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V
Ex-Inspector Blore sat on the side of his bed.
His small eyes, red-rimmed and bloodshot, were alert in the solid mass
of his face. He was like a wild boar waiting to charge.
He felt no inclination to sleep.
The menace was coming very near now…Six out of ten!
For all his sagacity, for all his caution and astuteness, the old judge had
gone the way of the rest.
Blore snorted with a kind of savage satisfaction.
What was it the old geezer had said?
‘We must be very careful…’
Self-righteous smug old hypocrite. Sitting up in court feeling like God
Almighty. He’d got his all right…No more being careful for him.
And now there were four of them. The girl, Lombard, Armstrong and
himself.
Very soon another of them would go…But it wouldn’t be William Henry
Blore. He’d see to that all right.
(But the revolver…What about the revolver? That was the disturbing
factor—the revolver!)
Blore sat on his bed, his brow furrowed, his little eyes creased and
puckered while he pondered the problem of the revolver…
In the silence he could hear the clocks strike downstairs.
Midnight.
He relaxed a little now—even went so far as to lie down on his bed. But
he did not undress.
He lay there thinking. Going over the whole business from the begin-
ning, methodically, painstakingly, as he had been wont to do in his police
officer days. It was thoroughness that paid in the end.
The candle was burning down. Looking to see if the matches were
within easy reach of his hand, he blew it out.
Strangely enough, he found the darkness disquieting. It was as though a
thousand age-old fears woke and struggled for supremacy in his brain.
Faces floated in the air—the judge’s face crowned with that mockery of
grey wool—the cold dead face of Mrs Rogers—the convulsed purple face of
Anthony Marston.
Another face—pale, spectacled, with a small straw-coloured moustache.
A face that he had seen sometime or other—but when? Not on the is-
land. No, much longer ago than that.
Funny that he couldn’t put a name to it…Silly sort of face really—fellow
looked a bit of a mug.
Of course!
It came to him with a real shock.
Landor!
Odd to think he’d completely forgotten what Landor looked like. Only
yesterday he’d been trying to recall the fellow’s face, and hadn’t been able
to.
And now here it was, every feature clear and distinct, as though he had
seen it only yesterday.
Landor had had a wife—a thin slip of a woman with a worried face.
There’d been a kid, too, a girl about fourteen. For the first time, he
wondered what had become of them.
(The revolver. What had become of the revolver? That was much more
important.)
The more he thought about it the more puzzled he was…He didn’t un-
derstand this revolver business.
Somebody in the house had got that revolver…
Downstairs a clock struck one.
Blore’s thoughts were cut short. He sat up on the bed, suddenly alert.
For he had heard a sound—a very faint sound—somewhere outside his
bedroom door.
There was someone moving about in the darkened house.
The perspiration broke out on his forehead. Who was it, moving secretly
and silently along the corridors? Someone who was up to no good, he’d
bet that!
Noiselessly, in spite of his heavy build, he dropped off the bed and with
two strides was standing by the door listening.
But the sound did not come again. Nevertheless Blore was convinced
that he was not mistaken. He had heard a footfall just outside his door.
The hair rose slightly on his scalp. He knew fear again…
Someone creeping about stealthily in the night.
He listened—but the sound was not repeated.
And now a new temptation assailed him. He wanted, desperately, to go
out and investigate. If he could only see who it was prowling about in the
darkness.
But to open his door would be the action of a fool. Very likely that was
exactly what the other was waiting for. He might even have meant Blore
to hear what he had heard, counting on him coming out to investigate.
Blore stood rigid — listening. He could hear sounds everywhere now,
cracks, rustles, mysterious whispers—but his dogged, realistic brain knew
them for what they were—the creations of his own heated imagination.
And then suddenly he heard something that was not imagination. Foot-
steps, very soft, very cautious, but plainly audible to a man listening with
all his ears as Blore was listening.
They came softly along the corridor (both Lombard’s and Armstrong’s
rooms were farther from the stairhead than his). They passed his door
without hesitating or faltering.
And as they did so, Blore made up his mind.
He meant to see who it was! The footsteps had definitely passed his door
going to the stairs. Where was the man going?
