Myra said nothing. She simply sat, with staring eyes, and clutched the arms of her chair as though to keep from slipping into some dreadful abyss. Once a low moan escaped from her lips.
“My wife is naturally overwrought by this painful business,” Stephen said. “I trust that you gentlemen will excuse her. … Hadn’t you better go and lie down somewhere, Myra?”
She shook her head violently, moaning again. Both the doctor and the attorney were looking at her curiously.
“Well, I object to being drugged,” Colonel Hampton said, rising. “And what’s more, I won’t submit to it.”
“Albert!” Doctor Vehrner said sharply, nodding toward the Colonel. The pithecanthropoid attendant in the white jacket hastened forward, pinned his arms behind him and dragged him down into the chair. For an instant, the old man tried to resist, then, realizing the futility and undignity of struggling, subsided. The psychiatrist had taken a leather case from his pocket and was selecting a hypodermic needle.
Then Myra Hampton leaped to her feet, her face working hideously.
“No! Stop! Stop!” she cried.
Everybody looked at her in surprise, Colonel Hampton no less than the others. Stephen Hampton called out her name sharply.
“No! You shan’t do this to me! You shan’t! You’re torturing me! you are all devils!” she screamed. “Devils! Devils!”
“Myra!” her husband barked, stepping forward.
With a twist, she eluded him, dashing around the desk and pulling open a drawer.
For an instant, she fumbled inside it, and when she brought her hand up, she had Colonel Hampton’s .45 automatic in it. She drew back the slide and released it, loading the chamber.
Doctor Vehrner, the hypodermic in his hand, turned. Stephen Hampton sprang at her, dropping his drink. And Albert, the prognathous attendant, released Colonel Hampton and leaped at the woman with the pistol, with the unthinking promptness of a dog whose master is in danger.
Stephen Hampton was the closest to her; she shot him first, point-blank in the chest. The heavy bullet knocked him backward against a small table; he and it fell over together. While he was falling, the woman turned, dipped the muzzle of her pistol slightly and fired again; Doctor Vehrner’s leg gave way under him and he went down, the hypodermic flying from his hand and landing at Colonel Hampton’s feet. At the same time, the attendant, Albert, was almost upon her. Quickly, she reversed the heavy Colt, pressed the muzzle against her heart, and fired a third shot.
T. Barnwell Powell had let the briefcase slip to the floor; he was staring, slack-jawed, at the tableau of violence which had been enacted before him. The attendant, having reached Myra, was looking down at her stupidly. Then he stooped, and straightened.
“She’s dead!” he said, unbelievingly.
Colonel Hampton rose, putting his heel on the hypodermic and crushing it.
“Of course she’s dead!” he barked. “You have any first-aid training? Then look after these other people. Doctor Vehrner first; the other man’s unconscious; he’ll wait.”
“No; look after the other man first,” Doctor Vehrner said.
Albert gaped back and forth between them.
“Goddammit, you heard me!” Colonel Hampton roared. It was Slaughterhouse Hampton, whose service-ribbons started with the Indian campaigns, speaking; an officer who never for an instant imagined that his orders would not be obeyed. “Get a tourniquet on that man’s leg, you!” He moderated his voice and manner about half a degree and spoke to Vehrner. “You are not the doctor, you’re the patient, now. You’ll do as you’re told. Don’t you know that a man shot in the leg with a .45 can bleed to death without half trying?”
“Yo’-all do like de Cunnel says, ’r foh Gawd, yo’-all gwine wish yo’ had,” Sergeant Williamson said, entering the room. “Git a move on.”
He stood just inside the doorway, holding a silver-banded malacca walking-stick that he had taken from the hall-stand. He was grasping it in his left hand, below the band, with the crook out, holding it at his side as though it were a sword in a scabbard, which was exactly what that walking-stick was. Albert looked at him, and then back at Colonel Hampton. Then, whipping off his necktie, he went down on his knees beside Doctor Vehrner, skillfully applying the improvised tourniquet, twisting it tight with an eighteen-inch ruler the Colonel took from the desk and handed to him.
“Go get the first-aid kit, Sergeant,” the Colonel said. “And hurry. Mr. Stephen’s been shot, too.”
“Yessuh!” Sergeant Williamson executed an automatic salute and about-face and raced from the room. The Colonel picked up the telephone on the desk.
The County Hospital was three miles from Greyrock; the State Police substation a good five. He dialed the State Police number first.
“Sergeant Mallard? Colonel Hampton, at Greyrock. We’ve had a little trouble here. My nephew’s wife just went juramentado with one of my pistols, shot and wounded her husband and another man, and then shot and killed herself. … Yes, indeed it is, Sergeant. I wish you’d send somebody over here, as soon as possible, to take charge. … Oh, you will? That’s good. … No, it’s all over, and nobody to arrest; just the formalities. … Well, thank you, Sergeant.”
The old Negro cavalryman re-entered the room, without the sword-cane and carrying a heavy leather box on a strap over his shoulder. He set this on the floor and opened it, then knelt beside Stephen Hampton. The Colonel was calling the hospital.
“… gunshot wounds,” he was saying. “One man in the chest and the other in the leg, both with a .45 pistol. And you’d better send a doctor who’s qualified to write a death certificate; there was a woman killed, too. … Yes, certainly; the State Police have been notified.”
“Dis ain’ so bad, Cunnel,” Sergeant Williamson raised his head to say. “Ah’s seen men shot wuss’n dis dat was ma’ked ‘Duty’ inside a month, suh.”
Colonel Hampton nodded. “Well, get him fixed up as best you can, till the ambulance gets here. And there’s whiskey and glasses on that table, over there. Better give Doctor Vehrner a
