropped behind
the packing-case, and it flew over his head and crashed against the
centre panel of a big wardrobe that stood in one corner of the room,
splitting the panel it struck from top to bottom.
Following it, Rupert hurled himself forward with one great spring, but
agile as a cat that leaps away from the mastiff's teeth, Deede Dawson
slipped from his grasp to the other side of the room. In doing so he
knocked his arm against the corner of the packing-case, so that his
revolver fell to the ground.
With a shout Rupert stooped and seized it, and straightened himself
to see that Deede Dawson had already another revolver in his hand--a
second one that he had drawn from an inner pocket.
They remained very still, watching each other intently, neither eager
to fire, since both wished first to make the other speak. For Rupert
desired very greatly that Deede Dawson should tell him where Ella was,
and Deede Dawson needed that Rupert should explain what had gone wrong,
and how imminent and great was the danger that therefore most likely
threatened him.
Each knew, too, that the slightest movement he made would set the other
shooting, and each realized that in that close and narrow space any
exchange of shots must almost of necessity mean the death of both, since
both were cool and deadly marksmen, well accustomed to the use of the
revolver.
Deede Dawson was the first to speak.
“Well, what next?” he said. “If that inkpot of yours had hit me it would
pretty well have knocked my brains out, and if I hadn't hit my elbow
against the corner of the packing-case I would have had you shot through
with holes like a sieve by now. So far the score's even. Let's chat a
bit, and see if we can't come to some arrangement. Look, I'll show I
trust you.”
As he spoke he laid down, much to Rupert's surprise, and to his equal
suspicion, his revolver on the top of a moth-eaten roll of old carpet
that leaned against the wall near where he was standing.
“You see, I trust you,” he said once more.
“Take your pistol up again,” answered Rupert grimly. “I do not trust
you.”
“Ah, that's a pity.” Deede Dawson smiled, making no effort to do as the
other said. “You see, we are both good shots, and if we start blazing
away at each other up here we shall both be leaking pretty badly before
long. That's a prospect that has no attraction for me; I don't know
if it has for you. But there are things I can tell you that might be
interesting, and things you can tell me I want to know. Why not exchange
a little information, and then separate calmly, rather than indulge in
pistol practice that can only mean the death of us both? For if your
first bullet goes through my brain I swear my first will be in your
heart.”
“Likely enough,” agreed Rupert, “but worth while perhaps.”
“Oh, that's fanaticism,” Deede Dawson answered. “Flattering perhaps to
me, but not quite reasonable, eh?”
“There's only one thing I want to know from you,” Rupert said slowly.
“Then why not ask it, why not agree to the little arrangement I suggest,
eh? Eh, Rupert Dunsmore?”
“You know me, then?”
“Oh, long enough.”
“Where is Ella?”
Deede Dawson laughed again.
“That's a thing I know and you don't,” he said. “Well, she's safe away
in London by this time.”
“That's a lie, for her mother's here still,” answered Rupert, even
though his heart leapt merely to hear the words.
“Unbelieving Thomas,” smiled the other. “Well, then, she is where
she is, and that you can find out for yourself. But I'll make another
suggestion. We are both good shots, and if we start to fire we shall
kill each other. I am certain of killing you, but I shan't escape
myself. Well, then, why not toss for it? Equal chances for both, and
certain safety for one. Will you toss me, the one who loses to give up
his pistol to the other?”
“It seems to me a good idea,” Deede Dawson argued. “Here we are watching
each other like cats, and knowing that the least movement of either will
start the other off, and both of us pulling trigger as hard as we can.
My idea would mean a chance for one. Well, let's try another way; the
best shot to win. You don't trust me, but I will you.”
Leaving his pistol lying where he had put it down, he crossed the attic,
and with a pencil he took from his pocket drew a circle on the panel of
the wardrobe door that Rupert had split with the inkpot he had thrown.
In the centre of the circle he marked a dot, and turned smilingly to the
frowning and suspicious Rupert.
“There you are,” he said, and made another circle near the first one.
“Now you put a bullet into the middle of this circle and I'll put one
afterwards through the second circle, and the one who is nearest to the
dots I've marked, wins. What have you to say to that? Seems to me better
than our killing each other. Isn't it?”
“I think you're playing the fool for some reason of your own,” answered
Rupert. “There's only one thing I want to know from you. Where is Ella?”
“Let me know how you can shoot,” answered Deede Dawson, “and I'll tell
you, by all that's holy, I will.”
Rupert hesitated. He did not understand all this, he could not imagine
what motive was in Deede Dawson's mind, though it was certainly true
enough that once they began shooting at each other neither man was at
all likely to survive, for Rupert knew he would not miss and he did not
think Deede Dawson would either.
Above all, there was the one thing he wished to know, the one
consideration that weighed with him above all others--what had become of
Ella? And this time there had been in Deede Dawson's voice an accent
of twisted and malign sincerity that seemed to say he really would be
willing to tell the truth about her if Rupert would gratify his whim
about this sort of shooting-match that he was suggesting.
The purpose of it Rupert could not understand, but it did not seem to
him there would be any risk of harm in agreeing, for Deede Dawson
was standing so far away from his own weapon he could not well be
contemplating any immediate mischief or treachery.
It did occur to him that the pistol he held might be loaded in one
chamber only and that Deede Dawson might be scheming to induce him to
throw away his solitary cartridge.
But a glance reassured him on that point.
“Let me see how you can shoot,” Deede Dawson repeated, leaning
carelessly with folded arms against the wall a little distance away.
“And I promise you I'll tell you where Ella is.”
Rupert lifted his pistol and was indeed on the very point of firing when
he caught a glimpse of such evil triumph and delight in Deede Dawson's
cold eyes that he hesitated and lowered the weapon, and at the same
time, looking more closely, searching more intently for some indication
of Deede Dawson's hidden purpose, he noticed, caught in the crack of the
wardrobe door, a tiny shred of some blue material only just visible.
He remembered that sometimes of an afternoon Ella had been accustomed
to wear a frock made of a material exactly like that of which so tiny a
fragment showed now in the crack of the wardrobe door.