Theresa’s face riveted his attention at once. It was a face frozen into the most appalling look of horror he had ever seen. Every line was taut, the lips rigid, the eyes round and glassy.
It was a room similar to the one he had just left, meagerly furnished and with a window in the ceiling. An oil lamp burned on a rattletrap table and cheap lithographs were pasted on the crumbling walls.
Harrington had eyes for nothing but Theresa. Her straining face, like an exquisitely carved deathmask, told him that she was suffering tortures. Yet no hand was touching her; there was no physical sign of the agony that was staring out of her face. She was sitting in a chair placed against the farther wall, and her eyes were fixed with horrible intensity on a point diagonally opposite.
He passed a moment or two in utter perplexity. Theresa had not even seen him. It was as if all her senses were hypnotized by something she saw across the room. He turned and saw Carstairs leaning negligently against the wall, a dusky smile of amusement tinging his white face. The man evinced no surprise at seeing him. Carstairs appeared to discount all eventualities in advance.
“Oh, you, Harrington,” he said casually. “How is the head?”
Harrington marveled at him. If he was puzzled by his prisoner’s sudden release, he showed not the slightest sign of it. If anything, he appeared to welcome the intrusion.
“It’s just as well you are here,” he added. “This may interest you.”
Harrington looked about him, and then his eyes fastened once more on Theresa’s fear-frozen face. Yes, she was being tortured, but by whom or what? Again he traced her rigid gaze across the floor, and a new sort of bewilderment came over him. Her eyes, he now discovered, were not fixed on Carstairs, but on an object in the very corner of the room. It was a small sheet-iron stove, aglow with heat. The little door stood ajar, and now and then a little tongue of flame curled out.
He looked from the stove to Theresa and then back to the stove again. There was no question about it It was the stove, and nothing else, that she was regarding with such an unearthly horror. Unaware of Carstairs’ amused look, he stepped a little closer to it, and now he saw a small object protruding from the little door near the bottom. It looked like a handle of some sort. He raised his questioning eyes to Carstairs’ white face.
“Patience, Harrington,” said the latter. “You will see directly. It will be worth seeing.”
He stooped and pulled out the handle. Attached to it was a thin metal rod tapering to a fine point. The whole thing looked like an ice pick.
“Not quite hot enough,” Carstairs remarked, putting the instrument back. Harrington noticed that he was wearing a glove on his right hand to protect it against the heat.
Harrington’s brain whirled. For the moment all his thoughts were revolving around the instrument in the fire. Of a sudden he recalled a remark made by the medical examiner who had inspected Marsh’s body. The fatal wound, he had declared, looked as if it had been inflicted with an ice pick or a similar implement.
He stood rigid, staring at the handle protruding through the little door. Probably it meant nothing, however. There were millions of ice picks in the world. The only significant circumstance was that this particular ice pick should have appeared in a house situated near the scene of the murder.
“Where did you get that ice pick?” he inquired.
“Recognize it?” Carstairs asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Where did it come from?” Harrington insisted.
The other regarded him fixedly, and then a shadowy smile broke out on his white face.
“Ask Samuel Tarkin,” he suggested. “You know Tarkin, don’t you? Well, ask him. I’m not sure you will get a truthful answer out of him, but you might try.”
He drew the instrument out of the fire, glanced at it, and put it back again.
“Almost ready,” he remarked. He cast a slanting glance at Harrington. “Curious you should ask that question. Did Tarkin tell you anything?”
“Not a word,” Harrington declared, wondering whether the blackmailer was by any chance within hearing distance.
“No, Tarkin wouldn’t It’s odd, though.”
He looked down at the red-hot stove, a puzzled frown between his eyes. It looked to Harrington as if the ice pick meant a different thing to each of them. In his own mind it was associated with the Marsh murder. In Carstairs’ mind—But it was impossible to determine what was going on behind that white face.
Finally the other shrugged as if to dismiss a problem from his mind. He turned to Theresa.
“Once more,” he said in his mellow voice. “Will you tell?”
She did not seem to hear him. Something flickered In her eyes as she kept staring at the stove. He repeated the question.
“I—I can’t,” she said in a small, cold voice. “I don’t know.”
Carstairs sighed. With his foot he thrust the instrument a little farther into the fire.
“What are you going to do?” Harrington demanded.
“Refresh Miss Lanyard’s memory. Incidentally I’m going to try my skill as a beauty specialist. Glad you happened in, Harrington. I want your opinion. Don’t you think a dimple in her left cheek would improve her beauty?”
He glanced meaningfully at the handle. A premonition, at once vague and horrible, made Harrington’s Mood run cold.
“It isn’t a painless process, you know,” the other continued, “but then Miss Lanyard won’t be the first woman to suffer in the cause of beauty.”
A choking cry of utter dread broke from Theresa’s lips.
“I only hope,” Carstairs went on, “that I can perform the job without bungling. I should hate to disfigure such a lovely face.”
A sickening horror convulsed Harrington. In a flash he saw the full extent of the diabolical idea. He understood now why Theresa was sitting there in a stupor of dread, watching the instrument in the fire with a look of hypnotic horror. It was a thing more revolting than slow death. A searing touch with a white-hot iron, and her loveliness would be hideously scarred for life.
“You skunk!” Harrington gritted, and then he leaped, seething with an impulse to crash his fist into that white, faintly smiling face. His hand, fired with a savage frenzy, shot out—and was neatly caught around the wrist. A laugh, a playful twist, and his face went gray with pain. And then, without apparent effort, Carstairs flung him across the room.
“Don’t be a nuisance, Harrington.” He spoke as if remonstrating with a willful child. “You see it’s absolutely no use.”
