Priam’s wheelchair was in its bed position, made up for the night. He lay on his back, motionless, beard jutting obliquely to the ceiling.
Nothing happened for several minutes.
Then there was the slightest metallic sound.
The night light was in an electric outlet in the wainscoting near the door which led into the hall. They saw the doorknob clearly; it was in motion. When it stopped, the door began to open. It creaked. Came to rest.
Priam did not move.
The door opened swiftly.
But the night light was beyond the doorway and when the door swung back to the farther wall it cut off most of the slight glow. All they could make out from the terrace was a formless blackness deeper than the darkness at the rear of the room. This gap in the void moved steadily from the doorway to Roger Priam’s chair-bed. A tentacular something projected before it. The projection swam into the outermost edge of the night light’s orbit and they saw that it was a revolver.
Beside Priam’s chair the moving blackness halted.
The revolver came up a little.
Keats stirred. It was more a tightening of his muscles than a true movement; still, Ellery’s fingers clamped on the detective’s arm.