seen it all before?'
'Oh, no. It is a great honor to get Mr. Kuromi to 'show it off,' as he quaintly calls it.'
'Yes, I should say so,' replied the disillusioned young man with deadly simplicity. 'I quite feel that.'
'J. B. H. is getting strung up,' thought Carrados. 'He may say something unfortunate presently.' So he deftly insinuated himself into the conversation and for a few minutes the commonplaces of the topic were rigidly maintained.
'Care for a hand at auction?' suggested Darragh, joining the group. He had no desire to keep his guests a minute longer than he need, but at the same time it was his line to behave quite naturally until they left. 'Oh, but I forgot – Mr. Carrados-'
'I am well content to sit and listen,' Carrados assured him. 'Consider how often I have to do that without the entertainment of a game to listen to! And you are four without me.'
'It really hardly seems-' began Violet.
'I'm sure Max will feel it if he thinks that he is depriving us,' put in Hulse, loyally, so with some more polite protestation it was arranged and the game began, Carrados remaining where he was. In the circumstances a very high standard of bridge could not be looked for; the calling was a little wild; the play more than a little loose; the laughter rather shrill or rather flat; the conversation between the hands forced and spasmodic. All were playing for time in their several interpretations of it; the blind man alone was thinking beyond the immediate moment.
Presently there was a more genuine burst of laughter than any hitherto. Kato had revoked, and, confronted with it, had made a naive excuse. Carrados rose with the intention of going nearer when a distressing thing occurred. Halfway across the room he seemed to slip, plunged forward helplessly, and came to the floor, involved in a light table as he fell. All the players were on their feet in an instant. Darragh assisted his guest to rise. Violet took an arm; Kato looked about the floor curiously, and Hulse – Hulse stared hard at Max and wondered what the thunder this portended.
'Clumsy, clumsy,' murmured Carrados beneath his breath. 'Forgive me, Miss Darragh.'
'Oh, Mr. Carrados!' she exclaimed in genuine distress. 'Aren't you really hurt?'
'Not a bit of it,' he declared lightly. 'Or at all events,' he amended, bearing rather more heavily upon her support as he took a step, 'nothing to speak of.'
'Here is pencil,' said Kuromi, picking one up from the polished floor. 'You must have slipped on this.'
'Stepping on a pencil is like that,' contributed Hulse wisely. 'It acts as a kind of roller-skate.'
'Please don't interrupt the game any more,' pleaded the victim. 'At the most, at the very worst, it is only – oh! – a negligible strain.'
'I don't know that any strain, especially of the ankle, is negligible, Mr. Carrados,' said Darragh with cunning foresight. 'I think it perhaps ought to be seen to.'
'A compress when I get back will be all that is required,' maintained Carrados. 'I should hate to break up the evening.'
'Don't consider that for a moment,' urged the host hospitably. 'If you really think that it would be wiser in the end-'
'Well, perhaps-' assented the other, weakening in his resolution.
'Shall I phone up a taxi?' asked Violet.
'Thank you, if you would be so kind – or, no; perhaps my own car would be rather easier in the circumstances. My man will be about, so that it will take very little longer.'
'I'll get through for you,' volunteered Darragh. 'What's your number?'
The telephone was in a corner of the room. The connection was soon obtained and Darragh turned to his guest for the message.
'I'd better speak,' said Carrados, he had limped across on Hulse's arm – taking over the receiver. 'Excellent fellow, but he'd probably conclude that I'd been killed… That you, Parkinson?… Yes, at 3155 Densham Gardens. I'm held up here by a slight accident… No, no, nothing serious, but I might have some difficulty in getting back without assistance. Tell Harris I shall need him after all, as soon as he can get here – the car that's handiest. That's – oh, and, Parkinson, bring along a couple of substantial walking-sticks with you. Any time now. That's all… Yes… yes.' He put up the receiver with a thrill of satisfaction that he had got his message safely through. 'Held up' – a phrase at once harmless and significant – was the arranged shift-key into code. It was easy for a blind man to receive some hurt that held him up. Once or twice Carrados' investigations had got him into tight places, but in one way or another he had invariably got out again.
'How far is your place away?' someone asked, and out of the reply a time-marking conversation on the subject of getting about London's darkened streets and locomotion in general arose. Under cover of this Kato drew Darragh aside to the deserted card-table.
'Not your pencil, Darragh?' he said quietly, displaying the one he had picked up.
'No; why?'
'I not altogether like this, is why,' replied the Japanese. 'I think it Carrados own pencil. That man have too many ways of doing things, Darragh. It was mistake to let him phone.'
'Oh, nonsense; you heard what he said. Don't get jumpy, man. The thing has gone like clockwork.'
'So far, yes. But I think I better go now and come back in one hour or so, safer for all much.'
Darragh, for very good reasons, had the strongest objections to allowing his accomplice an opportunity of examining the spoil alone. 'Look here, Katty,' he said with decision, 'I must have you in case there does come a scrimmage. I'll tell Phillips to fasten the front door well, and then we can see that it's all right before anyone comes in. If it is, there's no need for you to run away; if there's the least doubt we can knock these two out and have plenty of time to clear by the back way we've got.' Without giving Kato any chance of raising further objection he turned to his guests again.
'I think I remember your tastes, Hulse,' he said suavely. 'I hope that you have no objection to Scotch whisky, Mr. Carrados? We still have a few bottles left. Or perhaps you prefer champagne?'
Carrados had very little intention of drinking anything in that house, nor did he think that with ordinary procrastination it would be necessary.
'You are very kind,' he replied tentatively. 'Should you permit the invalid either, Miss Darragh?'
'Oh, yes, in moderation,' she smiled. 'I think I hear your car,' she added, and stepping to the window ventured to peep out.
It was true. Mr. Darragh had run it a shade too fine for once. For a moment he hesitated which course to take – to see who was arriving or to convey a warning to his henchman down below. He had turned towards the door when Violet's startled voice recalled him to the window.
'Hugh!' she called sharply. 'Here, Hugh,' and as he reached her, in a breathless whisper, 'There are men inside the car – two more at least.'
Darragh had to decide very quickly this time. His choice was not without its element of fineness. 'Go down and see about it, Katty,' he said, looking Kato straight in the eyes. 'And tell Phillips about the whisky.'
'Door locked,' said the Japanese tersely. 'Key other side.'
'The key was on this side,' exclaimed Darragh fiercely. 'Hulse-'
'Hell!' retorted Beringer expressively. 'That jacket doesn't go out of the room without me this journey.'
Darragh had him covered before he had finished speaking.
'Quick,' he rapped out. 'I'll give you up to three, and if the key isn't out then, by God, I'll plug you, Hulse! One, two-'
The little 'ping!' that followed was not the automatic speaking, but the release of the electric light switch as Carrados, unmarked among this climax, pressed it up. In the absolute blackness that followed Darragh spun round to face the direction of this new opponent.
'Shoot by all means, Mr. Darragh, if you are used to firing in the dark,' said Carrados' imperturbable voice. 'But in any case remember that I am. As I am a dead shot by sound, perhaps everyone had better remain exactly where he – or she, I regret to have to add, Miss Darragh – now is.'
'You dog!' spat out Darragh.
'I should not even talk,' advised the blind man. 'I am listening for my friends and I might easily mistake your motive among the hum of conversation.'
He had not long to wait. In all innocence Phillips had opened the door to Parkinson, and immeasurably to his surprise two formidable-looking men of official type had followed in from somewhere. By a sort of instinct – or
