"At once," the other answered.
We heard him close the outer door and depart. Then I turned to Louis.
"Louis," I said, "so this is your adventure! This is the way you proposed to make use of me! You got me into that room and drugged me. I was to lie there while you murdered that man with my weapon. Then you would creep away, and in the morning there was I and the dead man! I was to be the tool,—the girl there the lure. It was well worked out, Louis, but it was a coward's plan and a coward's trick!"
I reached out my hand and took him by the collar. I felt as though I were grasping some unclean insect, from whom the sting might shoot out at any moment.
"Have you anything to say?" I asked.
"You do not understand," he said, in a low tone. "I did not mean to put this thing upon you. I meant, perhaps, to disable that man who has just left. If you knew his history and mine, you would not wonder at it. But I meant to see that he was safely removed."
"Then why did you bring me down into that room," I asked, "under a false pretence? Why did you use that murderous cane of mine for your crime? Why did you insist upon it that I should be seen dining with the girl—God knows who she is!—who is in that room?"
"I can explain everything," Louis said. "I am confused! I cannot help it—you came so unexpectedly!"
"Unexpectedly indeed," I answered, "because I poured your whiskey and soda out of the window, and because I took an antidote to your coffee!"
"You speak of things which I do not understand," Louis declared.