Pierre Viotti, appearing from no one knew where, suddenly struck with his fist upon the table. He was an evil-looking figure, standing in the gloomiest portion of the room, with the electric fan whirling above his head. Roger, looking in his direction, suddenly became aware of the drama by which he was surrounded. It was morning, but there was no morning. The darkness was pierced only by those artificial lights. The west wind might be blowing outside, but all the air which penetrated into the room was from the electric fans.
“It shall be a fight, if you like,” Pierre Viotti grinned. “Only, as I am a fat elderly man, and he has already struck me upon the jaw, I give myself a gun. He takes his fists and I shoot when I please. Do not forget the time, Paul.”
“He has four minutes to live,” the latter announced suavely.
“Well, you can have the honour of killing him, for all I care,” Savonarilda said. “It’s a foul business, anyway. I’d get you out of this if I could, Sloane,” he went on, “but you see for yourself how impossible it is. If I were to meet you in the Sporting Club to-morrow night, if you saw Terence Brown sitting there with his ears open, waiting to know who had won money, what would be your attitude? I know. You would send for the police.”
“Without a moment’s hesitation,” Roger agreed heartily.
“Et voilà!“ Savonarilda groaned. “What can be done with a young man so obstinate?”
“Nothing,” Pierre Viotti mocked. “He might offer us millions for his liberty, he might even pay, but he would take good care to have us sooner or later. He has only three minutes of life—why do we delay? Let me be the first one to shoot. Afterwards, we will send him down the slide. I shall be the first one to push!”
It seemed to Roger then that the end had surely come. The faces of the men all turned towards him conveyed the same expression. With the exception of Pierre Viotti, there was nothing vindictive about them. They had simply made up their minds that to secure their own safety he must die. He hadn’t even any arguments with which to confront them. The whole thing was so reasonable. What else could they do? He watched Paul Viotti withdraw his revolver and drop in the cartridges without even a flicker of emotion. The thing was inevitable. If he lived they died, and he was in their power.
“Two minutes, Roger Sloane,” Paul Viotti said, closing the breach of his revolver. “You can sit where you are, if you please, or you can run around the room. Nothing else is possible, I fear.”
“Look here,” Savonarilda exclaimed, suddenly rising to his feet. “Nothing like this has ever happened before. It is a bloody business. Roger, never mind about the million. Supposing we keep you shut up safely until we have cleaned up and got away; will you hold your tongue for ever?”
“I will not,” Roger answered firmly. “You’re not like the others, Savonarilda, but I know they mean to kill me. Let them get on with it. Fools deserve to die and I’ve been fool enough, God knows. I’ve even been fool enough to be taken in by a blasted sneak like this.”
He suddenly reached out with his long arm and struck Thornton with the palm of his hand across the cheek and mouth. He saw the blood come and he felt a swift thrill of pleasure. If these were his last moments on earth, if that was his last physical effort, it had at least brought him something. A bullet from Pierre’s revolver whistled past his head. A second would certainly have followed but for the fact that Paul, his brother, had sprung suddenly to his feet and held his wrist with a grip of iron.
“Don’t move, any one,” he enjoined. “Listen!”
There was a sudden tense silence. A curious sound had come to them from outside, the sound of a siren which seemed as though the west wind had been driven down its mouthpiece. It flowed into the room with a strange but penetrating cadence and was followed by a renewal of the silence, deep, intense and fearful. Every one of the five men was gripping his gun. Paul Viotti leaned a little forward.
“Remember,” he whispered hoarsely, “the switch was on. The first siren would blow, even if Sam himself were to join us. If any one steps upon the third stair and the second siren blows, then there is danger. That is the time when we shall need to look to ourselves.”
Almost as he finished speaking, the other siren blew—a flute-like, alluring note. Things in the room happened quickly then. First of all, four bullets whistled around the chair which Roger had known enough to vacate at the first sounds of danger, then every light in the room went out and the place was plunged in complete darkness. There was a renewal of the silence, which had about it this time a thrilling and magnetic intensity. Every one of the five men knew, and Roger himself was equally aware, that their revolvers were making a little arc, every one of them centred upon that spot from which the light must flow with the opening of that door.
A man’s breath fell hot upon Roger’s cheek and he was conscious of a whisper in his ear, a whisper barely audible even to him because of the droning of the electric fan overhead.
“Crawl away to the left,” Savonarilda enjoined. “They may forget you.”
Roger obeyed promptly. He crawled on until he reached the wall, then he lay flat upon his stomach and his whole being ached for the butt of a revolver in his hand. There were sounds which seemed as though they came from another world. Then again the silence.
“Can you hear me, Roger?”
“Yes.”
Something hard touched his hand.
“I am trusting you,” the voice continued, “not to use this against any of the others. That dirty little skunk, Pierre Viotti, is lying for you. If he finds out, there’s your chance.”
“Great fellow,” Roger whispered. “I won’t draw it on another soul, and not on him, if I can get my hands to his throat.”
Again the silence. If indeed there were strangers outside, they were taking plenty of time before they made up their minds to attack.
“A rotten show this, all through,” Savonarilda whispered contemptuously. “I never believed in it. This isn’t New York. I felt that this place was a death trap from the moment they built it.”
Then nothing. The absence of all sound in the room, except the low humming of the electric fans, became a terrible thing. The other four seemed to have made a little semicircle around the door, ready to shoot any one who entered. Savonarilda and Roger alone were in the background. The silence was broken at last from outside by the sound of more descending footsteps, the footsteps of stoutly shod gendarmes. Roger leaned towards his companion. The hum of the ventilating fan over their heads was still sufficient to drown his faint whisper.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I’m not going to shoot any of those poor chaps. We have nothing to gain by it. I shall do the trick on myself, as soon as one is sure that no miracles are to happen. Remember, your gun is for Pierre Viotti only.”
Still the footsteps descended the stairs. There must have been a small crowd on the other side of the door. Roger leaned across towards his neighbour.
“I won’t use the gun on any one but Viotti,” he promised. “You don’t mind what else I do?”
“Not a damn. You’re a brighter lad than I’ve ever thought you, though, if you can find a chance of getting out of here alive.”
Roger kicked off his shoes and, standing up in his socks, held his breath and listened. All movement outside the door had ceased. The crowd there must have known quite well that to open it was death to the first person who showed himself, and a life in the Principality is worth as much as a life anywhere else. In his stockinged feet, Roger stole on to where he had seen the switch which governed the electric fans. He felt around it carefully, then braced himself for the effort. With a prodigious