Harrington leaned weakly against the wall. His body was a mass of shooting pains. He stared groggily at Carstairs’ hand. It was a soft, white hand. He had a feeling that it was diabolically inspired. He had experienced its subtle and devastating cunning in Carmody’s house, and now the experience had been repeated.
He cast a sultry glance about the room. Faint wisps of smoke were curling about the glowing Sides of the stove. Overhead, through the little window in the roof, a single star shone in the velvet sky. By the stove, arms crossed, stood Carstairs, gazing patiently at the protruding handle. And at the wall sat Theresa, looking as if enthralled by a vision of horrors.
Why didn’t she run? The door was unlocked. But of course Carstairs, standing within a single leap of the door, would stop her. Perhaps she had already tried and, in doing so, experienced the fiendish magic of the man’s fingers.
Harrington stiffened abruptly. Very leisurely Carstairs was putting on the glove again. Now, with the same casual movement, he drew the iron rod from the fire. He held it appraisingly to the light The point was white, and infinitesimal sparks sizzled around it. Very slowly he came forward.
A dull, ragged cry broke from Theresa’s lips. Quickly Harrington stepped up beside her. The white-hot point of iron came closer and closer, a horrible, crawling menace beyond which the face of Carstairs loomed white, composed and smiling.
Terror, abomination and stupefaction dashed in Harrington’s brain. Carstairs was proceeding as if he had no fear of an interruption. Did he think that any man would remain idle while such a hideous thing went on? Did he trust the diabolical deftness of his fingers to that extent?
Theresa sprang up and pressed shudderingly against the wall. Nerves crawling, Harrington watched for a sign of the slightest distraction on Carstairs’ part. He was in the position of a soldier who had but one shot and could not afford to waste it.
“Just once more,” said Carstairs, stopping before the girl. “Will you tell?”
She shrank away from the horrible thing in his hand.
“I can’t!” The words were flung out on a fear-choked scream. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t. Oh, God!”
“Sorry,” said Carstairs with a shrug. “In that case—”
He raised the sizzling implement. The girl edged back along the wall until she found herself caught in the corner.
“Splendid!” Carstairs murmured. “Exactly where I wanted you.”
The hellish thing rose in his hand again, its white point already turning red. Harrington stood motionless, waiting his one chance.
“Wait!” he cried hoarsely. “What do you want to know?”
“It’s a little matter concerning a coffin,” said Carstairs calmly. “Better keep out of this, Harrington.”
The coffin again! Harrington’s brain lurched wildly. And then, as Theresa wedged herself frantically into the corner, with the menacing point of fire close to her face, something within him burst loose. He struck out savagely, but the thrust stopped in midair. Fingers played lightly around his wrist—lightly but with terrible effect. And this time the fingers did not let go after the one body-racking twist. They held him at arm’s length, administering another twist whenever he tried to move. And all the time the hideous thing in Carstairs’ hand crept closer and closer to Theresa’s face.
A series of split screams dinned in his ears. Horribly fascinated, he watched the point of iron. It seemed to swell to monstrous proportions, to sweep everything else out of sight. There was an insanity in his brain, but his tortured mind revolved around a single thought. His left hand was still free. It was only his right hand that was caught in Carstairs’ monstrous grip. But it was a despairingly slight advantage. Just another playful twist, and his body would be a writhing bundle of agonies.
Suddenly his brain stood still. There seemed to be a sickening reek in the air—something burning! The thought steadied him strangely, sent a quickening impulse to his senses. He stared at the red point which a few seconds ago had been white. Yes, it could have been only seconds, though it seemed hours. He sniffed. That awful reek was no longer there. It had been only his imagination. But any moment now the thing he had imagined might become ghastly reality.
He stared at the red point. His brain whirled dizzyingly. A mad impulse came, and it seemed that impulse and deed were encompassed in a split second. A moment’s insanity, a convulsive heave—and now the frizzing end of the iron, was in his left hand and a burning agony was tearing through his flesh.
It was nameless torture, but he laughed crazily as he flung the scorching iron from him. The reek of burnt flesh had become reality now, but the reek was coming from his own seared hand, not from the gray, drawn face he saw against the wall. A sudden sensation of relief made him weak, and then his relief turned to loathing and hate.
Carstairs stood motionless, with a stunned look on his white face. It was as if he had witnessed something unbelievable and stupefying. His face was the face of a man utterly dumbfounded, but Harrington saw only the face of a fiend. The reaction came in a blind, surging rage that dulled his senses to the scorching agony in his hand.
His smoldering eyes went to the iron rod lying on the floor. The red glow was slowing fading, but it was still sufficiently hot to form a black, smoking blister on the board. He snatched it up and, with a hoarse cry of rage and abomination, whirled on Carstairs.
“Take that, you devil!”
He was in a delirium. His hand swung out. In another moment a blister would have been torn across Carstairs’ cheek. But his hand stopped, and it was not Theresa’s horrified cry that stopped it. It was the look he saw on Carstairs’ face—the look of a smiling stoic.
“Go ahead,” the man said. “I don’t blame you in the least.”
As he spoke, he dropped his hands to his side and turned his face toward Harrington and the sizzling iron.
“It’s cooling off,” he remarked. “Perhaps you had better heat it.”
Harrington stared at him. The burning delirium oozed from his brain. It might be only a gesture of mock heroics Carstairs was making, but it was a magnificent one. No matter how thoroughly he deserved it, it was impossible to inflict torture on a man who faced it so coolly.
Harrington flung the iron to a far corner of the room. Of a sudden he became conscious of the agony in his hand.
“Better let me attend to it,” