They followed him upstairs, and down the upper hall to the rear of the house, where he flung open the door of the guest room, and stood back for them to enter. "There," he said heartily, "make yourselves at home. I'm just going to the kitchen for a minute to see that everything's all right, and I'll be back again in no time."
He departed, closing the door behind him, and Mills throwing himself into an easy chair, gazed around him with approval. The room was old-fashioned and low studded, but comfortably furnished, and the drawn shades and the mellow light from the lamp on the table combined to give it an appearance both homelike and inviting. Blagden, after a similar appreciative glance, followed Mills' example, and both of them, wearied after many days of tense excitement around the ticker, followed by nights of wild carousal, sat in pleasurable silence, their thoughts busied with visions of enjoyment to come.
Presently they heard outside the throbbing of a motor. "There come the ladies," hazarded Mills, but after his surfeit of dissipation, he did not pay their fair companions the compliment of rising from his chair. Nor did Blagden stir. Yet he listened keenly to the sound of the motor, and suddenly observed, "That car wasn't coming, Tubby; it was going. What do you suppose that means?"
"Don't know and don't care," yawned Mills, stretching his huge arms luxuriously above his head, "but I've one fault, though, to find with Danforth's taste. He seems to have a prejudice against ventilation. It's fearfully close in here."
Blagden rose, with just the faintest shadow of anxiety upon his face. "You're right," he agreed. "Let's have some air."
As he spoke, he walked over to the window, snapped up the curtain, and then gave a cry so sharp and so fraught with alarm that Mills involuntarily leaped from his seat, and stood gazing with blanched cheeks at the space where a window should have been, but which, instead, was barricaded by a plate of solid steel. In spite of himself, Mills felt as if the blood had ceased flowing in his veins, and his voice sounded thick and strained as he cried, "What's this? Some fool joke?"
Without a word, Blagden had rushed to the other window, only to encounter a similar barrier. And then suddenly, even in the midst of his excitement, he was aware of a disagreeably penetrating odor in the room. "Tubby," he cried, "it's gas; poison gas! He's trying to murder us. Where does it come from?"
But there was no time to search. Already they began to experience a strange lightheadedness, a singing in the ears, and a numbing heaviness in their limbs. Mills tried the door, found it locked, and terrified and trembling, turned instinctively to his leader. "Blagden," he gasped, "what can we do?" But there came no answer, and he saw that his comrade had fallen and lay motionless upon the floor. Thus thrown upon his own resources, desperation seized him, and a blind fury at the treachery of the man whom they had trusted as their friend. Hastily crossing the room, and mindful of the old savage drill upon the football field, he ran full speed and hurled himself bodily against the door. Before that terrific impact, the wood split and splintered, and Mills, tearing wildly, with torn fingers, at the gap thus made, managed to force an opening--only to see, shimmering in the lamplight, again the glint of polished steel. And now despair, grim and relentless, gripped his heart. To him, who had loved life so ardently, and had lived it so emptily, appeared the shadow of Death. Staggering, helpless, with blood trickling from nose and mouth, he retreated once again; again, with a last flicker of energy, charged the gate of steel; struck it, full force; fell reeling to his knees; tried to rise, tottered, and then, slowly, like some giant tree beneath the woodsman's axe, he crashed headlong, and lay still.