As he confronted Carter he began to unbutton his overcoat, deliberately at first, then more swiftly as he saw the expression in his enemy’s eyes.
White as a corpse, Carter said something to him he did not understand as his hand closed on the pistol sagging in his coat pocket.
Then he saw a pistol in Carter’s hand; felt a terrific blow in the stomach that knocked him against the brick wall behind him.
As he slid down to a sitting posture, all darkness seemed crashing down around him. And through the rushing chaos he freed his pistol and fired at a grey blur above him,—fired again as sight failed in his dying eyes,—lay very still there in the rain....
Eris, aglow from her shower bath, began to realise it was time to hurry.
In her clothes press she rummaged feverishly, selecting the freshest of last season’s dinner-gowns,—an orchid-mauve affair with touches of violet and silver,—very charmingly calculated to enhance her chestnut hair and slender, milk-white beauty.
Now she really must hurry—for the mantel-clock had run down weeks ago and her wrist-watch was broken, and she had that deliciously guilty feeling which is entirely and constitutionally feminine—the sensation of being awaited by love impatient and probably adorably out of temper.
To see whether it still was raining she ran to the window. The street seemed to be full of movement and noise—shrill voices, people running, a throng in the rain surging, ebbing, scattering as an ambulance clanged into the street from Greenwich Avenue.
A second’s hesitation, then she lowered the shade, ran to her closet for a cloak and umbrella, opened the outer door, switched off every light, and hurried downstairs.