I was inexperienced.  I knew nothing of the habits or the ways of such men as these, but the alarm of innocence in the face of untold, unsuspected but intuitively felt evil, seized me at this stealthy movement, and I tried to rise,—­tried to shriek,—­but could not; for events rushed upon us quicker than I could speak or move.

“I can buy the Claymore Tavern, can I?  Well, I’m going to,” rang out into the air as the speaker leaped to his feet.  “Take that, you cheat!  And that!  And that!” And the shots rang out—­one, two, three!

Spencer was dead in his Folly.  I had seen him rise, throw up his hands and then fall in a heap among the cards and glasses.

Silence!  Not even Heaven spoke.

Then the man who stood there alone turned slightly and I saw his face.  I have seen it many times since; I have seen it at Claymore Tavern.  Distorted up to this moment by a thousand emotions,—­all evil ones,—­it was calm now with the realisation of his act, and I could make no mistake as to his identity.  Later I will mention his name.

Glancing first at his victim, then at the pistol still smoking in his hand, he put the weapon back in his pocket, and began gathering up the money for which he had just damned his soul.  To get it all, he had to move an arm of the body sprawling along the board.  But he did not appear to mind.  When every bill was in his pockets, he reached out his hand for the watch.  Then I saw him smile.  He smiled as he shut the case, he smiled as he plunged it in after the bills.  There was gloating in this smile.  He seemed to have got what he wanted more than when he fingered the bills.  I was stiff with horror.  I was not conscious of noting these details, but I saw them every one.  Small things make an impression when the mind is numb under the effect of a great blow.

Next moment I woke to a realisation of myself and all the danger of my own position.  He was scanning very carefully the room about him.  His eyes were travelling slowly—­very slowly but certainly, in my direction.  I saw them pause—­concentrate their glances and fix them straight and full upon mine.  Not that he saw me.  The crack through which we were peering each in our several ways was too narrow for that.  But the crack itself—­that was what he saw and the promise it gave of some room beyond.  I was a creature frozen.  But when he suddenly turned away instead of plunging towards me with his still smoking pistol, I had the instinct to make a leap for the window over my head and clutch madly at its narrow sill in a wild attempt at escape.

But the effort ended precipitately.  Terror had got me by the hair, and terror made me look back.  The crack had widened still further, and what I now saw through it glued me to the wall and held me there transfixed, with dangling feet and starting eyeballs.

He was coming towards me—­a straining, panting figure—­half carrying, half dragging, the dead man who flopped aside from his arms.