“I don’t like this at all,” said Ellery, “and yet in another sense I like it very much.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t imagine,” said Ellery, “a divine agency stooping to such a mean assault.”
“Yes, it’s open war now,” muttered Thorne. “Whoever it is — he’ll stop at nothing.”
“A benevolent war, at any rate. I was quite at his mercy, and he might have killed me as easily as—”
He stopped. A sharp report, like a pine-knot snapping in a fire or an ice-stiffened twig breaking in two, but greatly magnified, had come to his ears. Then the echo came to them, softer but unmistakable.
It was the report of a gun.
“From the house!” yelled Ellery. “Come on!”
Thorne was pale as they scrambled through the drifts. “Gun... I forgot. I left my revolver under the pillow in my bedroom. Do you think—?”
Ellery scrabbled at his own pocket. “Mine’s still here... No, by George, I’ve been scotched!” His cold fingers fumbled with the cylinder. “Bullets taken out. And I’ve no spare ammunition.” He fell silent, his mouth hardening.
They found the women and Reinach running about like startled animals, searching for they knew not what.
“Did you hear it, too?” cried the fat
###
man as they burst into the house.
He seemed extraordinarily excited. “Someone fired a shot!”
“Where?” asked Ellery, his eyes on the rove. “Keith?”
“Don’t know where he is. Milly says it might have come from behind the house. I was napping and couldn’t tell. Revolvers! At least he’s come out in the open.”
“Who has?” asked Ellery.
The fat man shrugged. Ellery went through to the kitchen and opened the back door. The snow outside was smooth, untrodden. When he returned to the living-room Alice was adjusting a scarf about her neck with fingers that shook.
“I don’t know how long you people intend to stay in this ghastly place,” she said in a passionate voice. “But I’ve had quite enough, thank you. Mr. Thorne, I insist you take me away at once. At once! I shan’t stay another instant.”
“Now, now, Miss Mayhew,” said Thorne in a distressed way, taking her hands. “I should like nothing better. But can’t you see” Ellery, on his way upstairs three steps at a time, heard no more. He made for Thome’s room and kicked the door open, sniffing. Then, with rather a grim smile, he went to the tumbled bed and pulled the pillow away. A long-barreled, old-fashioned revolver lay there. He examined the cylinder; it was empty. Then he put the muzzle to his nose.
“Well?” said Thorne from the doorway. The English girl was clinging to him.
“Well,” said Ellery, tossing the gun aside, “we’re facing fact now, not fancy. It’s war, Thorne, as you said. The shot was fired from your revolver. Barrel’s still warm, muzzle still reeks, and you can smell the burnt gunpowder if you sniff this cold air hard enough. And the bullets are gone.”
“But what does it mean?” moaned Alice.
“It means that somebody’s being terribly cute. It was a harmless trick to get Thorne and me back to the house. Probably the shot was a warning as well as a decoy.”
Alice sank onto Thome’s bed. “You mean we—”
“Yes,” said Ellery, “from now on we’re prisoners, Miss Mayhew. Prisoners who may not stray beyond the confines of the jail. I wonder,” he added with a frown, “precisely why.”
* * *
The day passed in a timeless haze. The world of outdoors became more and more choked in the folds of the snow. The air was a solid white sheet. It seemed as if the very heavens had opened to admit all the snow that ever was, or ever would be.
Young Keith appeared suddenly at noon, taciturn and leaden-eyed, gulped down some hot food, and without explanation retired to his bedroom. Dr. Reinach shambled about quietly for some time; then he disappeared, only to show up, wet, grimy, and silent, before dinner. As the day wore on, less and less was said. Thorne in desperation took to a bottle of whisky. Keith came down at eight o’clock, made himself some coffee, drank three cups, and went upstairs again. Dr. Reinach appeared to have lost his good nature; he was morose, almost sullen, opening his mouth only to snarl at his wife.
And the snow continued to fall.
They all retired early, without conversation.
At midnight the strain was more than even Ellery’s iron nerves could bear. He had prowled about his bedroom for hours, poking at the brisk fire in the grate, his mind leaping from improbability to fantasy until his head throbbed with one great ache. Sleep was impossible.
Moved by an impulse which he did not attempt to analyze, he slipped into his coat and went out into the frosty corridor.
Thome’s door was closed; Ellery heard the old man’s bed creaking and groaning. It was pitch-dark in the hall as he groped his way about.
Suddenly Ellery’s toe caught in a rent in the carpet and he staggered to regain his balance, coming up against the wall with a thud, his heels clattering on the bare planking at the bottom of the baseboard.
He had no sooner straightened up than he heard the stifled exclamation of a woman. It came from across the corridor; if he guessed right, from Alice Mayhew’s bedroom. It was such a weak, terrified exclamation that he sprang across the hall, fumbling in his pockets for a match as he did so. He found match and door in the same instant; he struck one and opened the door and stood still, the tiny light flaring up before him.
Alice was sitting up in bed, quilt drawn about her shoulders, her eyes gleaming in the quarter-light. Before an open drawer of a tallboy across the room, one hand arrested in the act of scattering its contents about, loomed Dr. Reinach, fully dressed. His shoes were wet; his expression was blank; and his eyes were slits.
###
“Please stand still, Doctor,” said Ellery softly as the match sputtered out. “My revolver is useless as a percussion weapon, but it still can inflict damage as a blunt instrument.” He moved to a nearby table, where he had seen an oil-lamp before the match went out, struck another match, lighted the lamp, and stepped back again to stand against the door.
“Thank you,” whispered Alice.
“What happened, Miss Mayhew?”
“I... don’t know. I slept badly. I came awake a moment ago when I heard the floor creak. And then you dashed in.” She cried suddenly: “Bless you!”
“You cried out.”
“Did I?” She sighed like a tired child. “I... Uncle Herbert!” she said suddenly, fiercely. “What’s the meaning of this? What are you doing in my room?”
The fat man’s eyes came open, innocent and beaming; his hand with-drew from the drawer and closed it; and he shifted his elephantine bulk until he was standing erect. “Doing, my dear?” he rumbled. “Why, I came in to see if you were all right.” His eyes were fixed on a patch of her white shoulders visible above the quilt. “You were so overwrought today. Purely an avuncular impulse, my child. Forgive me if I startled you.”
“I think,” sighed Ellery, “that I’ve misjudged you, Doctor. That’s not clever of you at all. Downright clumsy, in fact; I can only attribute it to a certain understandable confusion of the moment. Miss Mayhew isn’t normally to be found in the top drawer of a tallboy, no matter how capacious it may be.” He said sharply to Alice: “Did this fellow touch you?”
“Touch me?” Her shoulders twitched with repugnance. “No. If he had, in the dark, I–I think I should have died.”
“What a charming compliment,” said Dr. Reinach ruefully.
“Then what,” demanded Ellery, “were you looking for, Dr. Reinach?”
The fat man turned until his right side was toward the door. “I’m notoriously hard of hearing,” he chuckled, “in my right ear. Good night, Alice; pleasant dreams. May I pass, Sir Launcelot?”