The Doomsman

by Van Tassel Sutphen

By a supreme exercise of will Constans stopped short of the insanity that impelled him to thunder on the barrier and demand admittance. Yet he must gain instant entrance to the house, and he ran around the terrace to the river portico. As he had expected, the hall-door was fastened, but he had no difficulty in forcing one of the long windows of the drawing-room; he stepped into the dark and empty room and stood listening.

There was perfect silence everywhere, but he could not trust to it—eyes and ears might be in waiting at every turn, and, above all, there was the dog. He wondered that the hound had not already detected his presence in the house, and his pulse thumped at the thought; he fancied that he could hear deep breathing and the oncoming of padded feet.

The minutes passed, and the silence remained unbroken. Then the sense of his cowardice smote him; the jaws of the brute would be preferable to this intolerable inaction, and he went forward through the half-opened door and into the main hall.

This, too, was empty, and, having windows that faced the west, it was sufficiently well lighted by the conflagration to make the fact of its desertion certain. And Constans owed it to the friendly flames that he was once more provided with a weapon. There was a rapier hanging upon the wall, slender and yet strong, of very ancient make; in an instant he had it down and was trying the temper of its blade upon the hearthstone.

The touch of the cold steel was like a tonic; heart and blood responded immediately. Its discovery had been a fortunate chance, for again the illumination in the west died down the final pianissimo before the full crash of the orchestra—and the darkness returned deeper than before.

Constans, with the rapier held shortened in his hand, found his way to the staircase and began the ascent. At the turn of the second landing he stopped, feeling instinctively that there was something in the way. When he could bear no longer to wait and listen, he put his hand down and felt beneath it the smooth, hairy coat of the hound's body. The dog was quite dead, and lying in a pool of her own blood; there was a warm, sickly smell of salt in the air, and Constans's hand was wet when he fetched it away. Who had done this thing, and why?

He went on, with every sense on edge. He could hardly have mistaken his way now, for the door before him stood partly ajar, and there was a light in the room; Constans guessed that it must be the first of the private apartments belonging to Quinton Edge.

He looked in. The room was a large one and luxuriously furnished. An ancient hanging-lamp of brass hung from the ceiling, diffusing a soft radiance; the curtains that concealed the deep window-seat were closely drawn, and, had Constans made his observations with more care, he might have noticed that something moved behind them, an unwieldy bulk that gathered itself as though for a spring.

But he took no account of these smaller things, his eyes being full of Esmay only, and surely that was she who stood there in the shelter of Quinton Edge's arms; now she half turned her head, the better to look into her lord's face, and Constans could trace the outline of her profile—the upper lip, so deliciously short, and the exquisite curve of her throat. His breath came quick as he watched them, and his grasp tightened upon the rapier hilt. So she had deceived him, after all; she had played the traitress from the very beginning. Twice, now, she had smiled into his eyes and sold him for some piece of trumpery—a bracelet of carbuncles or a kiss from Quinton Edge's lips. Well, he could kill them both, and almost at a single stroke, since they stood with their backs to the doorway and were quite unconscious of his presence. But, upon further thought, he determined to wreak positive vengeance on Quinton Edge alone. It was shame to strike a woman, and unnecessary—it would be her punishment to live.

Dispassionately he reviewed his decision and reaffirmed it; it was now the time for action. But he had delayed just a moment too long. Before he could take that first forward step the one who waited behind the window-curtains had passed before him, an ungainly figure of a man, who limped upon one knee and whose black beard fell like a curtain before his cruel mouth and lips—Kurt, whom men called the "Knacker." A knife was in his hand, and he struck once and twice at Quinton Edge.