The Game Played in the Dark | Page 8

there myself."
"Your recommendation carries weight. Suppose, for the sake of curiosity, that I decline?"
"You will still go there but your treatment will be commensurate with your behaviour. The car to take you is at this moment waiting in a convenient spot on the other side of the park. We shall go down the garden at the back, cross the park, and put you into the car--anyway."
"And if I resist?"
The man whose pleasantry it had been to call himself Eustace Montmorency shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't be a fool," he said tolerantly. "You know who you are dealing with and the kind of risks we run. If you call out or endanger us at a critical point we shall not hesitate to silence you effectively."
The blind man knew that it was no idle threat. In spite of the cloak of humour and fantasy thrown over the proceedings, he was in the power of coolly desperate men. The window was curtained and shuttered against sight and sound, the door behind him locked. Possibly at that moment a revolver threatened him; certainly weapons lay within reach of both his keepers.
"Tell me what to write," he asked, with capitulation in his voice.
Dompierre twirled his mustachios in relieved approval. Madame laughed from her place on the couch and picked up a book, watching Montmorency over the cover of its pages. As for that gentleman, he masked his satisfaction by the practical business of placing on the table before Carrados the accessories of the letter.
"Put into your own words the message that I outlined just now."
"Perhaps to make it altogether natural I had better write on a page of the notebook that I always use," suggested Carrados.
"Do you wish to make it natural?" demanded Montmorency, with latent suspicion.
"If the miscarriage of your plan is to result in my head being knocked--yes, I do," was the reply.
"Good!" chuckled Dompierre, and sought to avoid Mr. Montmorency's cold glance by turning on the electric table-lamp for the blind man's benefit. Madame Dompierre laughed shrilly.
"Thank you, Monsieur," said Carrados, "you have done quite right. What is light to you is warmth to me--heat, energy, inspiration. Now to business."
He took out the pocket-book he had spoken of and leisurely proceeded to flatten it down upon the table before him. As his tranquil, pleasant eyes ranged the room meanwhile it was hard to believe that the shutters of an impenetrable darkness lay between them and the world. They rested for a moment on the two accomplices who stood beyond the table, picked out Madame Dompierre lolling on the sofa on his right, and measured the proportions of the long, narrow room. They seemed to note the positions of the window at the one end and the door almost at the other, and even to take into account the single pendent electric light which up till then had been the sole illuminant.
"You prefer pencil?" asked Montmorency.
"I generally use it for casual purposes. But not," he added, touching the point critically, "like this."
Alert for any sign of retaliation, they watched him take an insignificant penknife from his pocket and begin to trim the pencil. Was there in his mind any mad impulse to force conclusions with that puny weapon? Dompierre worked his face into a fiercer expression and touched reassuringly the handle of his knife. Montmorency looked on for a moment, then, whistling softly to himself, turned his back on the table and strolled towards the window, avoiding Madame Nina's pursuant eye.
Then, with overwhelming suddenness, it came, and in its form altogether unexpected.
Carrados had been putting the last strokes to the pencil, whittling it down upon the table. There had been no hasty movement, no violent act to give them warning; only the little blade had pushed itself nearer and nearer to the electric light cord lying there . . . and suddenly and instantly the room was plunged into absolute darkness.
"To the door, Dom!" shouted Montmorency in a flash. "I am at the window. Don't let him pass and we are all right."
"I am here," responded Dompierre from the door.
"He will not attempt to pass," came the quiet voice of Carrados from across the room. "You are now all exactly where I want you. You are both covered. If either moves an inch, I fire and remember that I shoot by sound, not sight."
"But--but what does it mean?" stammered Montmorency, above the despairing wail of Madame Dompierre.
"It means that we are now on equal terms--three blind men in a dark room. The numerical advantage that you possess is counterbalanced by the fact that you are out of your element--I am in mine."
"Dom," whispered Montmorency across the dark space, "strike a match. I have none."
"I would not, Dompierre, if I were you," advised Carrados, with a short laugh. "It might be dangerous."
At once his voice seemed