Thaneford, in quick succession, drank two big cups of the coffee. He did not go through the form of offering me a taste of the beverage, and much as I longed for its comforting ministrations, I was hardly ready to ask the boon of my jailor. Effingham must have been unable to find any of the unsalted pilot bread, for he had provided, in its stead, several rounds of buttered toast and a dish of scrambled eggs. But Thaneford would have none of these forbidden viands. Strange! that he should balk upon the purely academic question of a few grains of salt. But we all enjoy our pet inconsistencies. So he finished the pot of coffee and fell to smoking again, while I continued to speculate, a little grimly, upon the chances of ever getting clear of this infernal coil. Apparently, there was nothing for either of us to do but to go on waiting, waiting.
The hours dragged along and now it was hard upon high noon, as I could see by Thaneford's gold repeater that lay on the desk between us; with an indescribable thrill I realized that he, too, was watching the minute hand as it slowly traveled upward to the sign of the Roman numerals, XII. Unquestionably, some fateful moment was approaching, and yet there was nothing in the physical surroundings to give rise to uneasiness even, let alone apprehension; nothing unless it were the occasional rumble of distant thunder, a sullen drone underneath the pleasant song of the birds and the cheerful humming of bees among the rose bushes.
Through the painted window, depicting the flight of the Hebrew spies, the sunshine poured in full volume, the white light transformed to gorgeous color by the medium through which it passed. One broad bar lay close at hand upon the oaken floor, a riotous splash of red from Rahab's scarlet cord intermingled with purple blotches from the circular bosses that simulated the huge grapes of the Promised Land: I watched the variegated band of color as it crept slowly toward my chair; at present, it lay to the right, but as the sun approached the zenith it swung around, little by little, so as to finally bring my person into the sphere of its influence; now a piercing purple beam struck me directly in the face and I blinked; an instant later and the dazzle had passed beyond; again I saw clearly.
Thaneford had risen, his teeth clenched upon his lower lip, a half cry choking in his throat. Together our eyes fastened on the dial of his watch, where the hands now pointed to eight minutes after twelve o'clock. With one convulsive movement he snatched up the time-piece, and dashed it in golden ruin to the floor; then he sprang toward me, and I knew in another moment those strong hands, with their black-tufted knuckles, would be gripping at my throat.
But that moment never came. On he leaped, lunging straight through the colored stream of sunlight. And then a purple flash seemed to strike fair on his black-shocked head; he reeled and fell. Down at my feet he rolled, his limbs twitching in the death throe; simultaneously came a tremendous crash of thunder, echoing and re-echoing from the straining and cracking walls, while the blazing band of gold and purple and scarlet went out like the flame of a wind-blown candle. I looked up to see Betty's pale face framed in the archway of the secret passage behind the chimney-breast; back of her stood Chalmers Warriner.
Betty had an automatic pistol in her hand, and she kept it trained on the motionless, sprawling figure at my feet. She must have realized that the precaution was unnecessary, but it was all part of the preconceived plan, and she could not have borne to have stood idly by.
Warriner now entered the room, but he did not come directly toward me; on the contrary, he kept close to the wall until he had arrived at a point diagonally behind my chair; then he made his dash, and I could feel my bonds falling apart under the keen edge of the hunting knife that he carried. "Can you walk?" he asked. "Wait and I'll help you."
He dragged me to my feet, and I stumbled back to the wall, holding onto his arm; now the room was in almost complete darkness save for the recurrent flashes of steel-blue radiance from the incessant electrical discharges; the rolling thunder drowned out any further exchange of speech.
Together we crept toward the secret entrance, still hugging the line and angles of the wall. Betty's arms drew me into the sheltering warmth of her breast; now the floor rocked beneath our feet as the lightning bolt sheared through the doomed roof, and the great painted window of the Israelitish spies, bending inward under the pressure of the on-rushing wind, crashed into multitudinous, iridescent ruin, obliterating in its fall the white, twisted face of the man who had been John Thaneford.