A definite fear tormented him. He thought of the curious sleep Elizabeth had fallen victim to in the boarding-house.
"Provided I have not taken some narcotic without knowing it!... Suppose the villains are going to inject into the room some gas which would suffocate me, and I should not know I was breathing it in? Suppose I lose consciousness and slip into death?"
But Fandor drew himself together; he stiffened his will.
Do they know I am in this room waiting to entrap them? Do they think they will find Nanteuil here defenceless? Who was that workman?... I ought to be able to put a name to that familiar face?
How slow, how deadly slow, the tic-tac, tic-tac, of the timepiece? Centuries passed between the striking of the hours!... Would it be to-night?... To-morrow night?... Or ...
On the corridor carpet outside the room, a slight rustling sound, continuous, barely perceptible, caught Fandor's listening ear.... Who was it?... Was it anyone at all?... Was it imagination? He listened intently ... not a sound now.... But, yes ... the same rustling sound ... it was nearer—moving along the wall. Fandor closed his eyes an instant, so vividly did he feel that someone was looking at him through the wall!
Seconds beat by—seconds that might culminate in a moment of horror—seconds passing steadily by in regular succession, sinking into nothingness....
Had someone moved? Were there steps by the door?...
Fandor thought he heard strange sounds all around him, in the room itself! His nerves were tensely strung: he was overwrought. Someone was certainly walking in the corridor!... He had felt a movement along the wall against which his bed stood!
Impossible to hesitate longer! The door knob, which he could not see in the darkness, must have moved.... Fandor sensed this movement as surely as though he himself had placed his hand on the knob....