“I thought I smelt smoke,” said Tarlyon. “Might be cigarette smoke.”
“It is,” I snapped, for I was smoking a Turkish cigarette just behind his ear.
“You blasted fool!” said Antony—and with such contempt behind it that from being bored I got annoyed. I stretched out my hand on the inside of the library door and switched on the light.
“Turn that out, you fool!” came a frantic roar, and I had a vision of a red giant murdering the distance between us. I’ve never thanked God for anything so much as for having directed the body of George Tarlyon to be standing between Red Antony and myself. I turned off the light quick enough.
“Steady, Antony, steady!” said Tarlyon.
“Oh, go to hell!” growled Antony.
I thought to myself that we couldn’t be very far from it at the moment. But the spell, or smell, it seemed, was broken. I was thankful for that, anyway.
Back in the lighted dining-room Antony emptied his glass and grinned at me rather shamefacedly.
“Sorry, old boy,” he said. I grinned back, as though I had enjoyed it.
Tarlyon asked suddenly: