It crashed in like so much kindling, and a second later, white to the very lips, he was in the room, facing MacNutt.
In his hand he held his revolver. It was of blue metal, with the barrel sawed off short. It had once been carried by a Chinaman, and had figured in a Mock Duck Street feud, and had been many times in pawnshops, and had passed through many hands.
As he faced the man he was going to kill it flitted vaguely through Durkin’s mind that somebody—he could not remember who—had said always to shoot for the stomach—it was the easiest, and the surest. He also remembered that his weapon had a rifled barrel, and that the long, twisting bullet would rend and tear and lacerate as it went.
“Before I kill you,” he heard himself saying, and the quietness of his voice surprised even his own ears, “before I kill you, I want to know, once for all, just what that woman is to you.”
The other man looked vacantly down at the pistol barrel, within six inches of his own gross stomach. Then he looked at his enemy’s face. A twitching nerve trembled and fluttered on one side of his temple. Only two claret-colored blotches of color remained on his otherwise ashen face.
“For the love of God, Durkin, don’t be a fool!”
MacNutt’s fingers were working spasmodically, and his breath began to come wheezily and heavily.
“I’m going to kill you!” repeated Durkin, in the same level monotone. “But what is that woman to you?”
MacNutt was desperately measuring chance and distance. There was not the shadow of escape through struggle.
“It’s murder!” he gasped, certain that there was no hope.