MAX CARRADOS MYSTERIES - Complete Series in One Volume. Bramah Ernest

one in question, speaking with renewed decision. “We will play the last hand with our cards upon the table if you like. Nina, Mr Carrados will not injure you whatever happens—be sure of that. When the moment comes you will rise——”

      “One word,” put in Carrados with determination. “My position is precarious and I take no risks. As you say, I cannot injure Madame Dompierre, and you two men are therefore my hostages for her good behaviour. If she rises from the couch you, Dompierre, fall. If she advances another step Mr Montmorency follows you.”

      “Do nothing rash, carissima,” urged her husband, with passionate solicitude. “You might get hit in place of me. We will yet find a better way.”

      “You dare not, Mr Carrados!” flung out Montmorency, for the first time beginning to show signs of wear in this duel of the temper. “He dare not, Dompierre. In cold blood and unprovoked! No jury would acquit you!”

      “Another who fails to do you justice, Madame Nina,” said the blind man, with ironic gallantry. “The action might be a little high-handed, one admits, but when you, appropriately clothed and in your right complexion, stepped into the witness-box and I said: ‘Gentlemen of the jury, what is my crime? That I made Madame Dompierre a widow!’ can you doubt their gratitude and my acquittal? Truly my countrymen are not all bats or monks, Madame.” Dompierre was breathing with perfect freedom now, while from the couch came the sounds of stifled emotion, but whether the lady was involved in a paroxysm of sobs or of laughter it might be difficult to swear.

      * * *

      It was perhaps an hour after the flourish of the introduction with which Madame Dompierre had closed the door of the trap upon the blind man’s entrance.

      The minutes had passed but the situation remained unchanged, though the ingenuity of certainly two of the occupants of the room had been tormented into shreds to discover a means of turning it to their advantage. So far the terrible omniscience of the blind man in the dark and the respect for his markmanship with which his coolness had inspired them, dominated the group. But one strong card yet remained to be played, and at last the moment came upon which the conspirators had pinned their despairing hopes.

      There was the sound of movement in the hall outside, not the first about the house, but towards the new complication Carrados had been strangely unobservant. True, Montmorency had talked rather loudly, to carry over the dangerous moments. But now there came an unmistakable step and to the accomplices it could only mean one thing. Montmorency was ready on the instant.

      “Down, Dom!” he cried, “throw yourself down! Break in, Guido. Break in the door. We are held up!”

      There was an immediate response. The door, under the pressure of a human battering-ram, burst open with a crash. On the threshold the intruders—four or five in number—stopped starkly for a moment, held in astonishment by the extraordinary scene that the light from the hall, and of their own bull’s-eyes, revealed.

      Flat on their faces, to present the least possible surface to Carrados’s aim, Dompierre and Montmorency lay extended beside the window and behind the door. On the couch, with her head buried beneath the cushions, Madame Dompierre sought to shut out the sight and sound of violence. Carrados—Carrados had not moved, but with arms resting on the table and fingers placidly locked together he smiled benignly on the new arrivals. His attitude, compared with the extravagance of those around him, gave the impression of a complacent modern deity presiding over some grotesque ceremonial of pagan worship.

      “So, Inspector, you could not wait for me, after all?” was his greeting.

       The End

      THE EYES OF MAX CARRADOS

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