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Updated: June 6, 2025
Melchard seized her by the elbows, cruelty and joy making in his countenance a horrible mixture of emotion. With his face close to hers, he said: "Oh, yes, I'll go soon! That tawny hair of yours, Amaryllis, is splendidly voluptuous against your skin of live, creamy satin. I long to run my fingers into its meshes."
Then, to the porter, despondently interested in this queer company, "Hi, chum! Give us a 'and," he said, pulling from his pocket a confusion of silver, and crumpled Treasury notes. "Is the London trine up yet?" "Signalled, she be," said the porter, peering at Melchard. "Keep yer eyes off wot's no blinkin' good to 'em" said Dick.
Amaryllis saw it all; Mut-mut on the sky-line of the ridge, hesitating; Melchard and his pistol in eccentric parabolas; Dick, with a wisp of black hair over his wounded cheek, "flying," she called it, down the last of the slope, and crossing the level ground to her and the car; a wild man running, she thought, with the pace of a racehorse, and the movement, not of a runaway, but of a winner.
As they glided down the wide bends of the descent, Dick plied the wretched Melchard with dose after dose of throat-rasping spirit. After the second half-tumbler the man wept, sobbing out entreaties for mercy.
He glanced at Melchard, and then out of the window. The train was running on an embankment with steep, grassy sides not a house nor a highway in sight. "This side would be safer to fall from," said Dick. "On yours it's the down-line rails. Tails up, dear! In three minutes it'll be over or off. Don't shoot only show you're heeled, and look fierce." He reached for the oily cloth in the rack.
I have queered it, and I'm going to queer you. Walk in front of me, and don't forget, that, if I have to disappoint myself by killing you, I shan't lose any sleep about it." Melchard walked silent and erect, with the unseen pistol-barrel behind him. Dick could see even in the shoulders before him the ripple of fear controlled, but not conquered.
"What's that?" Melchard had said. "Oh, put it down." And they laid the body on the floor. Melchard looked from Black Beard to the cockney, and back. "Is it beer again? I said not more than a tumbler of whisky before lunch. Beer always plays hell with him." "Then you should give 'im 'arshish, sir," said the cockney. "It's the Injin 'emp 'e needs. But 'e ain't smelt beer since we left Millsborough.
Somethin's just appeared to 'im, and 'e ain't 'arf copped it." "Appeared? Tell me what happened," said Melchard, querulously. "Fell right down the stair, tray and all," said Black Beard, "just as if he'd been pushed." Melchard was stooping over the scarce breathing body. "He's not dead," he declared. "He will be," said Black Beard, "unless you 'phone to Millsborough for a doctor damn quick."
"Looked like Melchard driving," answered Dick. "I'd half a mind to take you out into the lane at the back. But it's safest amongst the crowd. And I must know whether " The crowd had grown dense before the open gates of the stable-yard, and Dick's words were interrupted by the sudden outbreak of a quarrel in the heart of it.
"I remain, "My dear Miss Caldegard, "Yours very sincerely, "ALBAN MELCHARD." "H'm, in Paris, is he? No more in Paris than I am. Wrote this in case he should be suspected, but didn't count on having to cart the girl along. False addresses wouldn't help him. These two are straight goods. Clever move, if it hadn't been for the girl. Your alibi'll hang you, Alban Melchard. That fixes Millsborough."
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