“All right.”  Wynne straightened himself, took an unsteady step forward toward the door, and it was then that they all realized how exceedingly drunk the man was.  He had come to the dinner in a state of partial intoxication, which merely made him bad-tempered, but now the spirits that he had partaken of so plentifully was burning itself into his very brain.

Doctor Bartholomew took a step toward him.

“Dash it all!” he said under his breath and addressing no one in particular, “he can’t go like that.  Can’t some of us stop him?”

“Try,” put in Lester Stark sententiously, having had previous experiences of Wynne’s mood, so Doctor Bartholomew did try, and got cursed for his pains.  Wynne was struggling into his great, picturesque cloak, a sinister figure of unsteady gait and blood-shot eye.  As he went to the hall and swung open the front door, Merriton made one last effort to stop him.

“Don’t be a fool, Wynne,” he said anxiously.  “The game’s not worth the candle.  Stay where you are and I’ll put you up for the night, but in Heaven’s name don’t venture out across the Fens now.”

Wynne turned and showed him a reddened, congested face from which the eyes gleamed evilly.  Merriton never forgot that picture of him, or the sudden tightening of the heart-strings that he experienced, the sudden sensation of foreboding that swept over him.

“Oh—­go to hell!” Wynne said thickly.  And plunged out into the darkness.

CHAPTER VI

A SHOT IN THE DARK

The church clock, some distance over Herne’s Hill which lies at the back of Merriton Towers, broke the half silence that had fallen upon the little group of men in the warm smoking room with twelve sonorous, deep-throated notes.  At sound of them Merriton got to his feet and stretched his hands above his head.  A damper had fallen over the spirits of his guests after Wynne had gone out into the night on his foolish errand, and the fury against him that had stirred Nigel’s soul was gradually wearing off.

“Well, Wynne said twelve, didn’t he?” he remarked, with a sort of half-laugh as he surveyed the grave faces of the men who were seated in a semi-circle about him, “and twelve it is.  We’ll wait another half hour, and then if he doesn’t come we’ll make a move for bed.  He’ll be playing some beastly trick upon us, you may be sure of that.  What a horrible temperament the man has!  He was supposed to be putting up with the Brelliers to-night—­old man Brellier was decent enough to ask him—­and possibly he’ll simply turn in there and laugh to himself at the picture of us chaps sitting here in the mornin’ and waitin’ for his return!”

Doctor Bartholomew shook his white head with a good deal of obstinacy.

“I think you’re wrong there Nigel.  Wynne is a man of his word, drunk or sober.  He’ll come back, no doubt.  Unless something has happened to him.”