He grabbed my lower jaw with his free hand and forced my tender lips against my sharp teeth until I opened my mouth. Then he poured some of it down my throat. I choked, but got it down. "Atta dog!" he praised me. "Now you just stick around and you'll see some fun." He went out and closed the door, leaving me alone in the darkened room. An hour or so later, the door reopened and Winnie swaggered in. He looked slightly more bloated than before and his eyes were glazed with liquor. He tossed off his clothes, went to the bathroom and took a hot shower. Then he lighted a cigar and lay on his bed, in his dressing gown, waiting-- After a while there was a quiet step in the hall and the click of the door-handle. It was Mary-Myrtle. She was wearing a red flannel dressing-gown and her hair was done up in a pigtail. She closed the door behind her and cast an anxious glance over her shoulder in the direction of the hall. Tompkins guffawed. "Who? Jimmie?" he demanded. "Not her! She knows better than to interfere." Myrtle cast strange little embarrassed glances to right and left and I noted that her hands were trembling as they fumbled at the buttons of her dressing-gown. I strolled across to her and sniffed the sharp perfume of desire on her limbs. She gave a little squeak. "Oh, Ponto! You gave me such a start." She turned to Winnie. "Take him away," she said. "It doesn't seem decent with him watching." He gave a loose lipped smile and rolled off the bed. "Ponto," he ordered. "You're de trop. Get the hell out of here!" He opened the door to the hall and I slunk out into the darkness of the landing. My toes clicked their way across to the door of my wife's bedroom. I lay down, on guard, my ear cocked to catch the desperate stifled sobs of the woman inside. It was then that I decided that Tompkins must die. CHAPTER 35 My opportunity to settle the account did not present itself for more than twenty-four hours. Early the following morning, Myrtle was kicked out and crept upstairs. Winnie slammed the door and snored like a hog until ten o'clock--at which time he stamped downstairs and roared for breakfast. After he had eaten, he went to his room again, shutting me outside, and dressed himself carefully in the manly tweeds he had been wearing on that first day in the Pond Club. He drove to the station--I assumed--leaving me behind at Pook's Hill with two unhappy women. He did not return that evening at all and it wasn't until late the following morning--that would be Saturday I figured, although I was already losing my human preoccupation with time--that I recognized the crunch of the Packard's tires on the graveled drive. I was standing just inside the door as I heard his key fumbling in the lock. It was Winnie and he was drunk. "Oh, hullo, Ponto," he remarked thickly. "So you're the welcoming committee. Come on up with me, boy, and hear the dirt." I followed his uncertain steps upstairs and into the bedroom. It would not be long now.