CHAPTER XV
TABLE TALK
The seventh key! Mr. Magee thrilled at the mention of it. So Elijah Quimby knew the identity and the mission of the man who hid in the annex. Did any one else? Magee looked at the broad acreage of the mayor's face, at the ancient lemon of Max's, at Bland's, frightened and thoughtful, at Hayden's, concerned but smiling. Did any one else know? Ah, yes, of course. Down the stairs the professor of Comparative Literature felt his way to food.
"Is dinner ready?" he asked, peering about.
The candles flickered weakly as they fought the stronger shadows; winter roared at the windows; somewhere above a door crashed shut. Close to its final scene drew the drama at Baldpate Inn. Mr. Magee knew it, he could not have told why. The others seemed to know it, too. In silence they waited while the hermit scurried along his dim way preparing the meal. In silence they sat while Miss Norton and her mother descended. Once there was a little flurry of interest when Miss Thornhill and Hayden met at the foot of the stairs.
"Myra!" Hayden cried. "In heaven's name – what does this mean?"
"Unfortunately," said the girl, "I know – all it means."
And Hayden fell back into the shadows.
Finally the attitude of the hermit suggested that the dinner was ready.
"I guess you might as well sit down," he remarked. "It's all fixed, what there is to fix. This place don't need a cook, it needs a commissary department."
"Peters," reproved Magee. "That's hardly courteous to our guests."
"Living alone on the mountain," replied the hermit from the dining-room door, "you get to have such a high regard for the truth you can't put courtesy first. You want to, but you haven't the heart."
The winter guests took their places at the table, and the second December dinner at Baldpate Inn got under way. But not so genially as on the previous night did it progress. On the faces of those about him Mr. Magee noted worry and suspicion; now and again menacing cold eyes were turned upon him; evidently first in the thoughts of those at table was a little package rich in treasure; and evidently first in the thoughts of most of them, as the probable holder of that package, was Mr. Magee himself. Several times he looked up to find Max's cat-like eyes upon him, sinister and cruel behind the incongruous gold-rimmed glasses; several times he saw Hayden's eyes, hostile and angry, seek his face. They were desperate; they would stop at nothing; Mr. Magee felt that as the drama drew to its close they saw him and him alone between them and their golden desires.
"Before I came up here to be a hermit," remarked Cargan contemporaneously with the removal of the soup, "which I may say in passing I ain't been able to be with any success owing to the popularity of the sport on Baldpate Mountain, there was never any candles on the table where I et. No, sir. I left them to the people up on the avenue – to Mr. Hayden and his kind that like to work in dim surroundings – I was always strong for a bright light on my food. What I'm afraid of is that I'll get the habit up here, and will be wanting Charlie to set out a silver candelabrum with my lager. Candles'd be quite an innovation at Charlie's, wouldn't they, Lou?"
"Too swell for Charlie's," commented Mr. Max. "Except after closing hours. I've seen 'em in use there then, but the idea wasn't glory and decoration."
"I hope you don't dislike the candles, Mr. Cargan," remarked Miss Norton. "They add such a lot to the romance of the affair, don't you think? I'm terribly thrilled by all this. The rattling of the windows, and the flickering light – two lines of a poem keep running through my head:
"'My lord he followed after one who whispered in his ear —
The weeping of the candles and the wind is all I hear.'
I don't know who the lord was, nor what he followed – perhaps the seventh key. But the weeping candles and the wind seem so romantic – and so like Baldpate Inn to-night."
"If I had a daughter your age," commented Cargan, not unkindly, "she'd be at home reading Laura Jean Libbey by the fire, and not chasing after romance on a mountain."
"That would be best for her, I'm sure," replied the girl sweetly. "For then she wouldn't be likely to find out things about her father that would prove disquieting."
"Dearie!" cried Mrs. Norton. No one else spoke, but all looked at the mayor. He was busily engaged with his food. Smiling his amusement, Mr. Magee sought to direct the conversation into less personal channels.
"We hear so much about romance, especially since its widely advertised death," he said. "And to every man I ever met, it meant something different. Mr. Cargan, speaking as a broad-minded man of the world – what does romance mean to you?"
The mayor ran his fingers through his graying hair, and considered seriously.