When Blore acted, he acted quickly, surprisingly so for a man who
looked so heavy and slow. He tiptoed back to the bed, slipped matches into
his pocket, detached the plug of the electric lamp by his bed and picked it
up, winding the flex round it. It was a chromium affair with a heavy ebon-
ite base—a useful weapon.
He sprinted noiselessly across the room, removed the chair from under
the door handle and with precaution unlocked and unbolted the door. He
stepped out into the corridor. There was a faint sound in the hall below.
Blore ran noiselessly in his stockinged feet to the head of the stairs.
At that moment he realized why it was he had heard all these sounds so
clearly. The wind had died down completely and the sky must have
cleared. There was faint moonlight coming in through the landing window
and it illuminated the hall below.
Blore had an instantaneous glimpse of a figure just passing out through
the front door.
In the act of running down the stairs in pursuit, he paused.
Once again, he had nearly made a fool of himself! This was a trap, per-
haps, to lure him out of the house!
But what the other man didn’t realize was that he had made a mistake,
had delivered himself neatly into Blore’s hands.
For, of the three tenanted rooms upstairs, one must now be empty. All
that had to be done was to ascertain which!
Blore went swiftly back along the corridor.
He paused first at Dr Armstrong’s door and tapped. There was no an-
swer.
He waited a minute, then went on to Philip Lombard’s room.
Here the answer came at once.
‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s Blore. I don’t think Armstrong is in his room. Wait a minute.’
He went on to the door at the end of the corridor. Here he tapped again.
‘Miss Claythorne. Miss Claythorne.’
Vera’s voice, startled, answered him.
‘Who is it? What’s the matter?’
‘It’s all right, Miss Claythorne. Wait a minute. I’ll come back.’
He raced back to Lombard’s room. The door opened as he did so. Lom-
bard stood there. He held a candle in his left hand. He had pulled on his
trousers over his pyjamas. His right hand rested in the pocket of his py-
jama jacket. He said sharply:
‘What the hell’s all this?’
Blore explained rapidly. Lombard’s eyes lit up.
‘Armstrong—eh? So he’s our pigeon!’ He moved along to Armstrong’s
door. ‘Sorry, Blore, but I don’t take anything on trust.’
He rapped sharply on the panel.
‘Armstrong—Armstrong.’
There was no answer.
Lombard dropped to his knees and peered through the keyhole. He in-
serted his little finger gingerly into the lock.
He said:
‘Key’s not in the door on the inside.’
Blore said:
‘That means he locked it on the outside and took it with him.’
Philip nodded.
‘Ordinary precaution to take. We’ll get him, Blore…This time, we’ll get
him! Half a second.’
He raced along to Vera’s room.
‘Vera.’
‘Yes.’
‘We’re hunting Armstrong. He’s out of his room. Whatever you do, don’t
open your door. Understand?’
‘Yes, I understand.’
‘If Armstrong comes along and says that I’ve been killed, or Blore’s been
killed, pay no attention. See? Only open your door if both Blore and I speak
to you. Got that?’
Vera said:
‘Yes. I’m not a complete fool.’
Lombard said:
‘Good.’
He joined Blore. He said:
‘And now—after him! The hunt’s up!’
Blore said:
‘We’d better be careful. He’s got a revolver, remember.’
Philip Lombard racing down the stairs chuckled.
He said:
‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ He undid the front door, remarking, ‘Latch
pushed back—so he could get in again easily.’
He went on:
‘I’ve got that revolver!’ He took it half out of his pocket as he spoke.
‘Found it put back in my drawer tonight.’
Blore stopped dead on the doorstep. His face changed. Philip Lombard
saw it.
‘Don’t be a damned fool, Blore! I’m not going to shoot you! Go back and
barricade yourself in if you like! I’m off after Armstrong.’
He started off into the moonlight. Blore, after a minute’s hesitation, fol-
lowed him.
He thought to himself:
‘I suppose I’m asking for it. After all—’
After all he had tackled criminals armed with revolvers before now.
Whatever else he lacked, Blore did not lack courage. Show him the danger
and he would tackle it pluckily. He was not afraid of danger in the open,
only of danger undefined and tinged with the supernatural.
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