For the length of a breath the murderer hesitated; a shifty, furtive look crept into his squinting eyes; his hands closed and opened again, and his arms fell slowly against his sides; and then, with a hoarse sound in his throat, his gross body relaxed, and he half stumbled backwards on his heel.
A hot thrill of exultance surged through Dexter's veins as he realized that he had won; but his voice remained frigid and the expression of his face did not change. "Pick up that table!" he ordered.
A sullen red color surged up over Crill's neck and ears, and his lips drew apart in a wolfish snarl; but something in Dexter's glance schooled him to silence. Without a word he turned on his heel, slouched back across the room, stooped over the table, and turned it back on its four legs.
"All right!" said Dexter, the note of triumph erased from his speech. "Also the dishes, if you don't mind!"
Knowing now that the man would obey him, he turned aside and sauntered across the floor to confront Alison. And it needed but a glance at her frightened, guilty face to tell him what had become of his revolver. He recalled now how she had leaned against him when she gave him his cup of coffee. As he remembered, he had the gun a few minutes before when he sat down at the table. She must have made the opportunity deliberately, and extracted the revolver from his pocket without his knowledge.
He scrutinized her for a moment in grim questioning, wondering what her purpose might have been. Was it her intention to strip him of his only means of defense, and leave him at the mercy of his enemies? The supposition was unthinkable, and with his first glimpse of Alison's eyes he dismissed it as an unworthy and horrible thought. There were two other possibilities: either she wanted the revolver for her own protection, or else she had taken it to get rid of evidence that might some day be used against her.
He knew that she must have the gun concealed about her person, but he dared not try to get it back again, or ask her why she had taken it. His life was an insurable risk only as long as Crill might be kept in ignorance of the truth.
"Your boarders owe you an apology," he remarked with a sardonic smile. "It isn't polite to be jumping up and down from the dinner table. But we'll both try to behave ourselves in the future." Alison was crouching by the fireplace with a smoking skillet in her hand, staring at the corporal with wide, awe-stricken eyes. She had seen him coerce a madman by sheer force of nerve, and the swift frustration of tragedy had left her breathless and trembling.
"If you don't mind," resumed Dexter in faint mockery, "we'll go on with the next course. The loss of the first is irreparable, but we'll try to forget it."
"I—there's enough left in the pot—I can fill your plates again," the girl stammered, and he knew that she had no sense of what she was saying.