Instantly Rivvin and Thwaite were like two terriers after a rat. “This is where the diamonds are,” Thwaite declared, “and Mr. Hengist Eversleigh is in there with them.” He and Rivvin conferred a while together. “You kneel low,” Thwaite whispered. “Duck when you open it. He’ll fire over you. Then you’ve got him. See?” Rivvin tip-toed to the door, knelt and tried key after key in the lock. There were at least twenty bulbs in the chandelier of that room and the light beat down on him. His red neck dew-lapped over the low collar of his lavenderish shirt, his great broad back showed vast and powerful. On the other side of the doorway Thwaite stood, his finger at the electric button. Each had his slung-shot in his left hand. They had spun the cylinders of their revolvers and stuck them in their belts in front before Rivvin began work on the lock. I heard a click. Rivvin put up his hand. The lights went out. In the black dark we stood, stood until I could almost see the outlines of the windows; less black against the intenser blackness. Soon I heard another click, and the grate of an opened door. Then a kind of snarl, a thump like a blow, a sort of strangling gasp, and the cushiony sounds of a struggle. Thwaite turned on the lights. Rivvin was in the act of staggering up from his knees. I saw a pair of small, pink hands, the fingers intertwined, locked behind Rivvin’s neck. They slipped apart as I caught sight of them. I had a vision of small feet in little patent leather silver-buckled low-shoes, of green socks, of diminutive legs in white trousers flashing right and left in front of Rivvin, as if he held by the throat a struggling child. Next I saw that his arms were thrown up, wide apart. He collapsed and fell back his full length with a dull crash. Then I saw the snout! Saw the wolf-jaws vised on his throat! Saw the blood welling round the dazzling white fangs, and recognized the reality of the sinister head I had seen over and over in his pictures. Rivvin made the fish-out-of-water contortions of a man being killed. Thwaite brought his slung-shot down on the beast-head skull. The blow was enough to crush in a steel cylinder. The beast wrinkled its snout and shook its head from side to side, worrying like a bull-dog at Rivvin’s throat. Again Thwaite struck and again and again. At each blow the portentous head oscillated viciously. The awful thing about it to me was the two blue bosses on each side of the muzzle, like enamel, shiny and hard looking; and the hideous welt of red, like fresh sealing-wax, down between them and along the snout. Rivvin’s struggles grew weaker as the great teeth tore at his throat. He was dead before Thwaite’s repeated blows drove in the splintered skull and the clenched jaws relaxed, the snout crinkling and contracting as the dog-teeth slid from their hold. Thwaite gave the monster two or three more blows, touched Rivvin and fairly dashed out of the room, shouting. “You stay here!”