Altogether, it was not a cheerful situation. Dick, who had borne up capitally so far, now experienced a sinking of spirits. He looked first at the glum figure before him, then at the dingy walls and ceiling, then down into the shadows of the stairway. Seeing nothing that could prop his spirits, he fell to humming “Baby Mine.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” he broke out, interrupting himself; “maybe I'm disturbing your wife?”
There was no answer.
“You're a hilarious old bird,” said Dick.
No answer—nothing but that glum Dutch face.
“Oh, well—go to thunder!”
Not even a gleam of anger disturbed those Dutch eyes. Dick, his feeble struggle over, succumbed to the gloom and was silent. And such silence as it was! The horse, over in the barn, had ceased kicking about; the air was still. The creakings of the old house sounded like the tread of feet. The loud breathing of the person within the closed room could be distinctly heard.
There was a shot outside—then silence—two more shots—again the silence. It is curious how a revolver shot, in the stillness of the night, can be at once startling and insignificant. Curious, because it is not very loud—no deafening report—no reverberation—but merely a dead thud, as if the sound were smothered in a blanket. And yet it was loud enough to raise goose-flesh all over Dick's body and send the creepy feeling that we all know through the roots of his hair, as if a thousand ants had suddenly sprung into being there. At the first report he stiffened up; the second and third met his ears halfway down the stairs. Van Deelen, frightened, bewildered, ran down close after him.
Dick paused at the foot of the steps and looked around. In an instant he made out the familiar figure of Beveridge a dozen yards away. The special agent was standing over a prostrate man, one hand gripping a revolver, the other fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief. The sweat was glistening on his face, his collar and tie hung down his breast, his coat was torn clear across the back.
Dick joined him, and knelt over the man on the ground.