Fred Starratt stood up slowly, repressing a desire to leap suddenly to his feet.  He walked up and down the cluttered room twice.  Storch watched him narrowly.

“Six in the party?” Fred echoed.  “Any women?”

Storch rubbed his palms together.  “There may be two ... providing your wife comes back with him...  Mrs. Hilmer sent for her.”

“Mrs. Hilmer!”

Storch smiled his usual broad smile, exhibiting his green teeth.

“She developed a whim to attend the launching...  Naturally she wished her dearest friend with her.”

Fred Starratt sat down.  He was trembling inwardly, but he knew instinctively that he must appear nonchalant and calm.  He guessed at once that it would not do for him to betray the fact that suddenly he realized how completely he had been snared.  Yet his trepidation must have communicated itself, for Storch leaned forward with the diabolical air of an inquisitor and said: 

“Does it matter in the least whether there is one victim or six?”

Fred managed to reply, coolly, “Not the slightest ... but I have been thinking in terms of one.”

Storch smiled evilly.  “That would have been absurd in any case.  There are always a score or so of bystanders who ...”

“Yes, of course, of course.  Just so!” Fred interrupted.

Storch laid his pipe aside and drained a half-filled glass of red wine standing beside his plate.

“I think I’ve turned a very neat trick,” he said, smacking his lips in satisfaction.  “It’s almost like a Greek tragedy—­Hilmer, his wife, and yours in one fell swoop, and at your hand.  There is an artistic unity about this affair that has been lacking in some of my other triumphs.”

Fred rose again, and this time he turned squarely on Storch as he asked: 

“How long have you and Mrs. Hilmer been plotting this together?”

Storch’s eyes widened in surprise.  “You’re getting keener every moment...  Well, you’ve asked a fair question.  I planted that maid in the house soon after I knew the story.”

“After the fever set me to prattling?”

“Precisely.”

Fred Starratt stood motionless for a moment, but presently he began to laugh.

Storch looked annoyed, then rather puzzled.  Fred took the hint and fell silent.  For the first time since his escape from Fairview he was experiencing the joy of alert and sharpened senses.  He had ceased to drift.  From this moment on he would be struggling.  And a scarcely repressed joy rose within him.

That night Fred Starratt did not sleep.  His mind was too clear, his senses too alert.  He was like a man coming suddenly out of a mist into the blinding sunshine of some valley sheltered from the sea.

“Does it matter in the least whether there is one victim or six?”

He repeated Storch’s question over and over again.  Yes, it did matter—­why, he could not have said.  But even in a vague way there had been a certain point in winging Hilmer.  Hilmer had grown to be more and more an impersonal effigy upon which one could spew forth malice and be forever at peace.  He had fancied, too, that Hilmer was his enemy.  Yet, Hilmer had done nothing more than harry him.  It was Storch who had captured him completely.