Dale had intimated that the girl was his mistress. Well, he was bound to acknowledge that Dale had good taste in such matters, anyway.
The expression of Maison's face was not good to see; there was a glow in his eyes that, had Peggy seen it, would have frightened her.
And if Maison had been less interested in Peggy, and with his thoughts of Dale, he would have heard the slight sound at the door; he would have seen Ben Nyland standing there in the deepening dusk, his eyes aflame with the wild and bitter passions of a man who had come to kill.
Maison did not see, nor did he hear until Ben leaped for him. Then Maison heard him, felt his presence, and realized his danger.
He turned, intending to escape down the other stairway. He was too late.
Ben caught him midway between the bed and the door that opened to the stairway, and his big hands went around the banker's neck, cutting short his scream of terror and the incoherent mutterings which followed it.
Peggy Nyland had been suffering mental torture for ages, it seemed to her. Weird and grotesque thoughts had followed one another in rapid succession through her brain. The thing had grown so vivid—the horrible imaginings had seemed so real, that many times she had been on the verge of screaming. Each time she tried to scream, however, she found that her jaws were tightly set, her teeth clenched, and she could get no sound through them.
Lately, though—it seemed that it had been for hours—she had felt a gradual lessening of the tension. Within the last few hours she had heard voices near her; had divined that persons were near her. But she had not been certain. That is, until within a few minutes.
Then it seemed to her that she heard some giant body threshing around near her; she heard a stifled scream and incoherent mutterings. The thing was so close, the thumping and threshing so real, that she started and sat up in bed, staring wildly around.
She saw on the floor near her two men. One had his hands buried in the other's throat, and the face of the latter was black and horribly bloated.