I looked at my watch. There was still a good half-hour before Midwinter and Sliddim were due to meet in the little public house behind the Square. I saw that my pistol was handy, and sat down in one of the armchairs by the fireside. A pipe of the incomparable "John Cotton" would not be amiss, I thought, wondering if I should ever taste its fragrance again, and for some minutes I sat and smoked, placidly enough. Then, I suppose a quarter of an hour or so must have elapsed, I began to fidget in my chair. The house was so terribly still! Still, but not quite silent! Time, that was ticking away so rapidly, had a score of small voices. There was the faint noise of taxicabs out in the Square, the drip of the rain, an occasional stealthy creak from the furniture, the scurry of a mouse in the wainscot; the more remote chambers of my brain began to fill with riot, and once my nerves jerked like a hooked fish. And even now I do not think it was fear. Terror, perhaps--there is a subtle distinction--but not craven fear. I think, perhaps, it was more the sense of something coldly evil that might even now be approaching through the fog and rain, a lost soul inspired with cunning, hatred, and ferocity, whom I must meet in deadly contact within a short, but unknown, space of time.... "This won't do at all!" I thought, and then my eye fell on Mr. Sliddim's hospitable preparations. I got up, went round to the other side of the table, put my pistol down upon it, and mixed a stiff peg. My back was now to the open door, and I was just lifting the glass to my lips, eagerly enough, I am afraid, when, very softly, something descended upon each of my shoulders. I had not heard a sound of any sort, save the gurgle of the aerated water in the glass, but now a shriek like that of a frightened woman rang out into the room, and it came from me. I was gripped horribly by the back of the throat, whirled round with incredible speed and force, and flung heavily against the opposite wall, falling sideways into an armchair, gasping for breath and my eyes staring out of my head. Then I saw him. Mark Antony Midwinter was standing on the other side of the table, smiling at me. He wore a fashionable morning coat and a silk hat. Under his left arm was a gold-headed walking-cane, and he carried his gloves in his left hand. In the right was the gleaming blue-black of an automatic pistol, pointed at my heart. At that, I pulled myself together. In an instant I knew that I had failed. The brute must already have been in the house when Sliddim admitted me--he had outwitted all of us! "Ah!" he said, "Sir Thomas Kirby! You have crossed my path very many times of late, Sir Thomas, and I have long wished to make your acquaintance."