Treves watched him as a famished dog watches a bone.
"You don't know what I've suffered, Cherriton—that nursing home, St. Neot's, curse it—it's been hell!"
"You are so clever, Treves, I wonder you didn't get cocaine before?"
"My God, if you knew how I've tried."
Cherriton was standing about a yard away from Treves, with his big chin thrust forward. The expression of his face at that moment would have shot terror into his visitor's heart, if he had lifted his eyes. But Treves was busy. He was pulling back his sleeve, and in another instant he had dug the needle into the flesh of his forearm. His lips tightened as he forced the morphia into his blood. Then he slowly raised his head, a look of ecstatic happiness glowed in his eyes; he drew a deep sigh of contentment.
"A-h-h," he exclaimed.
And Cherriton, who had been standing still as a statue, still as death, moved. The veiled light in his eyes blazed into murder. With swiftness and stealth he whipped the Mauser from his pocket, aimed and fired. His shot passed through Treves's heart.... Before the reverberation had died, he fired into Treves's body a second time, and this time so near was he that the blaze scorched his victim's waistcoat. He had made assurance doubly sure, and his next quick move was to lean forward, blow out the candle, drop his pistol near the body, that had fallen heavily, and fling open the window.
Two minutes later he was speeding swiftly across the yard at the back of the cottage. As he ran a gun-flash from Heatherpoint lifted the darkness for a moment, and again he was enveloped in the surrounding gloom.
Before Sergeant Watson and his three men could reach the door of the cottage, Cherriton had vanished into a clump of trees.
"There's something wrong!" said Watson. "I'm going in." He took Nobby with him, hurried along the path, and knocked at Cherriton's portal.