It was the queerest possible sensation, and as I crossed the great inner
hall, with its tapestries and gleaming statuary, lit now by two single
electric bulbs, I don't deny that my heart was beating a good deal
faster than was pleasant. There is always something ghostly about an
empty house, more especially when it is fully furnished and ready for
occupation. The absence of all life is uncanny, and one seems to feel
that it is hidden, not absent, and that at any moment a door may open
and some enigmatic stranger be standing there with an unpleasant welcome
in his eyes.
Well, I slunk through all the glories of the grand hall, passed down the
passage, and came out into the servants' quarters. The little lobby, the
floor of which was covered with cork matting, was well lit, and so were
the stairs. I peered over the rail, but could not see to the bottom;
but, standing in the door of the room called the butler's pantry, I saw
that I could put a bullet through the head of any one appearing, before
he could have the slightest inkling of my presence, before he could slew
round, even, to face me.
The butler's pantry itself was a fair-sized, comfortable room, with a
carpet on the floor and a couple of worn, padded armchairs by the
fireplace. The walls were hung with photographs; on one side was a
business-like roll-top desk, and in a corner a large safe which
obviously contained the plate in daily use in the great household. I
knew that the bulk of the valuables were stored in a strong room in
Chancery Lane.
Upon the table Mr. Sliddim had thoughtfully placed a heavy cut-glass
decanter half full of whisky, a siphon, and--_glasses_! The whisky was
all right, but did he expect me to hobnob with Antony Midwinter, to
speed the parting guest, as it were, with a stirrup-cup? It was
difficult to suspect him of such grim humor.
I looked at my watch. There was still a good half-hour before Midwinter
and Sliddim were due to meet in the little public house behind the
Square. I saw that my pistol was handy, and sat down in one of the
armchairs by the fireside. A pipe of the incomparable "John Cotton"
would not be amiss, I thought, wondering if I should ever taste its
fragrance again, and for some minutes I sat and smoked, placidly enough.
Then, I suppose a quarter of an hour or so must have elapsed, I began to
fidget in my chair.
The house was so terribly still! Still, but not quite silent! Time, that
was ticking away so rapidly, had a score of small voices. There was the
faint noise of taxicabs out in the Square, the drip of the rain, an
occasional stealthy creak from the furniture, the scurry of a mouse in
the wainscot; the more remote chambers of my brain began to fill with
riot, and once my nerves jerked like a hooked fish.
And even now I do not think it was fear. Terror, perhaps--there is a
subtle distinction--but not craven fear. I think, perhaps, it was more
the sense of something coldly evil that might even now be approaching
through the fog and rain, a lost soul inspired with cunning, hatred, and
ferocity, whom I must meet in deadly contact within a short, but
unknown, space of time....
"This won't do at all!" I thought, and then my eye fell on Mr. Sliddim's
hospitable preparations. I got up, went round to the other side of the
table, put my pistol down upon it, and mixed a stiff peg.
My back was now to the open door, and I was just lifting the glass to my
lips, eagerly enough, I am afraid, when, very softly, something
descended upon each of my shoulders.
I had not heard a sound of any sort, save the gurgle of the aerated
water in the glass, but now a shriek like that of a frightened woman
rang out into the room, and it came from me.
I was gripped horribly by the back of the throat, whirled round with
incredible speed and force, and flung heavily against the opposite wall,
falling sideways into an armchair, gasping for breath and my eyes
staring out of my head.
Then I saw him. Mark Antony Midwinter was standing on the other side of
the table, smiling at me. He wore a fashionable morning coat and a silk
hat. Under his left arm was a gold-headed walking-cane, and he carried
his gloves in his left hand. In the right was the gleaming blue-black of
an automatic pistol, pointed at my heart.
At that, I pulled myself together. In an instant I knew that I had
failed. The brute must already have been in the house when Sliddim
admitted me--he had outwitted all of us!
"Ah!" he said, "Sir Thomas Kirby! You have crossed my path very many
times of late, Sir Thomas, and I have long wished to make your
acquaintance."
His voice was suave and cultured. The rather full, clean-shaved face had
elements of fineness--many women would have called him a handsome man.
