As he spoke, he made fumbling preparations with his gun. "You'll never get out of this yarn alive! You'll die on paper just where you were born!" The glitter in his eyes, amplified by the glasses, was unmistakably that of a man who had snapped his bolt. _"Did you ring, madam?" Kitty said suddenly, with idiotic unconcern._ _Evelyn turned in response to this incongruity and smiled warmly. Then she went limp against the back of the divan. "Eeeeeeeee!" she screamed with shrill hysteria._ _"Gotta gat ... gotta gat ... gotta gat ... gotta gat ... gotta gat." Mario began to chant, rolling his eyes insanely._ _"Madam, did you ring, madam?" Kitty chimed in. "Madam?... Madam?... Madam?"_ _"Gotta gat," Mario said, grinning crookedly. He stepped back two paces with jerky rapidity and pointed his gun at the ceiling. "Gotcha covered, shamus."_ These stunning proceedings, occurring as they did in overlapping rapidity, had a startling effect, even on Dermitt. He looked up from his gun distractedly. _"Did you ring, madam?" Kitty said, persisting with the same old refrain. "Ring-a-ling-a-ling, madam?"_ _Mario fired three shots into the ceiling in rapid succession. "Gotcha," he tittered. "Gotcha with my gat, yuh rat, yuh."_ _"Bless yuh," Evelyn said and moved away from the divan with a lighthearted pirouette that delivered her to the center of the room directly between Fleetwood and Dermitt._ "Oh, my God!" Dermitt wailed. It was plain that the little man was no less stunned than Fleetwood at these outcroppings of his own madness. Fact and fancy had gotten so snarled together that the result was roaring insanity. He shook his head as though to clear it. _"Why don't you shoot me, Mario?" Evelyn said, running her hand wildly through her hair. "Kill me, too, and be done with it. God knows it wouldn't be any great loss to the world after what I've done." She turned to Fleetwood in a convulsive movement. "Go, Cassidy, make a run for it. I'll shield you until he kills me. You can use my body to protect yourself. Only promise you'll kill him--after he kills me. That's all I want now, just to die and know that he's going to die too." She smiled crookedly. "And when you check up on that gun you'll find out it's registered in my name. That's right, I killed Blanchard. I went to him to ask him for the jewels and he wouldn't let me have them. We got into a fight over them. It was an accident, I suppose. I don't really know how it happened--I just did it. I lost my head and ran and I had to send Mario back to get the jewels for me. He was the only man I knew filthy enough for that kind of job. And I was frightened half to death...." Her voice trailed off slowly. She sank to the floor like a discarded scrap of tissue paper._ * * * * *