Miss Blacklock looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.
‘If it’s going to begin,’ she said cheerfully, ‘it ought to begin soon. It’s just a minute to the half hour. In the meantime, have a glass of sherry.’
Patrick moved with alacrity through the archway. Miss Blacklock went to the table by the archway where the cigarette-box was.
‘I’d love some sherry,’ said Mrs Harmon. ‘But what do you mean by if?’
‘Well,’ said Miss Blacklock, ‘I’m as much in the dark as you are. I don’t know what—’
She stopped and turned her head as the little clock on the mantelpiece began to chime. It had a sweet silvery bell-like tone. Everybody was silent and nobody moved. They all stared at the clock.
It chimed a quarter—and then the half. As the last note died away all the lights went out.
IV
Delighted gasps and feminine squeaks of appreciation were heard in the darkness. ‘It’s beginning,’ cried Mrs Harmon in an ecstasy. Dora Bunner’s voice cried out plaintively, ‘Oh, I don’t like it!’ Other voices said, ‘How terribly, terribly frightening!’ ‘It gives me the creeps.’ ‘Archie, where are you?’ ‘What do I have to do?’ ‘Oh dear—did I step on your foot? I’m so sorry.’
Then, with a crash, the door swung open. A powerful flashlight played rapidly round the room. A man’s hoarse nasal voice, reminiscent to all of pleasant afternoons at the cinema, directed the company crisply to:
‘Stick ’em up!
‘Stick ’em up, I tell you!’ the voice barked.
Delightedly, handswere raised willingly above heads.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ breathed a female voice. ‘I’m so thrilled.’
And then, unexpectedly, a revolver spoke. It spoke twice. The ping of two bullets shattered the complacency of the room. Suddenly the game was no longer a game. Somebody screamed…
The figure in the doorway whirled suddenly round, it seemed to hesitate, a third shot rang out, it crumpled and then it crashed to the ground. The flashlight dropped and went out.
There was darkness once again. And gently, with a little Victorian protesting moan, the drawing-room door, as was its habit when not propped open, swung gently to and latched with a click.
V
Inside the drawing-room there was pandemonium. Various voices spoke at once. ‘Lights.’ ‘Can’t you find the switch?’ ‘Who’s got a lighter?’ ‘Oh, I don’t like it, I don’t like it.’ ‘But those shots were real!’ ‘It was a real revolver he had.’ ‘Was it a burglar?’ ‘Oh, Archie, I want to get out of here.’ ‘Please, has somebody got a lighter?’
And then, almost at the same moment, two lighters clicked and burned with small steady flames.
Everybody blinked and peered at each other. Startled face looked into startled face. Against the wall by the archway Miss Blacklock stood with her hand up to her face. The light was too dim to show more than that something dark was trickling over her fingers.
Colonel Easterbrook cleared his throat and rose to the occasion.
‘Try the switches, Swettenham,’ he ordered.
Edmund, near the door, obediently jerked the switch up and down.
‘Off at the main, or a fuse,’ said the Colonel. ‘Who’s making that awful row?’
A female voice had been screaming steadily from somewhere beyond the closed door. It rose now in pitch and with it came the sound of fists hammering on a door.
Dora Bunner, who had been sobbing quietly, called out:
‘It’s Mitzi. Somebody’s murdering Mitzi…’
Patrick muttered: ‘No such luck.’
Miss Blacklock said: ‘We must get candles. Patrick, will you—?’
The Colonel was already opening the door. He and Edmund, their lighters flickering, stepped into the hall. They almost stumbled over a recumbent figure there.
‘Seems to have knocked him out,’ said the Colonel. ‘Where’s that woman making that hellish noise?’
‘In the dining-room,’ said Edmund.
The dining-room was just across the hall. Someone was beating on the panels and howling and screaming.
‘She’s locked in,’ said Edmund, stooping down. He turned the key and Mitzi came out like a bounding tiger.
The dining-room light was still on. Silhouetted against it Mitzi presented a picture of insane terror and continued to scream. A touch of comedy was introduced by the fact that she had been engaged in cleaning silver and was still holding a chamois leather and a large fish slice.