Sylvia was evidently used to her brother’s outbreaks of temper. With a slight gesture she reassured Arthur that he would not be interrupted again; and then she turned to getting the bridge-table arranged. She and Wendover were to play Sir Clinton and Vera Forrest.
“I don’t care much for this room at this time of the evening,” she said, as she took the cards from their box. “The window’s almost level with the ground, and that bank of rhododendrons is so close that it blocks the best part of the view.”
“Not much view left at this time of night, Miss Hawkhurst,” Wendover said, glancing out. “The dusk’s so deep that one can hardly see anything in it now.”
Ernest who had been shuffling about the room in an aimless fashion for a few moments suddenly uttered a complaint.
“It’s very stuffy in here. Don’t you find it so, Sir Clinton? And you, Miss Forrest? It’s a rather hot night. Very close. I do like fresh air; they sometimes laugh at me and call me a fresh air fiend, you know; but I do like a breath of fresh air. Anybody object to the window being opened a bit from the bottom? Let some cooler air in here, then.”
Sylvia looked up from her game.
“We’re right in front of the window, uncle. Perhaps some of us might object to possible draughts.”
But Ernest refused to allow his desires to be sidetracked in this way.
“You don’t object, Miss Forrest? No? And you people don’t, either? You see, Sylvia, nobody minds. I’ll just open it a bit.”
He went forward and threw open the lower sash to its highest range.
“There! That’s much better!” he ejaculated, as he retired to his corner again. “It won’t get so stuffy now. That’ll be a great improvement, you’ll see. I never could stand stuffy rooms. I remember …”
Whatever he remembered was drowned by the loudspeaker. Arthur had at last completed his repairs and the jazz music of the machine filled the room.
“There! That’s all right now,” the mechanic announced at the pitch of his voice in an endeavour to make himself heard. “I’ll just leave it on, if you don’t mind. I want to see if it’s properly fixed up.”
He left the room unobserved by the bridge-players, who were intent on their game. Ernest gave a sour look at the loudspeaker; and after bearing it with obvious distaste for some minutes, he also rose.
“I’m going into the winter-garden,” he explained, as he passed the bridge-table. “I can’t stand the racket that machine makes. It makes my head ache; it gives me a regular piercing pain in the ear to sit near it. I’ll just rest quietly in the winter-garden and come back again when Arthur’s finished with his tinkering at the affair.”
He stooped over Sir Clinton’s shoulder and added in an undertone:
“I’ve been very careful lately. I’ve taken your advice and kept inside the house as much as possible—so as to run no unnecessary risks, you know.”
He nodded with the air of one who confirms a weighty decision and lumbered off out of the room, leaving Sir Clinton staring after him.
“My advice!” the Chief Constable reflected with a certain dry amusement. “Well, I like his cheek in foisting that on to my shoulders!”
Wendover was glad that the bridge precluded much conversation. He felt that Sir Clinton had drawn him into a false position that evening; and he had to exert himself so as not to betray his feelings in the matter. Once they sat down, however, the play turned out very even; and he had not much mental energy left for anything beyond his game, which tended to reconcile him to his visit. Both the girls played better than the average; and he was beginning to forget his dissatisfaction as time went on.
“That’s game and rubber,” said Sir Clinton, at length, as he looked up from the marker lying beside him.
Sylvia glanced at her wristwatch.
“Shall we play another?” she asked. “There’s plenty of time, unless you wish to get away early.”
As she spoke she stretched out her arm to lift the marker; but in the middle of the gesture she gave a sharp cry of pain and started up from her chair. Then, as she mechanically brought her hand down again on to the table, Wendover saw a spurt of blood from her right wrist, and, at its source, the brown feathering of one of the poisoned darts embedded in her white skin.
For an instant the group around the bridge-table was stricken into immobility, while the blood jetted from Sylvia’s wrist and stained the cards across which her hand had fallen. The swift incursion of tragedy upon the scene had taken them unawares. A moment or two earlier they had been sitting in safety, intent upon their game. Then, out of the night the tiny missile had sped to its mark; and the King of Terrors had come among them. There had not even been the warning of the airgun’s report; for it must have been drowned by the noise of the loudspeaker which still continued to pour out its incongruous flood of dance music.
Wendover frozen in his chair, took in the scene almost without knowing that he was observing it; the pain-shot face of Sylvia, the horror in Vera Forrest’s eyes, the trickle of blood across the littered cards, and the cool visage of Sir Clinton as he leaned over the table towards the wounded girl. Then, as he watched, Sylvia’s expression changed. She had seen the poisoned dart in her wrist and now she understood what it meant. Her lips opened as though saying something, then her face grew suddenly white, and she slipped back in her chair.
Sir Clinton rose swiftly and lifted the unconscious girl across the room to one of the couches. Wendover noticed that, even in the haste, the Chief Constable took care to use his own body as a
