"It's all right," the voice said; I’ve been watching. May I come along? You might need help."
The almost inaudible whispering ceased. Turning softly, Hugh saw that his back was directly against the gate in the hedge round Morgan's house. A fugitive spark of moonlight struck Morgan's glasses. He was leaning over the gate, invisible except for that. Hugh bent his shoulders to indicate an assent, and risked a whisper for silence. He wanted company. To his strained nerves he thought the gate creaked perceptibly as Morgan vaulted it, and landed on tennis shoes in the wet grass outside.
No; it was another gate creaking, a little way up the wall. Spinelli had found the entrance to the Guest House in the boundary wall. They could hear his foot scraping in coarse grass; he was striking a match now, and propping the gate open. A good job. With Morgan following, Hugh went down on his hands and knees to dark across the moon-splashed road; he dodged into the shelter of the wall, breathing hard. The touch of rough stone was reassuring. Then they worked their way up and through the gate…
A momentary uneasiness gripped him. He could not see or hear Spinelli now. Damp trees overhung the path, and seethed faintly; the clouded moon could not penetrate, and only distorted the darkness. There were queer strands of cobweb floating across the path; they caught in your mouth as you moved. Hugh felt Morgan poke him in the back, and he crept on up in this wild game of hide-and-seek, up an endless path under the trees… The end of it came abruptly, at a turn. There was the clearing, with the fantastically ugly house in the middle. Its barred windows were gleaming dully. And they saw Spinelli again.
He had come out into the clearing, slowly, and this time he had the pistol in his hand. He was.bracing himself against a sundial, moving the gun about in a slow circle as though he were searching the whole open space. Nothing stirred…
Then he moved out of their line of vision, over towards the brick path that lead away in the direction of The Grange. They could hear the low swish-swish of his feet in wet grass; hesitant, exploring.
Silence. Then it was as though the air were full of vibrations; as though they could feel the jerk and gasp he gave. His voice rose, not loudly, but muffled and yet of piercing intensity:
"Come out of there! Come on, step out! No tricks-no tricks, now, by God — yes, I've got you covered-come on—"
The murderer…?
CHAPTER XVII
No Longer Bullet-Proof
Hugh's uppermost thought was that he had got to see this, even if he blundered and wrecked all the plans. It occurred to him — where was Inspector Murch? Murch was supposed to be here, in hiding. If by any ironical chance Spinelli had stumbled on Murch in mistake for the man he hoped to meet, there was an end to everything…
He swallowed hard; tried to control his inexplicable trembling; and slid forward boldly into the mouth of the clearing. Mud squished under his foot,' but he paid no attention to it.
Its scrolls and deformities darkened, but its barred windows gleaming almost hypnotically, the Guest House seemed to be watching too. Hugh had a sharp feeling that this was not fancy at all; that it literally was watching, or that somebody was watching in a dead man's place. The cool air struck his face again. He peered to the right, and drew back.
About thirty feet away, back turned towards him,
Spinelli was standing and facing a thick oak tree beside the brick path. His pistol was held close in against his side, to avert its being knocked away.
"Come out," he was muttering, with a rising inflection that sounded like hysteria. "I can see your hand— give you just a second more — don't stand there; Fm not going to hurt you; but you're going to pay me, and keep on paying me, get me?"
Some faint words were whispered, too indistinct to be heard at that distance. Hugh dropped on his hands and knees and wriggled closer. Spinelli was backing away, towards a dappling of moonlight.
"Know you?" said Spinelli. For the first time Hugh saw him sway a little; the man was almost blind drunk, and holding himself together on sheer nervous excitement. He lost all caution, and his voice screeched out aloud. "Know you? What the hell are you trying to do? You try any tricks on me, and see what you get… " He gulped; he seemed hardly able to breathe. "I got your gun first last night, or you'd've got me the way you got Nick… "
Closer yet in the long grass… Hugh raised his head. He was touching the brick path, but he had had to circle backwards, sot hat Spinelli was now turned partly sideways to him, and whoever stood behind that oak tree was completely hidden. A dappling of moonlight touched Spinelli's face; he could see the loose mouth, and he even noticed that there was a little colored feather stuck in the man's hatband. Now a voice spoke, very low, from behind the oak. It whispered:
"Thank you, my friend. I thought so. But Fm not the person you think I am. Put up your gun, put up your gun—! Sh-sh!"
Spinelli's hand shook. He lurched a trifle, and tried to rub clear sight into his eyes. Twigs cracked as somebody stepped out.
"You dirty rat—" said Spinelli suddenly. He choked; it was as though he were going to weep as he saw the other person. The word "rat" had an incredulous, shrill, despairing echo. He took a step forward…
It was pure chance that Hugh looked round then. He wanted to see whether Morgan was behind him. As he craned his neck round, his eyes fell on the house some distance behind Spinelli, and he stared. Something was different about it. Even his vision seemed blurred with doubt, until he realized that the difference was in the line of shimmering windows. There was a half-blank where one of the windows should have been, growing slowly, because one of the windows — that nearest the front door — was being slowly pushed up.
Spinelli did not see it. But the other man, the man behind the oak tree, let out a sound that resembled a gurgling, "Chua!" followed by a horrible rattling of breath. He jumped forward, seizing Spinelli by the shoulders as though he would hide himself.
From that window there was a tiny yellow spurt, less than a needle flash, but an explosion that shook the moonlight; so shattering in that hush that it was like a blow over the head. Hugh tried to lurch to his feet. He heard Morgan say, "Chri…!" behind him; but he was conscious only of Spinelli. The man's hat, with its little colored feather, had fallen off. His leg gave; he suddenly began to reel round like one who had been thrown off the end of the line in a game of crack-the-whip; then his other leg buckled; and Hugh saw that the man was being sick at the very moment he pitched forward with a bullet through the brain.
The other man screamed. It blended horribly with a squawking and stirring of birds roused out of the ivy by the crash. His body seemed paralyzed, though with one hand he wildly gestured towards the window as though he would push Death away. He fell on his knees and rolled, kicking; he tried to dive for the underbrush…
Crack! There had been another cool pause, as though the person in the window were taking deliberate aim. The man behind the oak was staggering to his feet just as the bullet took him; he flapped against the bole of the tree, screamed again…
Crack! The cool, inhuman precision of the sniper in the window was adjusted with hideous nicety; he fired at intervals of just five seconds, drawing his sights to a fraction of an inch…
Crack! —
Somebody was thrashing through the underbrush, still screaming. Hugh couldn't stand it. He got to his feet just as Morgan seized his ankle and brought him down toppling. Morgan yelled: "Don'tbeabloodyfool; hellpickusoffas-we-get-up—! Ah!"