The Shrieking Pit | Page 3

occupant. A
moment afterwards he got up and walked across to the pillar against
which Colwyn's table was placed.
"Will you permit me to take a seat at your table?" he remarked urbanely.
"I am afraid we are going to have trouble over there directly," he added,
sinking his voice as he nodded in the direction of the distant alcove

table. "We may have to act promptly. Nobody else seems to have
noticed anything. We can watch him from behind this pillar without his
seeing us."
Colwyn nodded in return with a quick comprehension of all the other's
speech implied, and pushed a chair towards his visitor, who sat down
and resumed his watch of the young man at the alcove table. Colwyn
bestowed a swift glance on his companion which took in everything.
The tall man in glasses looked too human for a lawyer, too intelligent
for a schoolmaster, and too well-dressed for an ordinary medical man.
Colwyn, versed in judging men swiftly from externals, noting the
urbane, somewhat pompous face, the authoritative, professional pose,
the well-shaped, plump white hands, and the general air of well-being
and prosperity which exuded from the whole man, placed him as a
successful practitioner in the more lucrative path of medicine--probably
a fashionable Harley Street specialist.
Colwyn returned to his scrutiny of the young man at the alcove table,
and he and his companion studied him intently for some time in silence.
But the young man, for the moment, was comparatively quiet, gazing
moodily through the open window over the waters of the North Sea, an
untasted sole in front of him, and an impassive waiter pouring out his
coffee as though the spectacle of a young man sticking a knife into the
table-cloth was a commonplace occurrence at the Grand Hotel, and all
in the day's doings. When the waiter had finished pouring out the
coffee and noiselessly departed, the young man tasted it with an
indifferent air, pushed it from him, and resumed his former occupation
of staring out of the window.
"He seems quiet enough now," observed Colwyn, turning to his
companion. "What do you think is the matter with him--shell-shock?"
"I would not care to hazard a definite opinion on so cursory an
observation," returned the other, in a dry, reticent, ultra-professional
manner. "But I will go so far as to say that I do not think it is a case of
shell-shock. If it is what I suspect, that first attack was the precursor of
another, possibly a worse attack. Ha! it is commencing. Look at his
thumb--that is the danger signal!"

Colwyn looked across the room again. The young man was still sitting
in the same posture, with his gaze bent on the open sea. His left hand
was extended rigidly on the table in front of him, with the thumb,
extended at right angles, oscillating rapidly in a peculiar manner.
"This attack may pass away like the other, but if he looks round at
anybody, and makes the slightest move, we must secure him
immediately," said Colwyn's companion, speaking in a whisper.
He had barely finished speaking when the young man turned his head
from the open window and fixed his blue eyes vacantly on the table
nearest him, where an elderly clergyman, a golfing friend, and their
wives, were breakfasting together. With a swift movement the young
man got up, and started to walk towards this table.
Colwyn, who was watching every movement of the young man closely,
could not determine, then or afterwards, whether he meditated an attack
on the occupants of the next table, or merely intended to leave the
breakfast room. The clergyman's table was directly in front of the
alcove and in a line with the pair of swinging glass doors which were
the only exit from the breakfast-room. But Colwyn's companion did not
wait for the matter to be put to the test. At the first movement of the
young man he sprang to his feet and, without waiting to see whether
Colwyn was following him, raced across the room and caught the
young man by the arm while he was yet some feet away from the
clergyman's table. The young man struggled desperately in his grasp
for some moments, then suddenly collapsed and fell inert in the other's
arms. Colwyn walked over to the spot in time to see his portly
companion lay the young man down on the carpet and bend over to
loosen his collar.
The young man lay apparently unconscious on the floor, breathing
stertorously, with convulsed features and closed eyes. After the lapse of
some minutes he opened his eyes, glanced listlessly at the circle of
frightened people who had gathered around him, and feebly
endeavoured to sit up. Colwyn's companion, who was bending over
him feeling