It was a very small sound--so small that it might have been no more than that caused by the scratch of the tiniest mouse in the wainscot. But in that intense silence it was easily heard--and with it came the faint glimmering of a light. The light widened--there was a little further sound--and Mallalieu, peeping at things through his eyelashes became aware that the door was open, that a tall, spare figure was outlined between the bed and the light without. And in that light, outside the door, well behind the thin form of Miss Pett, he saw Christopher Pett's sharp face and the glint of his beady eyes.
Mallalieu was sharp enough of thought, and big man though he was, he had always been quick of action. He knew what Miss Pett's objective was, and he let her advance half-way across the room on her stealthy path to the waistcoat. But silently as she came on with that cat-like tread, Mallalieu had just as silently drawn the revolver from beneath his pillow and turned its small muzzle on her. It had a highly polished barrel, that revolver, and Miss Pett suddenly caught a tiny scintillation of light on it--and she screamed. And as she screamed Mallalieu fired, and the scream died down to a queer choking sound ... and he fired again ... and where Christopher Pett's face had shown itself a second before there was nothing--save another choking sound and a fall in the entry where Christopher had stood and watched.
After that followed a silence so deep that Mallalieu felt the drums of his ears aching intensely in the effort to catch any sound, however small. But he heard nothing--not even a sigh. It was as if all the awful silences that had ever been in the cavernous places of the world had been crystallized into one terrible silence and put into that room.
He reached out at last and found his candle and the matches, and he got more light and leaned forward in the bed, looking.
"Can't ha' got 'em both!" he muttered. "Both? But----"
He slowly lifted himself out of bed, huddled on some of the garments that lay carefully folded on the chair, and then, holding the candle to the floor, went forward to where the woman lay. She had collapsed between the foot of the bed and the wall; her shoulders were propped against the wall and the grotesque turban hung loosely down on one shoulder. And Mallalieu knew in that quick glance that she was dead, and he crept onward to the door and looked at the other still figure, lying just as supinely in the passage that led to the living-room. He looked longer at that ... and suddenly he turned back into his parlour-bedchamber, and carefully avoiding the dead woman put on his boots and began to dress with feverish haste.