Chapter 3

“Seems to be a confounded draught,” he said, with another slight shiver;
“did I shut the door properly, I wonder?” He strode across the room and,
opening the door wide, looked out into the dark garden. A desire, sudden
and urgent, had come over him to get out into the open air, to be on the
road and have done with this madness that was knocking at the door of
his brain.

“I wonder if it is worth while to start yet,” he said, with a yearning
glance at the murky, starless sky.

Brodski roused himself and looked round. “Is your clock right?” he
asked.

Silas reluctantly admitted that it was.

“How long will it take us to walk to the station?” inquired Brodski.

“Oh, about twenty-five minutes to half-an-hour,” replied Silas,
unconsciously exaggerating the distance.

“Well,” said Brodski, “we’ve got more than an hour yet, and it’s more
comfortable here than hanging about the station. I don’t see the use of
starting before we need.”

“No; of course not,” Silas agreed. A wave of strange emotion,
half-regretful, half-triumphant, surged through his brain. For some
moments he remained standing on the threshold, looking out dreamily into
the night. Then he softly closed the door; and, seemingly without the
exercise of his volition, the key turned noiselessly in the lock.

He returned to his chair and tried to open a conversation with the
taciturn Brodski, but the words came faltering and disjointed. He felt
his face growing hot, his brain full and tense, and there was a faint,
high-pitched singing in his ears. He was conscious of watching his guest
with a new and fearful interest, and, by sheer force of will, turned
away his eyes; only to find them a moment later involuntarily returning
to fix the unconscious man with yet more horrible intensity. And ever
through his mind walked, like a dreadful procession, the thoughts of
what that other man—the man of blood and violence—would do in these
circumstances. Detail by detail the hideous synthesis fitted together
the parts of the imagined crime, and arranged them in due sequence until
they formed a succession of events, rational, connected and coherent.

He rose uneasily from his chair, with his eyes still riveted upon his
guest. He could not sit any longer opposite that man with his hidden
store of precious gems. The impulse that he recognised with fear and
wonder was growing more ungovernable from moment to moment. If he stayed
it would presently overpower him, and then—— He shrank with horror
from the dreadful thought, but his fingers itched to handle the
diamonds. For Silas was, after all, a criminal by nature and habit. He
was a beast of prey. His livelihood had never been earned; it had been
taken by stealth or, if necessary, by force. His instincts were
predaceous, and the proximity of unguarded valuables suggested to him,
as a logical consequence, their abstraction or seizure. His
unwillingness to let these diamonds go away beyond his reach was fast
becoming overwhelming.

But he would make one more effort to escape. He would keep out of
Brodski’s actual presence until the moment for starting came.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I will go and put on a thicker pair of
boots. After all this dry weather we may get a change, and damp feet are
very uncomfortable when you are travelling.”

“Yes; dangerous too,” agreed Brodski.

Silas walked through into the adjoining kitchen, where, by the light of
the little lamp that was burning there, he had seen his stout, country
boots placed, cleaned and in readiness, and sat down upon a chair to
make the change. He did not, of course, intend to wear the country
boots, for the diamonds were concealed in those he had on. But he would
make the change and then alter his mind; it would all help to pass the
time. He took a deep breath. It was a relief, at any rate, to be out of
that room. Perhaps, if he stayed away, the temptation would pass.
Brodski would go on his way—he wished that he was going alone—and the
danger would be over—at least—and the opportunity would have gone—the
diamonds——

He looked up as he slowly unlaced his boot. From where he sat he could
see Brodski sitting by the table with his back towards the kitchen door.
He had finished eating, now, and was composedly rolling a cigarette.
Silas breathed heavily, and, slipping off his boot, sat for a while
motionless, gazing steadily at the other man’s back. Then he unlaced the
other boot, still staring abstractedly at his unconscious guest, drew it
off, and laid it very quietly on the floor.

Brodski calmly finished rolling his cigarette, licked the paper, put
away his pouch, and, having dusted the crumbs of tobacco from his knees,
began to search his pockets for a match. Suddenly, yielding to an
uncontrollable impulse, Silas stood up and began stealthily to creep
along the passage to the sitting-room. Not a sound came from his
stockinged feet. Silently as a cat he stole forward, breathing softly
with parted lips, until he stood at the threshold of the room. His face
flushed duskily, his eyes, wide and staring, glittered in the lamplight,
and the racing blood hummed in his ears.

Brodski struck a match—Silas noted that it was a wooden vesta—lighted
his cigarette, blew out the match and flung it into the fender. Then he
replaced the box in his pocket and commenced to smoke.

Slowly and without a sound Silas crept forward into the room, step by
step, with catlike stealthiness, until he stood close behind Brodski’s
chair—so close that he had to turn his head that his breath might not
stir the hair upon the other man’s head. So, for half-a-minute, he stood
motionless, like a symbolical statue of Murder, glaring down with
horrible, glittering eyes upon the unconscious diamond merchant, while
his quick breath passed without a sound through his open mouth and his
fingers writhed slowly like the tentacles of a giant hydra. And then, as
noiselessly as ever, he backed away to the door, turned quickly and
walked back into the kitchen.

He drew a deep breath. It had been a near thing. Brodski’s life had hung
upon a thread. For it had been so easy. Indeed, if he had happened, as
he stood behind the man’s chair, to have a weapon—a hammer, for
instance, or even a stone——

He glanced round the kitchen and his eye lighted on a bar that had been
left by the workmen who had put up the new greenhouse. It was an odd
piece cut off from a square, wrought-iron stanchion, and was about a
foot long and perhaps three-quarters of an inch thick. Now, if he had
had that in his hand a minute ago——

He picked the bar up, balanced it in his hand and swung it round his
head. A formidable weapon this: silent, too. And it fitted the plan that
had passed through his brain. Bah! He had better put the thing down.

But he did not. He stepped over to the door and looked again at Brodski,
sitting, as before, meditatively smoking, with his back towards the
kitchen.