He lurched against a tree and stood there staring at them, his breath a white mist in the damp air. In the vellow lamplight, his skin had turned to parchment and he looked old and tired and defeated.
He turned and staggered along the drive towards the main gate. As he reached it, the mob poured down from the mountain and flooded across the road.
Lomax and Katina paused and Alexias came up behind them and there was a strange silence. It was as if, somehow, the people outside the gate realised that something extraordinary was taking place.
Stavrou emerged from the trees and waited, the barrel of his machine pistol pointed towards the gate. Kytros nodded to him and moved forward on his own. When he paused, legs slightly apart, he was holding the automatic against his right thigh.
“Throw down your gun, Mr. Van Horn,” he said. “Let-no one else suffer in this business.”
Van Horn started to raise the revolver, almost in slow motion, his finger tightening on the trigger. In the same moment Kytros flung his arm forward and fired. The heavy slu’g pushed Van Horn back against the gate and the crowd scattered hurriedly.
He reached backwards, grasping one of the iron bars with his left hand to hold himself upright. Very deliberately, he raised the gun again, and Kytros shot him twice in the body.
There was a terrible groan from the crowd and Van Horn slithered to the ground, hands folded across his stomach as the life spilled out of him.
He looked up as Lomax went forward and tried to speak. A moment later, he started to choke and blood gushed from his mouth in a bright stream..
Beyond the gate the crowd were quiet hi the rain, not yet understanding what had taken place, waiting for someone to explain. Alexias moved beside Lomax looking old and tired as if all at once life had become too much for him. He tried to find words, but none would come and he went towards the gate.
Kytros unlocked it and Alexias passed outside and started to speak quietly to the crowd and the sergeant dropped to one knee beside Van Horn and examined the body.
After a moment, he looked up and said calmly, “There is no blame here for you, Mr. Lomax. This man wished to die. He made me kill him.”
Lomax stood there clutching his arm, feeling the blood ooze between his fingers, and the lamp above the gate seemed to grow to enormous proportions. He turned and went along the drive to the villa.
The front door stood open to the night and he passed through the hall and the narrow, whitewashed passage and came into the great glass room containing Van Horn’s ceramics.
The showcases seemed to be suspended in the night, circling the great red and black amphora that floated, disembodied, in the darkness.
He stood there, staring at It, sweat on his face, and a spasm of blind, unreasoning rage surged up inside him. He lurched forward and pushed it sideways from the plinth with his good arm, sending it smashing in a thousand pieces across the floor. And then, for some unac-countable reason, he failed to catch his breath and night moved in on him as great dry sobs tore at his throat.
He went out on the balcony, and somehow Katina was beside him, and he said brokenly, “Dust and ashes, Katina. Dust and ashes.”
“I know, Hugh,” she said simply.
He stood at the rail and looked out on beauty. The rain had stopped and the freshness of wet earth hung on the damp air and he was alive.
After a while, he slid his good arm around her shoulders and they went back into the house.
The End