“At once,” the other answered.

We heard him close the outer door and depart.  Then I turned to Louis.

“Louis,” I said, “so this is your adventure!  This is the way you proposed to make use of me!  You got me into that room and drugged me.  I was to lie there while you murdered that man with my weapon.  Then you would creep away, and in the morning there was I and the dead man!  I was to be the tool,—­the girl there the lure.  It was well worked out, Louis, but it was a coward’s plan and a coward’s trick!”

I reached out my hand and took him by the collar.  I felt as though I were grasping some unclean insect, from whom the sting might shoot out at any moment.

“Have you anything to say?” I asked.

“You do not understand,” he said, in a low tone.  “I did not mean to put this thing upon you.  I meant, perhaps, to disable that man who has just left.  If you knew his history and mine, you would not wonder at it.  But I meant to see that he was safely removed.”

“Then why did you bring me down into that room,” I asked, “under a false pretence?  Why did you use that murderous cane of mine for your crime?  Why did you insist upon it that I should be seen dining with the girl—­God knows who she is!—­who is in that room?”

“I can explain everything,” Louis said.  “I am confused!  I cannot help it—­you came so unexpectedly!”

“Unexpectedly indeed,” I answered, “because I poured your whiskey and soda out of the window, and because I took an antidote to your coffee!”

“You speak of things which I do not understand,” Louis declared.

“Oh! tell me no more lies!” I exclaimed.  “Listen!  You see I have you by the collar, and I have my cane.  Now I am going to beat you till every bone in your body aches, till you will not be able to crawl about, until you tell me the real history of these things.  For every lie—­if I know it to be a lie—­I shall strike you.  Tell me who that man Delora is?  Tell me who the girl is, posing as his niece, who meets you here after midnight?  Tell me the name of that man who has just left us?  Tell me how you are all bound together, and what your quarrel is?  And tell me where Delora is now?”

“I have no strength,” he gasped.  “You are too rough.  Let me sit down quietly.  I must think.”

“No!” I answered.  “Speak!  Speak now!”

I raised the stick as though to strike him.  Then I saw a sudden change in his face.  I looked toward the door.  Almost as I did so I heard the faint flutter of moving draperies.  Felicia stood there looking in upon us, her hands uplifted, her face full of terror.

“It is Capitaine Rotherby!” she cried.  “Tell me, then, what has happened?  Capitaine Rotherby!”

She came a little toward us, but I think that she read in my face something of what I was feeling, for she stopped suddenly and her lips quivered.

“What has happened?” she demanded.  “Will neither of you tell me?  Is my uncle worse?  Has any one—­any one tried to do him an injury?”