"Romance," he reflected. "Well, I ain't much on the talk out of books. But here's what I see when you say that word to me. It's the night before election, and I'm standing in the front window of the little room on Main Street where the boys can always find me. Down the street I hear the snarl and rumble of bands, and pretty soon I see the yellow flicker of torches, like the flicker of that candle, and the bobbing of banners. And then – the boys march by. All the boys! Pat Doherty, and Bob Larsen, and Matt Sanders – all the boys! And when they get to my window they wave their hats and cheer. Just a fat old man in that window, but they'll go to the pavement with any guy that knocks him. They're loyal. They're for me. And so they march by – cheering and singing – all the boys – just for me to see and hear. Well – that – that's romance to me."
"Power," translated Mr. Magee.
"Yes, sir," cried the mayor. "I know I've got them. All the reformers in the world can't spoil my thrill then. They're mine. I guess old Napoleon knew that thrill. I guess he was the greatest romancer the world ever knew. When he marched over the mountains with his starving bunch – and looked back and saw them in rags and suffering – for him – well I reckon old Nap was as close to romance then as any man ever gets."
"I wonder," answered Mr. Magee. It came to him suddenly that in each person's definition of this intangible thing might lie exposed something of both character and calling. At the far end of the table Mrs. Norton's lined tired face met his gaze. To her he put his question.
"Well," she answered, and her voice seemed softer than its wont, "I ain't thought much of that word for a good many years now. But when I do – say, I seem to see myself sitting on our porch back home – thirty years ago. I've got on a simple little muslin dress, and I'm slender as Elsie Janis, and the color in my cheeks is – well, it's the sort that Norton likes. And my hair – but – I'm thinking of him, of Norton. He's told me he wants to make me happy for life, and I've about decided I'll let him try. I see him – coming up our front walk. Coming to call on me – have I mentioned I've got a figure – a real sweet figure? That's about what romance means to me."
"Youth, dear?" asks Miss Norton gently.
"That's it, dearie," answered the older woman dreamily. "Youth."
For a time those about the table sat in silence, picturing no doubt the slender figure on the steps of that porch long ago. Not without a humorous sort of pity did they glance occasionally toward the woman whom Norton had begged to make happy. The professor of Comparative Literature was the first to break the silence.
"The dictionary," he remarked academically, "would define romance as a species of fictitious writing originally composed in the Romance dialects, and afterward in prose. But – the dictionary is prosaic, it has no soul. Shall I tell you what romance means to me? I will. I see a man toiling in a dim laboratory, where there are strange fires and stranger odors. Night and day he experiments, the love of his kind in his eyes, a desire to help in his heart. And then – the golden moment – the great moment in that quiet dreary cell – the moment of the discovery. A serum, a formula – what not. He gives it to the world and a few of the sick are well again, and a few of the sorrowful are glad. Romance means neither youth nor power to me. It means – service."
He bent his dim old eyes on his food, and Mr. Magee gazed at him with a new wonder. Odd sentiments these from an old man who robbed fireplaces, held up hermits, and engaged in midnight conferences by the annex door. More than ever Magee was baffled, enthralled, amused. Now Mr. Max leered about the table and contributed his unsavory bit.
"Funny, ain't it," he remarked, "the different things the same word means to a bunch of folks. Say romance to me, and I don't see no dim laboratory. I don't see nothing dim. I see the brightest lights in the world, and the best food, and somebody, maybe, dancing the latest freak dance in between the tables. And an orchestra playing in the distance – classy dames all about – a taxi clicking at the door. And me sending word to the chauffeur 'Let her click till the milk carts rumble – I can pay.' Say – that sure is romance to me."
"Mr. Hayden," remarked Magee, "are we to hear from you?"
Hayden hesitated, and looked for a moment into the black eyes of Myra Thornhill.
"My idea has often been contradicted," he said, keeping his gaze on the girl, "it may be again. But to me the greatest romance in the world is the romance of money making – dollar piling on dollar in the vaults of the man who started with a shoe-string, and hope, and nerve. I see him fighting for the first thousand – and then I see his pile growing, slowly at first – faster – faster – faster – until a motor-car brings him to his office, and men speak his name with awe in the streets."
"Money," commented Miss Thornhill contemptuously. "What an idea of romance for a man."
"I did not expect," replied Hayden, "that my definition would pass unchallenged. My past experiences – " he looked meaningly at the girl – "had led me to be prepared for that. But it is my definition – I spoke the truth. You must give me credit for that."
"I ain't one to blame you," sneered Cargan, "for wanting it noticed when you do side-step a lie. Yes, I certainly – "
"See here, Cargan," blazed Hayden.
