Some faint words were whispered, too indistinct to be heard at that distance. Hugh dropped on his hands and knees and wriggled closer. Spinelli was backing away, towards a dappling of moonlight.
"Know you?" said Spinelli. For the first time Hugh saw him sway a little; the man was almost blind drunk, and holding himself together on sheer nervous excitement. He lost all caution, and his voice screeched out aloud. "Know you? What the hell are you trying to do? You try any tricks on me, and see what you get… " He gulped; he seemed hardly able to breathe. "I got your gun first last night, or you'd've got me the way you got Nick… "
Closer yet in the long grass… Hugh raised his head. He was touching the brick path, but he had had to circle backwards, sot hat Spinelli was now turned partly sideways to him, and whoever stood behind that oak tree was completely hidden. A dappling of moonlight touched Spinelli's face; he could see the loose mouth, and he even noticed that there was a little colored feather stuck in the man's hatband. Now a voice spoke, very low, from behind the oak. It whispered:
"Thank you, my friend. I thought so. But Fm not the person you think I am. Put up your gun, put up your gun—! Sh-sh!"
Spinelli's hand shook. He lurched a trifle, and tried to rub clear sight into his eyes. Twigs cracked as somebody stepped out.
"You dirty rat—" said Spinelli suddenly. He choked; it was as though he were going to weep as he saw the other person. The word "rat" had an incredulous, shrill, despairing echo. He took a step forward…
It was pure chance that Hugh looked round then. He wanted to see whether Morgan was behind him. As he craned his neck round, his eyes fell on the house some distance behind Spinelli, and he stared. Something was different about it. Even his vision seemed blurred with doubt, until he realized that the difference was in the line of shimmering windows. There was a half-blank where one of the windows should have been, growing slowly, because one of the windows — that nearest the front door — was being slowly pushed up.
Spinelli did not see it. But the other man, the man behind the oak tree, let out a sound that resembled a gurgling, "Chua!" followed by a horrible rattling of breath. He jumped forward, seizing Spinelli by the shoulders as though he would hide himself.
From that window there was a tiny yellow spurt, less than a needle flash, but an explosion that shook the moonlight; so shattering in that hush that it was like a blow over the head. Hugh tried to lurch to his feet. He heard Morgan say, "Chri…!" behind him; but he was conscious only of Spinelli. The man's hat, with its little colored feather, had fallen off. His leg gave; he suddenly began to reel round like one who had been thrown off the end of the line in a game of crack-the-whip; then his other leg buckled; and Hugh saw that the man was being sick at the very moment he pitched forward with a bullet through the brain.
The other man screamed. It blended horribly with a squawking and stirring of birds roused out of the ivy by the crash. His body seemed paralyzed, though with one hand he wildly gestured towards the window as though he would push Death away. He fell on his knees and rolled, kicking; he tried to dive for the underbrush…