"Captain Drake."
Dr. Lauder's husky voice, impeded as though by too-large a tongue, faltered. "I supped!" he said with great earnestness. "I slipped!"
And he pointed to the gritty asphalt, where there was in fact a long gouge in grit from his right foot. The source of the accident was plain enough.
"But" said Dr. Laurier, fumbling at his pince-nez, "I should not have lunged even half so far. It is incredible. I can't think what made me do it If any of my patients had seen me tonight—" He ran a hand over his long, hollowed face, exploring it in wonder. Then he added, in appeal, just five words.
"My life is very dull," he said.
Martin, however, had become somewhat light-headed with wrath.
"It's quite all right," he said. "But, if you want to play like that I'll teach you how. Give me a hand, Ricky?" "What's up?"
"There were a lot of old medicine-bottles in that room The corks will do as buttons for these rapiers. Bring the light"
Ruth cried out in protest Martin did not want to go into that condemned cell again, where to him the air was like a physical touch of evil. But in comparatively few minutes he might be in a worse place — across the passage — and locked into these rooms at that
He fought it to the back of his mind, while he and Ricky stumbled again over the heap of swords and daggers. More of them clanged and rolled as the light moved. Martin put down his cup-hilt ready to hand.
"Big corks or little corks for the ends of the swords?" demanded Ricky. "There'd be more sport in little ones. If the point—" He paused, and Martin did not reply. They were both looking down at what had been revealed among the scattered swords.
It was an Italian dagger of the sixteenth century, of plain steel for blade, crosspiece, and handle, in a metal sheath of engraved design. It was not so large as we usually imagine such weapons. The blade, shaken almost out of a loose sheath, was so stained with blood that splashes smeared the crosspiece, and somebody evidently had tried to wipe off the lower part of the handle. It was fresh blood.
"Don't touch it!" said Ricky. "They tell you never to…"
"Got to touch it" Martin, far less bothered by this than by the evil old room, lifted it by the top of the dagger and the end of the sheath. He inspected it "Antique," he said. "But—"
"But what?"
The one cutting-edge has been ground to an edge like a razor. The point's just as sharp." He raised his voice. "Both the lawyer and the doctor bad better come in here. Keep Ruth behind you; don't let her look."
There was a long silence, followed by a rush.
Stannard and Dr. Laurier carried the lamps. The former's black eyes were hard with suspicion. Dr. Laurier, dropping the Toledo blade with a clang on the other weapons, seemed miraculously transformed: any of his patients would have recognized him as Martin held out dagger and sheath half-together.
"We found it" Martin told the doctor, "in with the other things. Is that blood — recent?"
"Very." The pince-nez edged round the blade; the long, delicate fingers touched it "I should say," he drew in his cheeks, "within the last half-hour. Of course, it may not be human blood."
"If you're anything of a pathologist?" Stannard suggested. Dr. Laurier nodded as though startled. "Then," Stannard added, "you can discover whether it's human blood in a very few minutes." "A very few minutes?"
"Yes, my dear sir. You and Ruth and Mr. Fleet are going home."
Stannard took a deep breath. He thrust out an elbow and looked at his wrist-watch. Then he smiled.
"It is two minutes to twelve," he told them. "Tune, I think, that Mr. Drake and I drew lots."
Chapter 10
A moment more, and they were all outside again in the passage between the doors: both closed now. The sheathed dagger, wrapped in a handkerchief so that he should not get blood on his clothes, had been thrust into the pocket of a dazed Dr. Laurier.
The tendency towards hysteria was mounting again.
"You quite understand the terms?" Stannard persisted.
"Quite." Martin tried to speak with a careless air, though his nerves were jerking like an alcoholic's. "Whoever wins the toss locks the other in, keeps the key, sits outside, and doesn't let him out until four o'clock — unless he yells for help."
"Exactly!" Stannard beamed. Then he looked at Ricky, and hesitated. "You recall the rope of the alarm-bell? In the condemned cell?"
"Yes. What about it?" snarled Ricky.
"It's very old. It probably doesn't work. But if you should hear the alarm-bell in the night, it will mean we are in serious trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
Stannard nodded towards the door of the execution shed. "Probably that Mr. Drake has gone mad in there," he replied.
"What makes you so infernally sure," demanded Martin, "that I'm going to lose the throw?"
"My luck," Stannard told him. "It never fails."
It was evident that he quite seriously believed this. Self-confidence radiated from him like a furnace; he kept patting his stomach, as though the luck rested there. Then, as he caught Ruth's eye, his tone changed.
"Not that it matters. In humanity, I should like to be the one who is shut up here. It would not, I think, trouble me much. My friend Drake has a disadvantage that will always beat him."
"Meaning what?"
"Your imagination, my dear fellow. You will see nothing, hear nothing; but you will feel. It is only when you imagine you see them crawling up from the gallows trap — men-eating tigers like Hessler and Bourke-Smith and pretty Mrs. Langton — that the brain will crack like a china jug." He turned round. "Have you got the folder of matches, Ruth?" "I have them," said Ruth. "I wish I hadn't" "Turn your back. Tear out one match, and tear off another much shorter. Give us the heads to choose. The short match is the loser."
Suddenly Dr. Laurier threw back his head and laughed, like a clergyman at a funeral. "This is most amusing'" he said. This is really extraordinarily amusing."
Stannard bowed slightly.
"Have you got reading-matter, my dear fellow?" he asked Martin briskly, and produced from his conjuror's coat a pocket edition of the plays of Chekhov. "Come! Let's compare reading-matter!"
Martin took out a pocket edition of stories.
"What's this?" fussed Stannard. '"The Beach at Falisa. Markheim. Thrawn Janet. The Sire de — " His bright black eyes grew, incredulously chiding, then gently chiding. "Come, now! Stevenson!"
"If you," Martin said slowly, "are one of the clod-heads who don't appreciate Stevenson, then' nobody can make you see his fineness of touch. But did you note the title of the first story? It's called A Lodging for the Night."
Stannard handed the book back.. Touché," he said.
Ruth swung round, holding up her hand with the match-heads above her clenched fist The hand trembled slightly.
Only Martin and Stannard wore wrist-watches; these could be heard ticking in the pressure of silence. Martin moistened his lips. Stannard, comfortably smiling, nodded towards the matches.
"Won't you go first, my dear fellow? If not—" "No, you don't!" said Martin.
They both lunged together for a different match. Ricky Fleet, his fists dug so deeply into the pockets of his coat that it seemed to stretch almost to his knees, watched with eyes round and fixed in a kind of incredulous hope. Both contestants, after a glance, opened a hand side by side; and. Ruth expelled her breath.
Stannard had drawn the short match. "Believe me," he said quietly and with evident sincerity, "it is best." Then he became brisk.
"My dear Drake, here is the key to lock the iron door; together with your lamp and, two spare batteries. Mr. Fleet," he indicated a lamp on the floor, "there is your light to guide your party to the main gate. It's a shade past midnight."