"Yes, you did speak the truth," put in Miss Thornhill hastily. "You mentioned one word in your definition – it was a desecration to drag it in – hope. For me romance means only – hope. And I'm afraid there are a pitiful number in the world to whom it means the same."
"We ain't heard from the young woman who started all this fuss over a little word," Mr. Cargan reminded them.
"That's right, dearie," said Mrs. Norton. "You got to contribute."
"Yes," agreed the girl with the "locks crisped like golden wire," "I will. But it's hard. One's ideas change so rapidly. A moment ago if you had said romance to me, I might have babbled of shady corners, of whisperings on the stair, of walks down the mountain in the moonlight – or even on the hotel balcony." She smiled gaily at Magee. "Perhaps to-morrow, too, the word might mean such rapturous things to me. But to-night – life is too real and earnest to-night. Service – Professor Bolton was right – service is often romance. It may mean the discovery of a serum – it may mean so cruel a thing as the blighting of another's life romance." She gazed steadily at the stolid Cargan. "It may mean putting an end forever to those picturesque parades past the window of the little room on Main Street – the room where the boys can always find the mayor of Reuton."
Still she gazed steadily into Cargan's eyes. And with an amused smile the mayor gazed back.
"You wouldn't be so cruel as that," he assured her easily; "a nice attractive girl like you."
The dinner was at an end; without a word the sly little professor rose from the table and hurriedly ascended the stairs. Mr. Magee watched him disappear, and resolved to follow quickly on his heels. But first he paused to give his own version of the word under discussion.
"Strange," he remarked, "that none of you gets the picture I do. Romance – it is here – at your feet in Baldpate Inn. A man climbs the mountain to be alone with his thoughts, to forget the melodrama of life, to get away from the swift action of the world, and meditate. He is alone – for very near an hour. Then a telephone bell tinkles, and a youth rises out of the dark to prate of a lost Arabella, and haberdashery. A shot rings out, as the immemorial custom with shots, and in comes a professor of Comparative Literature, with a perforation in his derby hat. A professional hermit arrives to teach the amateur the fine points of the game. A charming maid comes in – too late for breakfast – but in plenty of time for walks on the balcony in the moonlight. The mayor of a municipality condescends to stay for dinner. A battle in the snow ensues. There is a weird talk of – a sum of money. More guests arrive. Dark hints of a seventh key. Why, bless you, you needn't stir from Baldpate Inn in search of your romance."
He crossed the floor hastily, and put one foot on the lower step of Baldpate's grand stairway. He kept it there. For from the shadows of the landing Professor Bolton emerged, his blasted derby once more on his head, his overcoat buttoned tight, his ear-muffs in place, his traveling-bag and green umbrella in tow.
"What, Professor," cried Magee, "you're leaving?"
Now, truly, the end of the drama had come. Mr. Magee felt his heart beat wildly. What was the end to be? What did this calm departure mean? Surely the little man descending the stair was not, Daniel-like, thrusting himself into this lion's den with the precious package in his possession?
"Yes," the old man was saying slowly. "I am about to leave. The decision came suddenly. I am sorry to go. Certainly I have enjoyed these chance meetings."
"See here, Doc," said Mr. Bland, uneasily feeling of his purple tie, "you're not going back and let them reporters have another fling at you?"
"I fear I must," replied the old man. "My duty calls. Yes, they will hound me. I shall hear much of peroxide blondes. I shall be asked again to name the ten greatest in history, – a difficult, not to say dangerous task. But I must face the – er – music, as the vulgar expression goes. I bid you good-by, Mr. Bland. We part friends, I am sure. Again be comforted by the thought that I do not hold the ruined derby against you. Even though, as I have remarked with unpleasant truth, the honorarium of a professor at our university is not large."
He turned to Magee.
"I regret more than I can say," he continued, "parting from you. My eyes fell upon you first on entering this place – we have had exciting times together. My dear Miss Norton – knowing you has refreshed an old man's heart. I might compare you to another with yellow locks – but I leave that to my younger – er – colleagues. Mr. Cargan – good-by. My acquaintance with you I shall always look back on – "
But the mayor of Reuton, Max and Bland closed in on the old man.
"Now look here, Doc," interrupted Cargan. "You're bluffing. Do you get me? You're trying to put something over. I don't want to be rough – I like you – but I got to get a glimpse at the inside of that satchel. And I got to examine your personal make-up a bit."
