The Eight of Swords

Nothing stirred…

Then he moved out of their line of vision, over towards the brick path that lead away in the direction of The Grange. They could hear the low swish-swish of his feet in wet grass; hesitant, exploring.

Silence. Then it was as though the air were full of vibrations; as though they could feel the jerk and gasp he gave. His voice rose, not loudly, but muffled and yet of piercing intensity:

'Come out of there! Come on, step out! No tricks-no tricks, now, by God — yes, I've got you covered-come on—'

The murderer…?

CHAPTER XVII No Longer Bullet-Proof

Hugh's uppermost thought was that he had got to see this, even if he blundered and wrecked all the plans. It occurred to him — where was Inspector Murch? Murch was supposed to be here, in hiding. If by any ironical chance Spinelli had stumbled on Murch in mistake for the man he hoped to meet, there was an end to everything…

He swallowed hard; tried to control his inexplicable trembling; and slid forward boldly into the mouth of the clearing. Mud squished under his foot,' but he paid no attention to it.

Its scrolls and deformities darkened, but its barred windows gleaming almost hypnotically, the Guest House seemed to be watching too. Hugh had a sharp feeling that this was not fancy at all; that it literally was watching, or that somebody was watching in a dead man's place. The cool air struck his face again. He peered to the right, and drew back.

About thirty feet away, back turned towards him,

Spinelli was standing and facing a thick oak tree beside the brick path. His pistol was held close in against his side, to avert its being knocked away.

'Come out,' he was muttering, with a rising inflection that sounded like hysteria. 'I can see your hand— give you just a second more — don't stand there; Fm not going to hurt you; but you're going to pay me, and keep on paying me, get me?'

Some faint words were whispered, too indistinct to be heard at that distance. Hugh dropped on his hands and knees and wriggled closer. Spinelli was backing away, towards a dappling of moonlight.

'Know you?' said Spinelli. For the first time Hugh saw him sway a little; the man was almost blind drunk, and holding himself together on sheer nervous excitement. He lost all caution, and his voice screeched out aloud. 'Know you? What the hell are you trying to do? You try any tricks on me, and see what you get… ' He gulped; he seemed hardly able to breathe. 'I got your gun first last night, or you'd've got me the way you got Nick… '

Closer yet in the long grass… Hugh raised his head. He was touching the brick path, but he had had to circle backwards, sot hat Spinelli was now turned partly sideways to him, and whoever stood behind that oak tree was completely hidden. A dappling of moonlight touched Spinelli's face; he could see the loose mouth, and he even noticed that there was a little colored feather stuck in the man's hatband. Now a voice spoke, very low, from behind the oak. It whispered:

'Thank you, my friend. I thought so. But Fm not the person you think I am. Put up your gun, put up your gun —! Sh-sh!'

Spinelli's hand shook. He lurched a trifle, and tried to rub clear sight into his eyes. Twigs cracked as somebody stepped out.

'You dirty rat—' said Spinelli suddenly. He choked; it was as though he were going to weep as he saw the other person. The word 'rat' had an incredulous, shrill, despairing echo. He took a step forward…

It was pure chance that Hugh looked round then. He wanted to see whether Morgan was behind him. As he craned his neck round, his eyes fell on the house some distance behind Spinelli, and he stared. Something was different about it. Even his vision seemed blurred with doubt, until he realized that the difference was in the line of shimmering windows. There was a half-blank where one of the windows should have been, growing slowly, because one of the windows — that nearest the front door — was being slowly pushed up.

Spinelli did not see it. But the other man, the man behind the oak tree, let out a sound that resembled a gurgling, 'Chua!' followed by a horrible rattling of breath. He jumped forward, seizing Spinelli by the shoulders as though he would hide himself.

From that window there was a tiny yellow spurt, less than a needle flash, but an explosion that shook the moonlight; so shattering in that hush that it was like a blow over the head. Hugh tried to lurch to his feet. He heard Morgan say, 'Chri…!' behind him; but he was conscious only of Spinelli. The man's hat, with its little colored feather, had fallen off. His leg gave; he suddenly began to reel round like one who had been thrown off the end of the line in a game of crack-the-whip; then his other leg buckled; and Hugh saw that the man was being sick at the very moment he pitched forward with a bullet through the brain.

The other man screamed. It blended horribly with a squawking and stirring of birds roused out of the ivy by the crash. His body seemed paralyzed, though with one hand he wildly gestured towards the window as though he would push Death away. He fell on his knees and rolled, kicking; he tried to dive for the underbrush…

Crack! There had been another cool pause, as though the person in the window were taking deliberate aim. The man behind the oak was staggering to his feet just as the bullet took him; he flapped against the bole of the tree, screamed again…

Crack! The cool, inhuman precision of the sniper in the window was adjusted with hideous nicety; he fired at intervals of just five seconds, drawing his sights to a fraction of an inch…

Crack! —

Somebody was thrashing through the underbrush, still screaming. Hugh couldn't stand it. He got to his feet just as Morgan seized his ankle and brought him down toppling. Morgan yelled: 'Don'tbeabloodyfool; hellpickusoffas-we-get-up—! Ah!'

He grunted as Hugh jerked loose. Nobody would have believed that mere birds could have made such a racket; the clearing was alive with their noise, and they wheeled in clouds on the moonlight. Round the side of the house ran a clumsy figure, making indistinguishable noises. It was a wild-eyed Inspector Murch. He ran up the side steps of the porch, waving a flashlight whose beam darted crazily over the house, and he had something else in the other; and even then he was shouting out some nonsensical words about the name. of the Law.

Nobody has a clear recollection of exactly what happened. Morgan gasped something like, 'Oh, all right!' and then he and Hugh were running up the lawn, zigzag fashion, towards the house. Murch's light glared momentarily in the sniper's window, and something jerked back like a toad. The sniper fired high, off j balance, shattering the glass in his own window. They saw it spurt and glitter out against a white mist of smoke and the pot-bellied bars that guarded the window. Then there were more flashes in the smoke, j because Murch forgot police rules, and he was firing in reply. When the three of them came together on the porch, he was dangerously ready to drill anybody he; saw; but Morgan cursed him in time, and prevented a shot as the inspector whirled round. The sniper was gone. All Murch did was stand and shake the bars of j the window, until somebody said, 'Door!' and they all j charged for it.

It was unlocked. But even as Murch kicked it open, a faint bang from another door at the rear of the house i announced which way the sniper had gone…

Five minutes later they were still aimlessly beating the brush, and finding nobody. The only result was that Murch had stumbled on something and broken his flashlight. Not, they silently agreed as they looked at each other, a very dignified spectacle of a man hunt, j Even the querulous birds were angrily dozing off j again. The sharp mist of smoke had begun to dissolve before a shattered window; a breeze had come back-rather complacently, you felt — to the long grasses; and the clearing was quiet. But, from the porch where they

had reassembled, they could see Spinelli's body lying spread-eagled on the brick path near the oak. That was all.

Morgan leaned against the porch. He tried to light a cigarette, shakily. 'Well?' he said.

' 'E can't get away, I tell the'!' insisted Inspector Murch, who was nearly unintelligible from wrath and