“Let Killdare do it. I don’t know you all, you know——”
So I made the count, just as sometimes we did after raids over No Man’s Land. The sheriff and the constable were both present, Mrs. Gentry, the housekeeper, was standing, pale but remarkably self-possessed, at the inner door of the room. Of course I couldn’t count up the blacks. Most of them were evidently hiding in their rooms. And every one of the six guests answered his name.
“There’s just one more name to give,” Nopp said at last.
“But there’s no use naming it,” some one answered in a queer, flat voice. “He’s not here.”
Nopp turned, and bounded like a deer up the stairs. All of us knew what he had gone to do: to see if the missing man was in his room. And there was nothing for us but to wait for his report.
But in a moment we heard his step on the stairs. He sprang down among us, and evidently his fine self-mastery was breaking within him. His fine eyes held vivid points of light.
“My God, he’s gone,” he said. “Not a sign of him.”
“It can’t be true,” Pescini answered.