Steadying the black silk curtains with his hands, he looked through the narrow chink where the two panels met. And this was what he saw.
Barbara Mackwayte was still in the chair; but they had unfastened her arms though her feet were still bound. She had half-risen from her seat. Her body was thrust forward in a strained, unnatural attitude; her eyes were wide open and staring; and there was a little foam on her lips. There was something hideously deformed, horribly unlife-like about her. Though her eyes were open, her look was the look of the blind; and, like the blind, she held her head a little on one side as though eager not to miss the slightest sound.
Bellward stood beside her, his face turned in profile to Desmond. His eyes were dilated and the sweat stood out in great beads on his forehead and trickled in broad lanes of moisture down his heavy cheeks. He was half-facing the girl and every time he bent towards her, she tugged and strained at her bonds as though to follow him.
“You say he has been here. Where is he? Where is he? You shall tell me where he is.”
Bellward was speaking in a strange, vibrating voice. Every question appeared to be a tremendous nervous effort. Desmond, who was keenly sensitive to matters psychic, could almost feel the magnetic power radiating from the man. In the weird red light of the room, he could see the veins standing out like whipcords on the back of Bellward’s hands.
“Tell me where he is? I command you!”
The girl wailed out again in agony and writhed in her bonds. Her voice rose to a high, gurgling scream.
“There!” she cried, pointing with eyes staring, lips parted, straight at the curtains behind which Desmond stood.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
AN OFFER FROM STRANGWISE
Desmond sprang for the window; but it was too late. Strangwise who had not missed a syllable of the interrogatory was at the curtains in a flash. As he plucked the hangings back, Desmond made a rush for him; but Strangwise, wary as ever, kept his head and, drawing back, jabbed his great automatic almost in the other’s face.