He swallowed half a wineglassful of the raw spirit. His eyes were red with fury.
“Take them to the gun room,” he ordered, “three of you to each of them, mind. I’ll shoot the man who lets either escape.”
But Peter and Sogrange were both of them too wise to expend any more of their strength in a useless struggle. They suffered themselves to be conducted without resistance across the white stone hall, down a long passage, and into a room at the end, the window and fireplace of which were both blocked up. The floor was of red flags and the walls whitewashed. The only furniture was a couple of kitchen chairs and a long table. The door was of stout oak and fitted with a double lock. The sole outlet, so far as they could see, was a small round hole at the top of the roof. The door was locked behind them. They were alone.
“The odd trick to Bernadine!” Peter exclaimed hoarsely, wiping a spot of blood from his forehead. “My dear Marquis, I scarcely know how to apologize. It is not often that I lose my temper so completely.”
“The matter seems to be of very little consequence,” Sogrange answered. “This was probably our intended destination in any case. Seems to be rather an unfortunate expedition of ours, I am afraid.”
“One cannot reckon upon men coming back from the dead,” Peter declared. “It isn’t often that you find every morning and every evening paper mistaken. As for the woman, I believe in her. She honestly meant to sell us those papers of Bernadine’s. I believe that she, too, will have to face a day of reckoning.”
Sogrange strolled around the room, subjecting it everywhere to a close scrutiny. The result was hopeless. There was no method of escape save through the door.
“There is certainly something strange about this apartment,” Peter remarked. “It is, to say the least of it, unusual to have windows in the roof and a door of such proportions. All the same, I think that those threats of Bernadine’s were a little strained. One cannot get rid of one’s enemies, nowadays, in the old-fashioned, melodramatic way. Bernadine must know quite well that you and I are not the sort of men to walk into a trap of any one’s setting, just as I am quite sure that he is not the man to risk even a scandal by breaking the law openly.”
“You interest me,” Sogrange said. “I begin to suspect that you, too, have made some plans.”
“But naturally,” Peter replied. “Once before Bernadine set a trap for me and he nearly had a chance of sending me for a swim in the Thames. Since then one takes precautions as a matter of course. We were followed down here, and by this time I should imagine that the alarm is given. If all was well, I was to have telephoned an hour ago.”