An expression of disgust crossed his face. He thought, it seemed, that my visitor was of the fair sex.
"I would not disturb you for the world," he muttered with sarcasm, "but what of your money?"
"Oblige me by keeping it until to-morrow."
"As you will; good-night, monsieur." He shrugged his shoulders and departed, his whole bearing expressive of contempt. No doubt he considered me a liar, since I had railed against womankind quite as bitterly as he had done not many hours before.
I could not, however, afford to waste thought on him, for I had much to do. Stripping off my evening clothes, I speedily changed into a suit of dark brown tweed, and drew on my feet a pair of felt-soled shoes. Having armed myself with a large sum of money and a loaded revolver, I stole softly out of the room. While locking the door behind me I heard a distant sigh. Swinging round I peered in the direction of the sound, and for a fleeting fragment of a second saw a face at the far end of the corridor. It vanished so swiftly, however, that I had no time to register its impression on my mind, and a moment later I doubted that I had seen anything. The corridor was deserted absolutely save for myself. I waited for a few silent minutes, then, reassured, made my way to the street. A fiacre drove me to the Boulevard Poissonière, where, having alighted, I walked to the Rue D'Enghien, and as the clocks were chiming the hour after midnight, I arrived before my place of destination, the house that contained my enemy. Without pausing an instant, I climbed the steps and noiselessly inserted Jussieu's latch-key into the lock of the front door. It yielded, the door opened with a slight creak, and I crossed the threshold. I found myself in a wide but dimly lighted hall. It was carpeted with cocoanut matting. Doors crowded its sides, all closed. Before me was a staircase, whose steps were composed of slate, which had been worn away in the middle, as if by centuries of footfalls. I was about to mount when of a sudden a strange wonder caught me and I paused. Until that moment blind hate had controlled my actions and carried me where I stood. But now I asked myself the question: "Agar Hume, what will you do? Is it murder that you contemplate?"
It was a fearful thought, and I shuddered as it came. But I could not answer it. I had never known so little of myself. In mind and body I was alert, expectant, calm. But there was that in me which I could not understand, a malignant remorseless spirit which had possession of my faculties, and which declined to be questioned or displaced. At its command I ceased to speculate, and began instead to listen. The house was as silent as a tomb. Some power beyond my cognizance presently plucked at my feet, and I found myself mounting the stairs. I remember passing one door and turning the handle of a second. Then I was in a room, dark as Erebus, creeping towards a bed, upon which lay an unseen sleeper, whose long, deep respirations guided my stealthy movements. What ensued appeared even then like nothing so much as the happenings of some wild and fevered dream. I paused beside the bed and my hands, drawn by an irresistible power, glided light as feathers across the coverlid, across a man's sleeping form, unto his throat. There they settled and took hold. I heard a strangled groan. A sudden bright light filled the room, and Sir Charles Venner's livid outstarting eyes glared into mine. His arms encircled me. With an almost super-human strength he writhed beneath me from the bed, and we fell together with a full but heavy crash upon the floor. With a fierce and terrible satisfaction I watched his face blacken and swell, his tongue thicken and protrude from his ghastly open mouth. Before, however, I could kill him, a warning step and a loud cry sounded from the door. Quick as lightning I sprang erect and turned. The negro surgeon, Beudant, Jussieu's companion, was rushing towards me, an uplifted bar of iron in his hand to strike. I eluded him, and, springing to the fireplace, seized a poker. I had quite forgotten my revolver. For a moment we fenced like swordsmen with our curious weapons, speaking no word, but striking heavily and warding, filling the place with the loud clang of steel. He played so well that I could not reach his skull. But soon I remembered having read in some old book of travel that a negro's vulnerable point is his shin. Clenching my teeth I made a ferocious feint at his head. He riposted, as with a rapier, at my shoulder, but I disregarded utterly so poor a thrust, since his bar was blunt, and I brought my weapon down with a sweeping swish across his outstretched knee. He uttered a wild shriek and, dropping his bar, sank to the floor, howling dismally. Only then I remembered my pistol. Snatching it forth I held it to his head. "Stop that noise, or die!" I muttered savagely. He obeyed, but not for longer than a second was I permitted to remain master of the situation.
"Drop that pistol, villain," cried a voice from the doorway.
Two men had entered the room before I was aware of it, Dr. Vernet and Dr. Fulton. Dr. Vernet wore a shortish nightgown, from beneath which his lean, attenuated shanks humorously twinkled. He seemed extremely excited, and he moved the weight of his body from one foot to the other constantly and very quickly. Dr. Fulton was attired in a suit of pyjamas, and he too was excited, though he showed it less reservelessly. Both men were armed with revolvers, which they pointed at my breast. Glancing down the muzzles of their weapons, I allowed my own to drop to the floor. It would have been madness to do otherwise. Strange to relate, at that instant, I became once more my own master. The malignant spirit of unreasoning hate, which had so far governed my conduct, of a sudden left me, and I was able to realize to the full the mad folly into which it had driven me. My captors had only to hand me over to the police as an apprehended housebreaker—an attempted assassin, and nothing that I might do could save me from a long term of imprisonment. My very spine went cold at the idea. I looked hard at Dr. Fulton, and saw that he was on the point of recognizing me.
"Why, it's Brown, Dagmar's valet!"
I had an inspiration. "Better any fate," thought I, "than a French prison."