Part 39 (2/2)

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-gla.s.s decanter from the table. It vanished. It reappeared in the air behind him in a flas.h.i.+ng 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 d.a.m.ned 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.

I shook my head. ”I can't do it--I wish I could!”

”You'll find it quite easy--I speak from experience,” he replied, with a desperate, evil grin.

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