"Dear, dear," smiled Professor Bolton, "you don't think I would steal? A man in my position? Absurd. Look through my poor luggage if you desire. You will find nothing but the usual appurtenances of travel."
He stood docilely in the middle of the floor, and blinked at the group around him.
Mr. Magee waited to hear no more. It was quite apparent that this wise little man carried no package wildly sought by Baldpate's winter guests. Quietly and quickly Magee disappeared up the broad stair, and tried the professor's door. It was locked. Inside he could hear a window banging back and forth in the storm. He ran through number seven and out upon the snow-covered balcony.
There he bumped full into a shadowy figure hurrying in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER XVI
A MAN FROM THE DARK
For fully five seconds Mr. Magee and the man with whom he had collided stood facing each other on the balcony. The identical moon of the summer romances now hung in the sky, and in its white glare Baldpate Mountain glittered like a Christmas-card. Suddenly the wind broke a small branch from one of the near-by trees and tossed it lightly on the snow beside the two men – as though it were a signal for battle.
"A lucky chance," said Mr. Magee. "You're a man I've been longing to meet. Especially since the professor left his window open this afternoon."
"Indeed," replied the other calmly. "May I ask what you want of me?"
"Certainly." Mr. Magee laughed. "A little package. I think it's in your pocket at this minute. A package no bigger than a man's hand."
The stranger made no reply, but looked quickly about, over his shoulder at the path along which he had come, and then past Mr. Magee at the road that led to freedom.
"I think it's in your pocket," repeated Mr. Magee, "and I'm going to find out."
"I haven't time to argue with you," said the holder of the seventh key. His voice was cold, calculating, harsh. "Get out of my way and let me pass. Or – "
"Or what?" asked Billy Magee.
He watched the man lunge toward him in the moonlight. He saw the fist that had the night before been the Waterloo of Mr. Max and the mayor start on a swift true course for his head. Quickly he dodged to one side and closed with his opponent.
Back and forth through the snow they ploughed, panting, grappling, straining. Mr. Magee soon realized that his adversary was no weakling. He was forced to call into play muscles he had not used in what seemed ages – not since he sported of an afternoon in a rather odorous college gymnasium. In moonlight and shadow, up and down, they reeled, staggered, stumbled, the sole jarring notes in that picture of Baldpate on a quiet winter's night.
"You queered the game last time," muttered the stranger. "But you'll never queer it again."
Mr. Magee saved his breath. Together they crashed against the side of the inn. Together they squirmed away, across the balcony to the railing. Still back and forth, now in the moonlight, now in shadow, wildly they fought. Once Mr. Magee felt his feet slip from beneath him, but caught himself in time. His strength was going – surely – quickly. Then suddenly his opponent seemed to weaken in his grip. With a supreme effort Magee forced him down upon the balcony floor, and tumbled on top of him. He felt the chill of the snow under his knees, and its wetness in his cuffs.
"Now," he cried to himself.
The other still struggled desperately. But his struggle was without success. For deftly Billy Magee drew from his pocket the precious package about which there had been so much debate on Baldpate Mountain. He clasped it close, rose and ran. In another second he was inside number seven, and had lighted a candle at the blazing logs.
Once more he examined that closely packed little bundle; once more he found it rich in greenbacks. Assuredly it was the greatly desired thing he had fought for the night before. He had it again. And this time, he told himself, he would not lose sight of it until he had placed it in the hands of the girl of the station.
The dark shadow of the man he had just robbed was hovering at his windows. Magee turned hastily to the door. As he did so it opened, and Hayden entered. He carried a pistol in his hand; his face was hard, cruel, determined; his usually expressionless eyes lighted with pleasure as they fell on the package in Mr. Magee's possession.
"It seems I'm just in time," he said, "to prevent highway robbery."
"You think so?" asked Magee.
"See here, young man," remarked Hayden, glancing nervously over his shoulder, "I can't waste any time in talk. Does that money belong to you? No. Well, it does belong to me. I'm going to have it. Don't think I'm afraid to shoot to get it. The law permits a man to fire on the thief who tries to fleece him."
"The law, did you say?" laughed Billy Magee. "I wouldn't drag the law into this if I were you, Mr. Hayden. I'm sure it has no connection with events on Baldpate Mountain. You would be the last to want its attention to be directed here. I've got this money, and I'm going to keep it."
Hayden considered a brief moment, and then swore under his breath.
