“Because,” he said with a grin, “it just happened that way. It was fate to find it empty--a fine, large house like this at a low rent while all England was yelling for houses. But I might not have taken it if Diavalen had been against it----” “Oh,” said Tarlyon to that. Antony looked at his wrist-watch, and jumped up in a mighty hurry. “God, the time’s gone! Excuse me a moment.” “We will not!” cried Tarlyon, and had his back against the library door almost before you saw him leave the table. But Antony walked his way to the library door without a word. “Don’t, old Antony, don’t!” Tarlyon begged. “Out of my way!” said Antony. He said it as though he was thinking of something else, which was Antony’s most dangerous way of saying anything. Now Red Antony was a giant, and irresponsible at that. The two of us couldn’t have held him from that library door. Tarlyon let him pass with a wicked word, and has regretted it ever since. Antony slammed the door behind him, and we heard the twist of the key. Without a word to me Tarlyon was at the French window; opened it, and disappeared. I stayed. I was extremely uncomfortable in that mad-house, you understand. Perhaps two minutes passed, perhaps ten. Where the devil was Tarlyon? And then I heard through the library door the thud of something falling. And then in there a window smashed, a sharp smash. I measured my distance from that door and crashed my shoulder at it, and fell into the library on top of the panel. “Light,” said Tarlyon’s voice. I switched it on. On the floor between us was a heap of a man face downwards, with the back of a red head half-screwed under an outstretched arm. And there was red on the back of Tarlyon’s hand where he had put it through the window. We knelt each side of Red Antony, and turned him over. “Dead,” I said. “Not he!” said Tarlyon. “He’s fainted--from fright.” But he knew as well as I did that Antony was dead--from fright. The huge bulk was as limp as a half-filled sack as we lifted it a little. Antony’s eyes were wide open, and they were like the eyes of a child that has just been thrashed. “He’s been shot,” I said suddenly. “There was no noise,” said Tarlyon, but he looked at me. There had been no noise, but there was the faint, acrid taste of pistol-smoke in the air. It’s unmistakable, that faint, acrid smell of a revolver just spent. But Antony had not been shot. “It wasn’t an illusion, then!” Tarlyon whispered softly. “That smell ... of Roger’s revolver! And it’s killed Antony in the end!”