“Why did he come here?” she asked, hiding the sickening sight with her hands before her eyes. “He swore he would not. This is horrible!”
“Come, Janet, come,” remonstrated Fair, seizing her again. “It’s past seven, and they will be here presently. My God, can’t you see what this means? He’s dead!”
“Oh, don’t, don’t,” she cried, shuddering as if the truth burned her brain. “Ugh! See!” she gasped as she caught sight of a splash of red on her gown.
“Yes, and you stand here! Are you mad?” muttered Fair, pushing her to the door. “Go, now, and change—and be careful what you do with that dress. Hark! There’s the bell now. Remember, until they go, you must betray no feeling. Are you great enough to do this? You won’t fail me?”
“Anything, Maxwell, for your sake—but you—what will you do with—that?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at the thing as if it fascinated her.
“Leave everything to me,” he answered, pulling her chin around so that she could not see. “I assume all. Remember, girl, it was I, do you understand? Go!”
When he had finally closed the door upon her, he gave way to his agony—but only for a moment. With a quietness and rapidity that seemed to astonish even himself he placed the pistol upon the library-table, locked both of the doors, drew the heavy red velvet curtains across the window and, bending over the fallen man, critically examined him.
Satisfied that life was extinct, he pulled the body over to the fireplace, beside which, at right angles to the side of the room, there stood a large Italian chest with a very high carved back. Into this chest Fair lifted the limp body of the man and thoughtfully placed a number of heavy books and magazines upon it. Then carefully glancing about the room and noticing no evidences of the crime, he sat down, wiped his brow, and closing his eyes, tried to let the stupendous facts of the last five minutes become realities to his mind—to formulate some practical line of action in the future which those five minutes had so fatally revolutionized.
The way that he started at a respectful tap at the library door showed him what a terribly changed man he already was, and it was with a petulant, unnatural voice that he shouted: “Well? That you, Baxter?”
“A man, sir, who insists upon seeing you, sir,” answered Baxter, Fair’s old butler, whom he had inherited with the estates and furniture, felt grateful to as a faithful servant, and tolerated as an incompetent old bore.