The Old Vengeful

'It's all right, Elizabeth—' he put his hand out towards her, but she tried to shrink farther into the chair, away from him.

He pulled back his hand quickly, and she watched it turn into a fist and almost thought for a moment that he was going to hit her. But instead he dropped it to his side and looked down at the cigarette he was still holding in the other one.

'All right, Miss Loftus. I can understand how you feel.' He flicked the cigarette into the empty fireplace, behind the electric fire.

He couldn't possibly know how she felt, thought Elizabeth.

But there was no point in telling him so. There was only one thing worth saying, though perhaps that was pointless too.

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But she had to say it.

'I'd like you to call the police, Dr Mitchell—the phone's in the study.' She licked her lips. 'Or . . . if you won't. . . then I intend to call them.'

'No.' His eyes left her, switching first to the French windows behind her, then to those on either side of the fireplace. 'No phoning. It isn't necessary.'

'It isn't—?' She stopped as he moved past her, watching him draw the curtains on each of the windows in turn. They had drawn the curtains in the study too, she remembered.

But he was already between her and the door. 'But that was necessary—a necessary precaution.' He switched on the light.

She tried to lick her lips again, but her mouth was dry. 'What do you mean? Why can't I phone the police?'

'Because I am the police, Miss Loftus.'

Elizabeth could feel the heat from the electric fire on her face, but under the raincoat she was shaking now. 'I—I don't believe you.'

He shrugged. 'There are different sorts of policemen. I'm one of the different sorts, that's all.'

His lack of concern angered her—it surprised her that she could be so frightened and yet still also be angry. 'The sort that shoots people, you mean?'

'Or gets shot by them—yes.' He watched her. 'But this time the sort that shoots people—yes again. Fortunately for you dummy3

this time . . . yes?'

Suddenly Elizabeth was half-way to believing him. But she knew that was because she wanted to do so, against all the evidence of what had happened from the moment she had first set eyes on him at the fete. 'But why . . . why . . .' she trailed off.

'Why did I shoot them? It's called 'self-defence', Miss Loftus.' He looked at his watch. 'But if you want me to regret it then I will.'

He was waiting for someone, thought Elizabeth. That was why he was merely talking to her, and not doing anything else.

But what was that 'anything else'? The thought queue-jumped all the other questions which were jostling each other in her head.

'Please—'

He held up his hand to silence her while he concentrated on some other sound. In the distance she heard a car on the road outside, but the sound diminished. 'Yes, Miss Loftus?'

He still had only one ear for her. 'What are you listening for?'

He considered her for a second. 'It's possible that your . . .

visitors were not alone.' He pointed to the curtains. 'Hence the precaution . . . though fortunately your windows are burglar-locked, and I've wedged the back door ... so I don't think we'll be disturbed.'

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'But. . . they got in. 'She heard her voice tremble at the thought of the snake-man having other animals with him.

'But they had all the time in the world—and an unattended house.' He shook his head. 'Don't worry.'

Don't worry? Don't worry! Elizabeth hugged herself even more tightly as the awfulness of her situation possessed her: it wasn't a nightmare—he was here, she wasn't dreaming him, and he was waiting for someone—it was a daymare, and it was real: there was a dead man lying behind the desk in the study— and she dared not imagine what he might have been doing if he hadn't been killed . . . and there was another man desperately wounded, lying somewhere else—

'What about the man you shot—the other man?' She clutched at the only straw she could find. 'Shouldn't you phone for an ambulance?'

'He'll keep for a while,' said Dr Mitchell brutally. 'He's not bleeding to death, and he's a big strong fellow. Have another drink, Miss Loftus—your teeth are chattering.'

Elizabeth watched him pour. 'I'm cold—I'm hot outside, and cold inside ... I don't know that I should—' she looked up at him '—I don't know anything any more, Dr Mitchell... I don't even know if you are Dr Mitchell—who are you?'

'Why not have another try at calling me 'Paul'?'

She drank, and this time it didn't burn her throat.