And then Desmond knew the game was up.
Barbara had collapsed in her chair. Her face was of an ivory pallor and she seemed to have fallen back into the characteristic hypnotic trance. As for Bellward, he had dropped on to a sofa, a loose mass, exhausted but missing nothing of what was going forward, though, for the moment, he seemed too spent to take any active part in the proceedings. In the meantime Strangwise, his white, even teeth bared in a quiet smile, was very steadily looking at his prisoner.
“Well, Desmond,” he said at last, “here’s a pleasant surprise! I thought you were dead!”
Desmond said nothing. He was not a coward as men go; but he was feeling horribly afraid just then. The deviltry of the scene he had just witnessed had fairly unmanned him. The red and black setting of the room had a suggestion of Oriental cruelty in its very garishness. Desmond looked from Strangwise, cool and smiling, to Bellward, gross and beastly, and from the two men to Barbara, wan and still and defenceless. And he was afraid.
Then Bellward scrambled clumsily to his feet, plucking a revolver from his inside pocket as he did so.
“You sneaking rascal,” he snarled, “we’ll teach you to play your dirty tricks on us!”
He raised the pistol; but Strangwise stepped between the man and his victim.
“Kill him!” cried Bellward, “and let’s be rid of him once and for all!”
“What” said Strangwise. “Kill Desmond? Ah, no, my friend, I don’t think so!”
And he added drily: