CHAPTER   21.

THEY STACKED THE DISHES, FANNY applauding. It was getting late when they came, at last, into the studio. Tobias was in his favorite chair. Fanny poked up the fire to a brisker blaze, saying she did like a fire, although she retreated at once to a far chair with its back to the length of the room beyond, and sat on her foot and fingered her diamonds.

Mandy drifted near one of the two chairs that flanked the small round table and stood there, hesitating politely, watching her hostess. Ione had brought with her from the kitchen a tumbler of milk. She said cozily, “I’ll just fetch us all something. Toby, dear, I think you really must … Come help me, Amanda.”

Thone had hobbled to the wide window. He had pulled the cord that drew the curtains together. Now he stood, still, leaning on the crutch, holding a hem of the neutral-colored stuff with one hand to make a gap, as if he looked to see how the night had fallen before he let the curtain drop and shut it out.

Ione turned on a lamp over the little bar in the corner. “Fanny, dear, will you have what we’re having?”

“Anything,” said Fanny moodily. She was watching her dear friend Tobias, whose head lay on the chair, whose face was white and tired. “Something troubles you, Toby?” she asked softly.

“No, Fan. No.” He opened his eyes at her and it was as if her words had put alarm there. He looked haunted for a second.

Back of the bar, Ione took down the chloral. Carefully, she dosed the milk, shaking the powder from its fold of paper while Amanda stood and watched her.

The fire sputtered.

“Thone?” Ione’s right hand went to the familiar bottle. “The same, dear?”

“The same,” he answered dreamily, not turning. Ione lifted the bottle, judged its remaining contents, nodded and smiled at Amanda. And Mandy’s lips drew easily into the answering smile. Ione took down glasses, four dainty stemmed glasses. She filled one.

“I’ll just take Toby his,” she said. “Will you pour some for the rest of us, my dear?” She took the milk and one liqueur.

Amanda moved around behind the bar. She looked stupidly after Ione’s back. It bent graciously to her guest. “Fanny?” Then to her husband. “Now, drink this, Toby.” The little paw touched his tired head in a brief caress.

Fanny sniffed at her glass and snorted. But she said no word. Amanda stifled a gasp and picked up the bottle. Obediently, in that drifting yet stubborn do-as-you’re-told state, she poured three glasses full of the liqueur. It sparkled and winked at her.

Thone seemed to moon at the night with an unfocused gaze. But he did not. His eyes were focused and alert. He could see the bar, the shelf behind it, the glasses, the whole lit corner reflected in the window glass. He saw Amanda take a drink up in either hand.

Ione had timed it neatly. She was trotting back. The plump little lady, the slender girl met, crossed paths. “That’s right, my dear,” said Ione. “Thone? Aren’t you going to sit down?”

“Um … put it on the table,” he murmured. He seemed to fumble with the crutch. It stuttered on the carpet. The curtain trembled in his hand, but did not fall yet.

Back of the bar, Ione, as she quickly and precisely shook one dose into the fourth and only remaining glass of liqueur, seemed to be fussily busy at making all neat, at putting the drug away. Thone let the curtain go, very gently. It settled softly and hid the mirror in which he had seen what he had been waiting for. A single dose. He’d seen. Now he was sure.

It was the second time, he thought quite calmly, she’d been watched in a window glass. She had a blind spot there. She didn’t seem to know it could make a mirror.

He swung around. Mandy had put one glass on the round table. She stood, holding the other in her hand. She half turned. Ione was coming around the bar with a bright fixed smile on her jolly little face, and nothing at all in her hands. Oh, it was neat. It was deft. It was so simple. For one did not call out to one’s elder and hostess, “Hey, you left yours on the bar!” One murmured, as Mandy did, “Shall I put yours here?” One put it on the end table near the sofa corner, Ione’s corner. One minded one’s manners if one had been well brought up. Quite so.

They met. They crossed for the second time. “Thanks, dear.” Ione touched the girl’s arm. In gratitude. For the fourth glass waited, on the bar, and Amanda went to get it.

“This must be mine,” said she cheerfully.

Thone checked the stiffening of his jaw muscles. He moved to stand behind the table. No one could tell whether Amanda knew what she held in her hand, what she carried so steadily down the room. She walked past Fanny and went, smiling, to the chair near Tobias. She put the little glass down on the round tabletop, at her left. She drew up her knees and clasped her hands around them and sat, as Belle used to sit, as she herself now sat so often.

Fanny looked on sourly. Fanny turned her own glass, by its stem, round and round.

Ione settled into her sofa corner, and her little feet dangled, not quite touching the floor. Thone moved around, sat down, and on opposite sides of the bare round tabletop, their two glasses, his and Mandy’s, rested between them.

Ione lifted her drink. She twinkled at them, at the young people. “Come, Thone, drink your drink. Here’s to us!” she chirped. She sipped. Her eyes, as she sipped, did not cease watching.

How had it happened? How was it that they sat here, pinned in her full view, so helplessly side by side under those unwavering dark and wary eyes? Thone’s hand picked up his glass. Had to. He looked down at its innocence glumly.

“What’s that you’re all drinking?” asked Tobias suddenly.

“Just a liqueur, Toby,” soothed Ione. Fanny’s lips tightened but she said nothing.

There was such tension here, the silences, the intervals were screaming. As if all their nerves were tightening, like strings, and screaming with the strain. Tobias’ chest felt heavy. He had begun to feel as if somewhere at the back of his skull there’d be a cracking. His brain was far behind his intuition. It was lost. His thought churned helplessly. A group of people by the fire, after dinner. Nothing. Then, why …?

Ione said, glancing daintily at her wrist, “I wonder if it isn’t nearly time, Amanda, dear. You mustn’t be out too late, you know. I think, perhaps …” The head nodded, indicating, instructing.

“Of course,” Amanda said. She unclasped her hands. Her feet came to the floor. Her fingers went to the stem of her glass. Had to pick it up. Had to obey.

Take it. Touch it to your lips. All’s ready. All is prepared. Drink it, touch it, and go and die.

Thone sat like a statue. Too bad. Too bad. Here the whole ragged business must fall apart. Now plot and counterplot must go no further. Ah, so close. To know so much, and now to fail. But he couldn’t let Amanda take the stuff! Not really. No. That mouth toward which the rim of the glass was moving, that lovely mouth, must never touch it!

Tobias said hoarsely. “Why, where’s Amanda going?”

“On a little errand,” said Ione lightly. Then to Amanda, “You’ll want the car, dear, won’t you? Can you find the keys?”

His eyes started—Tobias’ eyes—from his head. His hand jerked. The milk slopped over. It dribbled on his trousers. The tumbler slipped out of his slackening hold and fell on the rug.