Cautiously Quell approached the bed and stood looking down at Hopper. The heavy, snoring breathing continued, and, reassured, Quell began to put the sheet back in place. I watched him, holding my breath, not knowing if Hopper was faking or not. I didn’t know if Quell was just dumb or very brave. He’d have to be completely dumb or have nerves like steel to get as close to this lunatic as he was.
Quell tucked in the sheet and stood away. I saw little beads of sweat on his forehead. He wasn’t dumb, I decided. That made him brave. If I had one, I would have given him a medal.
“He seems all right,” he said more cheerfully. “I’ll give him a shot. If he has a good sleep he’ll be all right tomorrow.”
This suited me, but, for all that, I was worried. No amount of medals nor money would have persuaded me to get that close to the sleeping Hopper.
“You’re taking a chance,” I said. “The needle will wake him. If he gets his hands on you, you’re a goner.”
He turned to stare at me in a puzzled way.
“I don’t understand you at all,” he said. “You don’t behave like a patient.”
“I’m not a patient,” I said solemnly. “I’m Sherlock Holmes: remember?”
He looked sad again and went out. Minutes ticked by. Hopper didn’t move. He continued to snore, his face slack and exhausted.
Quell returned after what seemed hours and couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. He carried a tray covered with a towel.
“Now look,” I said, sitting up. “Suppose you take off my handcuff? Then if there’s trouble I can help you. You seem to be a sensible sort of guy. If he wakes up and grabs you I can hit him over the head.”
He looked at me seriously like a horse inspecting a doubtful sack of oats.
“I couldn’t do that,” he said. “It would be against the rules.”
Well, I had done all I could. The ball was in his corner now, and it was up to him.
“Okay,” I said, struggling. “At least I’ll pray for you.”
He charged the syringe and approached Hopper. I watched, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck rising and my heart beginning to thump against my ribs.
He was a little shaky, but his serious, horse-like face was calm. Gently he pushed Hopper’s pyjama sleeve back and poised the syringe. It was like watching a man fiddling with the fuse of a delayed-action bomb. There was nothing I could do but watch and sweat for him, and I sweated all right, wanting to tell him to hurry up, and for the love of Mike not to stand there like a dummy, but get the thing over.
He was a little short-sighted in spite of his glasses, and he couldn’t see the right vein. His head kept getting closer and closer to Hopper while he peered at the white, sinewy arm. He seemed to have forgotten how dangerous Hopper was. All he seemed to be thinking about was to make a good job of the operation. His face was only about a foot away from Hopper’s when he nodded his head as if he had found the vein he was after. Very gently he laid the side of the needle down on the vein.
I wasn’t breathing now. My hands were clutching at the sheet. Then, just as he was going to plunge in the needle, he drew back with an impatient exclamation and walked over to the tray he had left on the chest of drawers.
My breath whistled in my dry mouth as I said unevenly, “What the hell’s the matter now?”
“I forgot the ether,” he said. “Stupid of me. One should always clean the skin before making a puncture.”
He was sweating almost as badly as I, but he had been taught to use ether before giving the syringe and that was the way he was going to give it: come hell, come sunshine.
Hopper stirred slightly as Quell dabbed on the ether. I was half out of bed with nervous anticipation, and Quell’s hand was unsteady as he began the ghastly hunt for the vein again.
Down went his head within a foot of Hopper’s, his eyes intent on Hopper’s skin.
Suddenly Hopper opened his eyes. Quell was too busy to notice.
“Look out!” I croaked.
As Quell looked up with a stifled gasp, Hopper, moving with the speed of a snake, had him by the throat.
VI
With one furious, violent movement I dragged the heavy sheet off my legs and threw myself out of bed. I had a crazy idea die force of my throw would wrench the bed free so I could drag it across the floor and get at Hopper. But the bed held, and I only succeeded in knocking the breath out of my body.
Quell’s wild yell hit the ceiling, bounced off and burst over me like shrapnel. He yelled again, and then his next yell trailed off into a blood-chilling gurgle as Hopper’s hands cut off his breath.
I didn’t look at them. I was afraid to. The sound of the struggle was bad enough. Instead, I hoisted myself up on the bed, slid to the end and got my free leg over the bed-rail and on to the floor. I was in such a panic I could scarcely breathe, and I was shaking like an old man with the palsy. I stretched towards the chest of drawers. My fingertips just brushed the handles of the top drawer. Behind me came a savage growling noise: a noise like nothing I have ever heard or ever want to hear again. I strained frantically towards the drawer handle. My fingernails got a purchase. I pulled madly away from the handcuff and the skin around my ankle felt as if it was on fire.
My nails hooked into the handle and the drawer opened an inch. It was enough. It gave me just enough purchase to pull the drawer right out so it fell with a crash to the floor. It was full of towels and surgical bandages, and, hanging over the rail I scrabbled madly among the junk, hunting for the key.
A sudden yammering noise behind me sent my blood pressure up, but I didn’t pause in my frantic hunt. I found the key at last between two towels, and, sobbing for breath, I swung myself back on the bed, searching for the tiny lock opening in the cuff. My ankle was bleeding, but I didn’t care about that. I sank the key into the lock, turned it and the cuff came off.
I was off the bed and across the room in one movement. Then I stopped short, took two steps back, and gulped down a sudden rush of saliva into my mouth.
Hopper peered at me over Quells body. He showed his teeth, and I could see his mouth was coated with blood. There was blood everywhere. On the wall behind him, over the sheet, over him and Quell.
Quell lay across the bed: a dummy in bloodstained clothes. His half-open eyes looked at me in glazed horror. Hopper had bitten into his jugular vein. He was deader than a dead mackerel.
“Give me the key,” Hopper said in a forced whisper. “Others shall die tonight.”
I moved away. I thought I was a tough guy, but not now: Malloy the squeamish with cold sweat on his face and a lump of lead in his belly. I have seen some pretty horrible sights in my life, but this little tableau took the Oscar.
“Give me the key or I will kill you, too,” Hopper said, and threw Quells body off the bed on to the floor. He began to creep down the bed towards me, his face working, the blood on his mouth glistening in the soft lamp-light.
A Grand Guignol nightmare this. A dream to tell your friends about; a dream they wouldn’t believe.
I began a slow, backward, circling movement towards the door.
“Don’t go away, Seabright,” Hopper said, crouching on the bed and glaring at me. “Give me the key!”
I reached the door, and, as my hand closed over the handle he let out an unearthly scream of frustrated rage and threw himself off the bed at me. The bed rocked, but held, and his clawing fingers scrabbled at the carpet six feet or so away from me.
I was shaking. I got the door open and almost fell into the passage. As I grabbed the handle to shut it, the horrible animal sound burst out of his throat again.