Up the steps Vail made his way. At his own room he paused. Then with a half-smile he went along the corridor to a door at the far end of an ell. He knocked lightly at this. “Come in!” grumbled Willis Chase. Vail obeyed the summons, entering the stuffy little magenta room with its kitchen smell and its slanting low ceiling pierced by a single tiny window. Chase had thrown off coat and waistcoat and his tight boots. He had thrust his feet luxuriously into a pair of loose tennis shoes he had worn during their muddy tramp that afternoon. He was adding to the room’s breathlessness by smoking a cigarette as he riffled the leaves of a magazine he had taken from his bag. “What’s up?” he asked as his host came in. “I think you’ve had a big enough dose of medicine,” said Vail. “You needn’t sleep in this hole of a clothes-closet. Take my bedroom for the night. To-morrow I’ll have Horoson fix a decent room for you. Scratch your night things together. Never mind about moving all your luggage. That can wait till morning.” “I’m to share your room with you, eh?” asked Chase ungratefully. “Thanks, I’ll stay in this dump here. I’d as soon share a bed with a scratching collie pup as with another man. You’d snore and you’d kick about and--” “Probably I should,” admitted Thaxton. “But I shan’t. Because I shan’t be there. I didn’t ask you to share my room but to take it. I’m bunking in my study for the night.” “To give me a chance to sleep in a real room? That’s true repentance. I can almost forgive you for the time you’ve made me stay in this magenta chamber of horrors. But just the same I’m not going to turn you out of your own pleasant quarters. I’ll swap, if you like, and let you have this highly desirable magenta room. Then your nose will tell you what we’re going to have for breakfast before the rest of us are awake.” “I say I’m going to bunk on the leather couch in my study,” insisted Vail. “There are a whole lot of things I don’t like about this evening’s happenings. And I’m going to stand guard--or sleep guard--along with Mac. You know the way to my room. Go over there as soon as you want to. Good night.” “Hold on!” urged Chase. “Suppose I spell you, on this nocturnal vigil business? We can take turns guarding; if you really think there’s any need. Personally I think it’s a bit like locking the cellar door after the booze is gone. But--” “No, thanks. No use in both of us losing a full night’s sleep. Take my room, and--” “Just as you like. I’ve the heart of a lion and the soul of a paladin and the ruthlessness of an income tax man. But all those grand qualities crumple at the chance of getting away from the magenta room for the night. Thanks, a lot. I’d as soon swig homemade hootch as stay a night in this dump. The kind of hootch that people make by recipe and offer to their guests the same evening. They forget rum isn’t built in a day. I--” “By the way,” interrupted Vail as he started for the door, “you don’t happen to have a pistol, do you?”