But in his dull and opaque eyes there was such a glare of cold
malignity, such unutterable cruelty and hate, that the whole room grew
like an ice-house in a moment; for it is not often that any man sees a
veritable fiend of hell looking out of the eyes of another.
"You have come a little earlier than I expected," I managed to say, but
my voice rang cracked and thin.
"It is a precaution that I frequently take, Sir Thomas, and one very
much justified in the present instance. To tell the truth, I had little
or no suspicion that I was walking into a trap--that much to you! But a
life of shocks"--here he laughed pleasantly, but the little steel disk
pointed at my heart never wavered a hair's breadth--"has taught me
always to have something in reserve. I see that I shall not have the
pleasure of settling accounts with Mr. Gideon Morse and his daughter
to-night. Well, that can wait. Meanwhile, I propose within a few seconds
to remove another obstacle from my path--do you think the mandarin,
Pu-Yi, will be waiting for you at the golden gates, Sir Thomas Kirby?"
So this was the end! I braced myself to meet it.
"How long?" I said.
"I will count a hundred slowly," he answered.
He began, and I stared dumbly at the pistol. I could not think--I could
not commend my soul to my Maker even. The function of thought was
entirely arrested.
"Thirty ... thirty-one ... thirty-two!"
And then I suddenly burst out laughing.
My laughter, I know, was perfectly natural, full of genuine merriment.
Something had happened which seemed to me irresistibly comic. He stopped
and stared at me, his face changing ever so little.
"May I ask," he said, "what tickled your sense of humor?"
What had tickled my sense of humor was this. Stealing round from behind
him, right under his very nose, so to speak, but quite unseen, was an
arm which with infinite care and slowness was removing the heavy
cut-glass decanter from the table. It vanished. It reappeared in the air
behind him in a flashing diamond and amber circle.
"Have some whisky, Mr. Midwinter," I said, as it descended with a crash
upon the side of his head.
Without a sound he sank into a huddled heap out of my sight, hidden by
the table.
"You little devil!" I said, staggering to my feet, for Bill Rolston
stood there, white-faced and grinning. "I had to come, Sir Thomas," he
said, "it wasn't any use."
"Have you killed him, Bill?"
We bent down and made an examination. Midwinter's face was dark and
suffused with blood, but his pulses were all right.
"What a pity!" said Rolston. "Help me to get him on to that chair, Sir
Thomas, and we'll tie him up. If I had killed him, it would have been so
much simpler!"
We dragged the unconscious man to the very armchair where I had sat
under the menace of his pistol, and, tearing the tablecloth into strips,
tied him securely.
"Fortunately," said Bill, "I didn't break the decanter. The stopper
didn't even come out! You look pretty sick, Sir Thomas"--and indeed a
horrible feeling of nausea had come over me, and my hands were
shaking--"let's each have a drink and then I'll tell you what I think."
We sat down on each side of the table, and I listened to him as if the
whole thing were some curious dream. For the second time I had been
snatched from the very brink of death, and though I suppose I ought to
have been getting used to it my only sensation was one of limpness and
collapse.
"Can you do it?" my little friend said, pointing to the pistol between
us.
I took it up, weighed it in my hand, half-pointed it at the stiff,
red-faced figure in the chair, and laid it down again.
"No, I'm damned if I can!" I answered. And then--I must have been more
than half-dazed--I actually said: "You have a go, Bill."
He looked at me in horror.
"Murder him in cold blood! I should never know a moment's peace, Sir
Thomas!"
"Well, you nearly did it in hot, and you've just been tempting me--"
"Let us bring him to, if we can," he said, tactfully changing the
conversation and advancing upon our friend with the siphon of
soda-water.
There was a grotesque horror about the whole of our adventure that
night. I laughed weakly as the soda hissed and the stream of aerated
water splashed over Midwinter's face.
Before the final gurgle he awoke. His eyes opened without speculation.
Then his jaw dropped. For a moment his face was as vacant as a doll's,
and then it flared up into a snarl of realization and hatred, only, in
another instant, to settle down into a dead calm.
"My turn now," I said.
He knew the game was up. I will do him the justice to say he did not
flinch.
"Very well, count a hundred," was his answer, and his eye fell to the
two pistols on the table--his own and mine.