In silhouette against the light, his slight and supple form was unmistakable to one who had seen it before, even though his face was disfigured by a scant black visor across his eyes and the bridge of his nose.
He was Red November.
He was Red November.
What P. Sybarite would have done had he been armed is problematical. What he did was remain moveless, even as he was breathless and powerless, but for his naked hands, either for offence or defence. For that November was armed was as unquestionable as his mastery of the long-barrelled revolver of blue steel (favoured by gunmen of the underworld) which he held at poise all the while he carefully surveyed his line of retreat.
At length, releasing the curtain, the gang leader hopped lightly out upon the grating, and disappeared.
In another breath P. Sybarite himself was at the window. A single glance through the curtains showed the grating untenanted; and boldly poking his head forth, he looked down to see the figure of the gunman, foreshortened unrecognisably, moving down the iron tangle already several flights below, singularly resembling a spider in some extraordinary web.
Incontinently, the little man ran back through the dining-room and down the private hall, abandoning every effort to avoid a noise.
No need now for caution, if his premonition wasn't worthless—if the vengeful spirit of Mrs. Inche had not stopped short of embroiling son with father, but had gone on to the end ominously shadowed forth by the appearance of the gunman in those rooms....
What he saw from the threshold of the lighted room was Bayard Shaynon still in death upon the floor, one temple shattered by a shot fired at close range from a revolver that lay with butt close to his right hand—carefully disposed with evident intent to indicate a case of suicide rather than of murder.