Culver Rann’s reply was as quick and sharp as a pistol shot.

“I am.”

For another moment there was silence.  Then Quade asked: 

“Any need of writin’, Culver?”

“No.  There can’t be a written agreement in this deal because—­it’s dangerous.  There won’t be much said about old MacDonald.  But questions, a good many of them, will be asked about this man Aldous.  As for the woman——­” Rann shrugged his shoulders with a sinister smile.  “She will disappear like the others,” he finished.  “No one will ever get on to that.  If she doesn’t make a pal like Marie—­after a time, why——­”

Again Aldous saw that peculiar shrug of his shoulders.

Quade’s head nodded on his thick neck.

“Of course, I agree to that,” he said.  “After a time.  But most of ’em have come over, ain’t they, Culver?  Eh?  Most of ’em have,” he chuckled coarsely.  “When you see her you won’t call me a fool for going dippy over her, Culver.  And she’ll come round all right after she’s gone through what we’ve got planned for her.  I’ll make a pal of her!”

In that moment, as he listened to the gloating passion and triumph in Quade’s brutal voice, something broke in the brain of John Aldous.  It filled him with a fire that in an instant had devoured every thought or plan he had made, and in this madness he was consumed by a single desire—­the desire to kill.  And yet, as this conflagration surged through him, it did not blind or excite him.  It did not make him leap forth in animal rage.  It was something more terrible.  He rose so quietly that the others did not see or hear him in the dark outer room.  They did not hear the slight metallic click of the safety on his pistol.

For the space of a breath he stood and looked at them.  He no longer sensed the words Quade was uttering.  He was going in coolly and calmly to kill them.  There was something disagreeable in the flashing thought that he might kill them from where he stood.  He would not fire from the dark.  He wanted to experience the exquisite sensation of that one first moment when they would writhe back from him, and see in him the presence of death.  He would give them that one moment of life—­just that one.  Then he would kill.

With his pistol ready in his hand he stepped out into the lighted room.

“Good evening, gentlemen!” he said.

CHAPTER XIII

For a space of perhaps twenty seconds after John Aldous announced himself there was no visible sign of life on the part of either Quade or Culver Rann.  The latter sat stunned.  Not the movement of a finger broke the stonelike immobility of his attitude.  His eyes were like two dark coals gazing steadily as a serpent’s over Quade’s hunched shoulders and bowed head.  Quade seemed as if frozen on the point of speaking to Rann.  One hand was still poised a foot above the table.  It was he who broke the tense and lifeless tableau.