I took it up, weighed it in my hand, half-pointed it at the stiff, red-faced figure in the chair, and laid it down again.
"No, I'm damned if I can!" I answered. And then—I must have been more than half-dazed—I actually said: "You have a go, Bill."
He looked at me in horror.
"Murder him in cold blood! I should never know a moment's peace, Sir Thomas!"
"Well, you nearly did it in hot, and you've just been tempting me—"
"Let us bring him to, if we can," he said, tactfully changing the conversation and advancing upon our friend with the siphon of soda-water.
There was a grotesque horror about the whole of our adventure that night. I laughed weakly as the soda hissed and the stream of aerated water splashed over Midwinter's face.
Before the final gurgle he awoke. His eyes opened without speculation. Then his jaw dropped. For a moment his face was as vacant as a doll's, and then it flared up into a snarl of realization and hatred, only, in another instant, to settle down into a dead calm.
"My turn now," I said.
He knew the game was up. I will do him the justice to say he did not flinch.