The same uncanny silence greeted his entrance. He drew himself upright, rubbing his bruised shoulder, and embarked on what from Bertrand's account was truly the grimmest game of Blind Man's Buff. With the muscles of his back and arms braced to resist an attack, he advanced slowly with arms outstretched and body bent, like a foot-ball player waiting to collar his man. In the first half of the room his groping hands touched only the familiar tables and chairs, but with every yard forward he was uncovering a retreat for the adversary. Retracing his steps, he kicked the door closed, pushed a bed against it and advanced once more towards the window. In the unbroken silence he had to keep stopping suddenly for a half-heard sound of hurried breathing, but his own pulses were hammering so loudly that he could not trust his ears. Nearer and nearer to the window he crept, until an unnamed sense told him that he was within touch of a human body; as he paused, there was a shiver followed by a sharp intake of breath; someone's nerves were breaking under the ordeal. The waving arms swept forward and closed on a woman's shoulders.
"Sonia!" he panted and could say no more.
For a moment longer the silence continued; then from behind her came the foot-shuffle of the man whom she had been shielding. O'Rane's hands dropped, and he sprang beyond her, only to bark his knuckles on the wall, as his unseen quarry doubled and ran; there was an instant's vague chase, the sound of a lame man sparing his injured leg, the squeak of rolling castors, as the bed was dragged back from the door, a scratching for the handle that was no longer there and finally the echoing slam of the door itself. O'Rane sprawled once more on the floor, as his foot met a rucked billow of carpet; the hurried limp grew distant and faded; there followed the slam of a second door, and the house returned to its afternoon silence.
What either found to say to the other neither Bertrand nor I had any means of guessing.
"She's gone," he told me hollowly. "I saw her driving away, as I came back from the House—just before we sent for you. O'Rane was standing in the middle of the library like a—like a man in catalepsy. George came in a moment later, and we had the story as I've given it to you." He paused and breathed deeply. "I'm getting too old for this sort of thing, Stornaway; my—my brain strikes work at a time like this, you must tell me what we've got to do. There'll be murder, if he ever gets his hands on Beresford, and we've got to stop that. I'd murder the fellow myself, if I could, but we can't have David hanging for him. And we must do something for David."
With a quavering hand he picked up the tumbler from the table by his side and sipped its contents mechanically. His eyes were half-closed, and his mind at least was asleep with very exhaustion. My own worked feverishly with utter want of concentration. I told myself that I might have expected this after my surprise meeting in Beresford's flat, that it had been going on for Heaven knows how many weeks; then that none of this was to the point, that O'Rane was in a bath of liquid fire, that something must be done; lastly—yet my first thought and appreciation—that none of us knew what to do, that nothing could be done.
I have no idea how long I stood staring at Bertrand's shrunken face and closed eyes. Death had left his fingerprints on the big, self-indulgent face when the old man had his stroke at the beginning of the war. I remember wondering how many more rounds he would survive.... Yet he had lived fully, powerfully and pleasurably for more than his allotted span; young O'Rane was little more than thirty and he had already undergone what would have broken men of less heroic spirit.
Instinctively I moved towards the door, and at the slight sound Bertrand opened his eyes and asked what I was going to do.