"You're right," he said. "I'm not going to shoot. But there are other ways, you whipper-snapper – " He dropped the revolver into his pocket and sprang forward. For the second time within ten minutes Mr. Magee steadied himself for conflict.
But Hayden stopped. Some one had entered the room through the window behind Magee. In the dim light of the single candle Magee saw Hayden's face go white, his lip twitch, his eyes glaze with horrible surprise. His arms fell limply to his sides.
"Good God! Kendrick!" he cried.
The voice of the man with whom Billy Magee had but a moment before struggled on the balcony answered:
"Yes, Hayden. I'm back."
Hayden wet his lips with his tongue.
"What – what brought you?" he asked, his voice trailing off weakly on the last word.
"What brought me?" Suddenly, as from a volcano that had long been cold, fire blazed up in Kendrick's eyes. "If a man knew the road from hell back home, what would it need to bring him back?"
Hayden stood with his mouth partly open; almost a grotesque picture of terror he looked in that dim light. Then he spoke, in an odd strained tone, more to himself than to any one else.
"I thought you were dead," he said. "I told myself you'd never come back. Over and over – in the night – I told myself that. But all the time – I knew – I knew you'd come."
A cry – a woman's cry – sounded from just outside the door of number seven. Into the room came Myra Thornhill; quickly she crossed and took Kendrick's hands in hers.
"David," she sobbed. "Oh, David – is it a dream – a wonderful dream?"
Kendrick looked into her eyes, sheepishly at first, then gladly as he saw what was in them. For the light there, under the tears, was such as no man could mistake. Magee saw it. Hayden saw it too, and his voice was even more lifeless when he spoke.
"Forgive me, David," he said. "I didn't mean – "
And then, as he saw that Kendrick did not listen, he turned and walked quietly into the bedroom of number seven, taking no notice of Cargan and Bland, who, with the other winter guests of Baldpate, now crowded the doorway leading to the hall. Hayden closed the bedroom door. Mr. Magee and the others stood silent, wondering. Their answer came quickly – the sharp cry of a revolver behind that closed door.
It was Mr. Magee who went into the bedroom. The moonlight streamed in through the low windows, and fell brightly on the bed. Across this Hayden lay. Mr. Magee made sure. It was not a pleasant thing to make sure of. Then he took the revolver from the hand that still clasped it, covered the quiet figure on the bed, and stepped back into the outer room.
"He – he has killed himself," he said in a low voice, closing the bedroom door behind him.
There was a moment's frightened hush; then the voice of Kendrick rang out:
"Killed himself? I don't understand. Why should he do that? Surely not because – no – " He looked questioningly into the white face of the girl at his side; she only shook her head. "Killed himself," he repeated, like a man wakened from sleep. "I don't understand."
On tiptoe the amateur hermits of Baldpate descended to the hotel office. Mr. Magee saw the eyes of the girl of the station upon him, wide with doubt and alarm. While the others gathered in little groups and talked, he took her to one side.
"When does the next train leave for Reuton?" he asked her.
"In two hours – at ten-thirty," she replied.
"You must be on it," he told her. "With you will go the two-hundred-thousand-dollar package. I have it in my pocket now."
She took the news stolidly, and made no reply.
"Are you afraid?" asked Magee gently. "You mustn't be. No harm can touch you. I shall stay here and see that no one follows."
"I'm not afraid," she replied. "Just startled, that's all. Did he – did he do it because you took this money – because he was afraid of what would happen?"
"You mean Hayden?" Magee said. "No. This money was not concerned in – his death. That is an affair between Kendrick and him."
"I see," answered the girl slowly. "I'm so glad it wasn't – the money. I couldn't bear it if it were."
"May I call your attention," remarked Magee, "to the fact that the long reign of 'I'm going to' is ended, and the rule of 'I've done it' has begun? I've actually got the money. Somehow, it doesn't seem to thrill you the way I thought it would."
"But it does – oh, it does!" cried the girl. "I was upset – for a moment. It's glorious news And with you on guard here, I'm not afraid to carry it away – down the mountain – and to Reuton. I'll be with you in a moment, ready for the journey."
She called Mrs. Norton and the two went rather timidly up-stairs together. Mr. Magee turned to his companions in the room, and mentally called their roll. They were all there, the professor, the mayor, Max, Bland, Peters, Miss Thornhill, and the newcomer Kendrick, a man prematurely old, grayed at the temples, and with a face yellowed by fever. He and the professor were talking earnestly together, and now the old man came and stood before Magee.
