“As for you, Mr. Jetsam,” continued Carpentaria, “you know, from accounts which have reached me, the precise moral effect of a loaded revolver such as I am now pointing at you. Go into the other corner.”
“I won’t,” said Jetsam. “You can fire if you like. As a matter of fact, you daren’t.”
“You propose to leave the room and defy me?”
“I propose to leave the room.”
“Listen,” said Carpentaria.
He took the trombone and blew on it loudly a few notes which neither Jetsam nor Ilam immediately recognized. But the musicians, who had by this time surrounded the house, recognized them. And at once there entered by the smashed window the solemn and moving strains of the Dead March in “Saul.” The house seemed to be ringed in a circle of awful melody.
Jetsam shuddered.
“Now kindly stay where you are,” said Carpentaria.
And Jetsam stayed where he was, at the foot of the bed, his back to Mrs. Ilam’s prone figure.
The playing continued.