"Ah, that's a pity." Deede Dawson smiled, making no effort to do as the other said. "You see, we are both good shots, and if we start blazing away at each other up here we shall both be leaking pretty badly before long. That's a prospect that has no attraction for me; I don't know if it has for you. But there are things I can tell you that might be interesting, and things you can tell me I want to know. Why not exchange a little information, and then separate calmly, rather than indulge in pistol practice that can only mean the death of us both? For if your first bullet goes through my brain I swear my first will be in your heart."

"Likely enough," agreed Rupert, "but worth while perhaps."

"Oh, that's fanaticism," Deede Dawson answered. "Flattering perhaps to me, but not quite reasonable, eh?"

"There's only one thing I want to know from you," Rupert said slowly.

"Then why not ask it, why not agree to the little arrangement I suggest, eh? Eh, Rupert Dunsmore?"

"You know me, then?"

"Oh, long enough."

"Where is Ella?"

Deede Dawson laughed again.

"That's a thing I know and you don't," he said. "Well, she's safe away in London by this time."

"That's a lie, for her mother's here still," answered Rupert, even though his heart leapt merely to hear the words.

"Unbelieving Thomas," smiled the other. "Well, then, she is where she is, and that you can find out for yourself. But I'll make another suggestion. We are both good shots, and if we start to fire we shall kill each other. I am certain of killing you, but I shan't escape myself. Well, then, why not toss for it? Equal chances for both, and certain safety for one. Will you toss me, the one who loses to give up his pistol to the other?"

"It seems to me a good idea," Deede Dawson argued. "Here we are watching each other like cats, and knowing that the least movement of either will start the other off, and both of us pulling trigger as hard as we can.

My idea would mean a chance for one. Well, let's try another way; the best shot to win. You don't trust me, but I will you."

Leaving his pistol lying where he had put it down, he crossed the attic, and with a pencil he took from his pocket drew a circle on the panel of the wardrobe door that Rupert had split with the inkpot he had thrown.

In the centre of the circle he marked a dot, and turned smilingly to the frowning and suspicious Rupert.

"There you are," he said, and made another circle near the first one.

"Now you put a bullet into the middle of this circle and I'll put one afterwards through the second circle, and the one who is nearest to the dots I've marked, wins. What have you to say to that? Seems to me better than our killing each other. Isn't it?"

"I think you're playing the fool for some reason of your own," answered Rupert. "There's only one thing I want to know from you. Where is Ella?"

"Let me know how you can shoot," answered Deede Dawson, "and I'll tell you, by all that's holy, I will."

Rupert hesitated. He did not understand all this, he could not imagine what motive was in Deede Dawson's mind, though it was certainly true enough that once they began shooting at each other neither man was at all likely to survive, for Rupert knew he would not miss and he did not think Deede Dawson would either.

Above all, there was the one thing he wished to know, the one consideration that weighed with him above all others--what had become of Ella? And this time there had been in Deede Dawson's voice an accent of twisted and malign sincerity that seemed to say he really would be willing to tell the truth about her if Rupert would gratify his whim about this sort of shooting-match that he was suggesting.

The purpose of it Rupert could not understand, but it did not seem to him there would be any risk of harm in agreeing, for Deede Dawson was standing so far away from his own weapon he could not well be contemplating any immediate mischief or treachery.

It did occur to him that the pistol he held might be loaded in one chamber only and that Deede Dawson might be scheming to induce him to throw away his solitary cartridge.

But a glance rea.s.sured him on that point.

"Let me see how you can shoot," Deede Dawson repeated, leaning carelessly with folded arms against the wall a little distance away.

"And I promise you I'll tell you where Ella is."

Rupert lifted his pistol and was indeed on the very point of firing when he caught a glimpse of such evil triumph and delight in Deede Dawson's cold eyes that he hesitated and lowered the weapon, and at the same time, looking more closely, searching more intently for some indication of Deede Dawson's hidden purpose, he noticed, caught in the crack of the wardrobe door, a tiny shred of some blue material only just visible.

He remembered that sometimes of an afternoon Ella had been accustomed to wear a frock made of a material exactly like that of which so tiny a fragment showed now in the crack of the wardrobe door.

CHAPTER x.x.x. SOME EXPLANATIONS

He turned quickly towards Deede Dawson. Their eyes met, and in that mutual glance Rupert Dunsmore read that his suspicions were correct and Deede Dawson that his dreadful trap was discovered.

Neither spoke. For a brief moment they remained impa.s.sive, immobile, their eyes meeting like blows, and then Deede Dawson made one spring to seize again the revolver he had laid down in the hope of enticing Rupert into the awful snare prepared for him.

But quick as he was, Rupert was quicker still, and as Deede Dawson leaped he lifted his pistol and fired, though his aim was not at the man, but at the revolver lying on the top of the roll of carpet where Deede Dawson had placed it.

The bullet, for Rupert was a man who seldom missed, struck the weapon fair and whirled it, shattered and useless, to the floor. Deede Dawson, whose hand had been already outstretched to seize it, drew back with a snarl that was more like the cry of a trapped wolf than any sound produced from human lips.

Still, Rupert did not speak. With the smoking pistol in his hand he watched silently and steadily his helpless enemy who, for his part, was silent, too, and very still, for he felt that doom was close upon him.

Yet he showed not the least sign of fear, but only a fierce and sullen defiance.

"Shoot away, why don't you shoot?" he sneered. "Mind you don't miss. I trusted you when I put my revolver down and I was a fool, but I thought you would play fair."

Without a word Rupert tossed his pistol through the attic window.

They heard the tinkling fall of the gla.s.s, they heard more faintly the sound of the revolver striking the outhouse roof twenty feet below and rebounding thence to the paved kitchen yard beneath, and then all was quiet again.

"I only need my hands for you," said Rupert softly, as softly as a mother coos to her drowsy babe. "My hands for you."

For the first time Deede Dawson seemed to fear, for, indeed, there was that in Rupert Dunsmore's eyes to rouse fear in any man. With a sudden swift spring, Rupert leaped forward and Deede Dawson, not daring to abide that onslaught, turned and ran, screaming shrilly.

During the s.p.a.ce of one brief moment, a dreadful and appalling moment, there was a wild strange hunting up and down the narrow s.p.a.ce of that upper attic, c.u.mbered with lumber and old, disused furniture.

Round and round Deede Dawson fled, screaming still in a high shrill way, like some wild thing in pain, and hard upon him followed Rupert, nor had they gone a second time about that room before Rupert had Deede Dawson in a fast embrace, his arms about the other's middle.

One last great cry Deede Dawson gave when Rupert seized him, and then was silent as Rupert lifted him and swung him high at arm's length.

As a child in play sports with its doll, so Rupert swung Deede Dawson twice about his head, round and round and then loosed him so that he went hurling through the air with awful force, like a stone shot from a catapult, clean through the window through which Rupert had the moment before tossed his pistol with but little more apparent effort.

Right through the window, bearing panes and sash with him, Deede Dawson flew with the impetus of that great throw and out beyond and down, turning over and over the while, down through the empty air to fall and be shattered like a piece of worthless crockery on the stone threshold of the outhouse door.

Surprised to find himself alone, Rupert put his hand to his forehead and looked vacantly around.

"My G.o.d, what have I done?" he thought.

He was trembling violently, and the fury of the pa.s.sion that had possessed him and had given his mighty muscles a force more than human, was still upon him.

Going to the window, he looked out, for he did not quite know what had happened and from it he looked back at the wardrobe door.