"Mr. Magee," he said seriously, "I learn from Kendrick that you have in your possession a certain package of money that has been much buffeted about here at Baldpate Inn. Now I suggest – no, I demand – "
"Pardon me, Professor," Mr. Magee interrupted. "I have something to suggest – even to demand. It is that you, and every one else present, select a chair and sit down. I suggest, though I do not demand, that you pick comfortable chairs. For the vigil that you are about to begin will prove a long one."
"What d'you mean?" asked the mayor of Reuton, coming militantly to Professor Bolton's side.
Magee did not reply. Miss Norton and her mother came down the stair, the former wrapped in a great coat. She stood on the bottom step, her cheeks flushed, her eyes ablaze. Mr. Magee, going to her side, reflected that she looked charming and wonderful, and wished he had time to admire. But he hadn't. He took from one pocket the pistol he had removed from the hand of Hayden; from the other the celebrated package of money.
"I warn you all," he said, "I will shoot any one who makes a move for this bundle. Miss Norton is going to take it away with her – she is to catch the ten-thirty train for Reuton. The train arrives at its destination at twelve. Much as it pains me to say it, no one will leave this room before twelve-fifteen."
"You – crook!" roared Cargan.
Mr. Magee smiled as he put the package in the girl's hand.
"Possibly," he said. "But, Mr. Cargan, the blackness of the kettle always has annoyed the pot. Do not be afraid," he added to the girl. "Every gentleman in this room is to spend the evening with me. You will not be annoyed in any way." He looked around the menacing circle. "Go," he said, "and may the gods of the mountain take care of you."
The little professor of Comparative Literature stepped forward and stood pompously before Magee.
"One moment," he remarked. "Before you steal this money in front of our very eyes, I want to inform you who I am, and who I represent here."
"This is no time," replied Magee, "for light talk on the subject of blondes."
"This is the time," said the professor warmly, "for me to tell you that Mr. Kendrick here and myself represent at Baldpate Inn the prosecuting attorney of Reuton county. We – "
Cargan, big, red, volcanic, interrupted.
"Drayton," he bellowed. "Drayton sent you here? The rat! The pup! Why, I made that kid. I put him where he is. He won't dare touch me."
"Won't he?" returned Professor Bolton. "My dear sir, you are mistaken. Drayton fully intends to prosecute you on the ground that you arranged to pass Ordinance Number 45, granting the Suburban Railway the privilege of merging with the Civic, in exchange for this bribe of two hundred thousand dollars."
"He won't dare," cried Cargan. "I made him."
"Before election," said the professor, "I believe he often insisted to you that he would do his duty as he saw it."
"Of course he did," replied Cargan. "But that's what they all say."
"He intends to keep his word."
The mayor of Reuton slid into the shadows.
"To think he'd do this thing to me," he whined. "After all I've done for him."
"As I was saying, Mr. Magee," continued the professor, "Mr. Kendrick and I came up here to secure this package of money as evidence against Cargan and – the man above. I speak with the voice of the law when I say you must turn this money over to me."
For answer Magee smiled at the girl.
"You'd better go now," he said. "It's a long walk down the mountain."
"You refuse?" cried the professor.
"Absolutely – don't we, Miss Norton?" said Magee.
"Absolutely," she repeated bravely.
"Then, sir," announced the old man crushingly, "you are little better than a thief, and this girl is your accomplice."
"So it must look, on the face of it," assented Magee. The girl moved to the big front door, and Magee, with his eyes still on the room, backed away until he stood beside her. He handed her his key.
"I give you," he said, "to the gods of the mountain. But it's only a loan – I shall surely want you back. I can't follow ten feet behind, as I threatened – it will be ten hours instead. Good night, and good luck."
She turned the key in the lock.
"Billy Magee," she whispered, "yours is a faith beyond understanding. I shall tell the gods of the mountain that I am to be – returned. Good night, you – dear."
She went out quickly, and Magee, locking the door after her, thrust the key into his pocket. For a moment no one stirred. Then Mr. Max leaped up and ran through the flickering light to the nearest window.
There was a flash, a report, and Max came back into the firelight examining a torn trousers leg.
"I don't mean to kill anybody," explained Mr. Magee. "Just to wing them. But I'm not an expert – I might shoot higher than I intend. So I suggest that no one else try a break for it."