Again there was the sound of footsteps above their heads, and Travers stopped and all three looked toward the door as the steps seemed to come down the stairs. Fair was the first to regain composure. “You give me half an hour,” he said to Travers, “but I shall require only ten minutes. Have a cigar, and—damn it, Allyne, let up, you know. Lock the door if you like, but for heaven’s sake quit your funk.” “Thanks awfully,” retorted Allyne, locking the door so quickly that Fair and Travers laughed genuinely this time. “There! Now we are cozy, aren’t we just? A corpse and an undertaker and a hangman are all we want to complete our merry little party.” “Shut up, Allyne!” shouted Travers, watching Fair’s face. “Now, Fair, for the love of sanity—what’s the answer?” Fair poured out another drink for himself, and pushing the bottles toward Travers, threw himself full length upon a lounge. Puffing slowly at his fresh cigar, he began speaking with perfect composure: “You fellows remember a Cuban by the name of Mendes—the man of whom I have often spoken to you, do you not? You know—Don Pablo Mendes—a great chess player?” “Certainly—you spoke of him only yesterday. Friend of Lopez? Yes—well, what of him?” asked Travers, and Fair turned his head toward Allyne, who seemed to be listening for noises and not to him. “I saw you speak to him one night at the opera,” said Allyne, without taking his eyes from the door. “Looked like a twin brother of the devil—diamonds, yellow fingers, hair oil, et cetera. Proceed, to wit, go on.” “Yes, that’s the man,” answered Fair, and then leaning over to flick the ashes from his cigar into the hearth, he added, without the slightest excitement or emotion: “Well—I murdered him yesterday, you know.” “You are drunk,” sweetly remarked Travers, with a look of infinite relief, as of course Fair now was admitting that he had been twigging them. “Murdered him, eh?” grunted Allyne, executing a series of maneuvres that landed him on Fair’s chest. “Murdered a yellow cigarette twister, did you? What of that? Why, I strangled my grandmother last night.” “By all that is holy,” Fair cried out hoarsely, “gentlemen, you sha’n’t go on in this way. If you will only allow me to tell my story, you will realize that I am a ruined man with death hanging over me, and, as my friends, I ask you to stand by me, to see that I face my fate and end my life in a way to prove that I was not altogether unworthy of two such friends. Will you do this?” He turned his white, drawn face from one to the other beseechingly. “Fair,” cried Travers, clutching his hand and speaking fast and like one who has passed beyond consternation into the very heart of abandonment, “if you are not mad, what does this mean? If you are in earnest—if this horrible thing is true—you know that Allyne and I would risk our lives to save yours, but why——?”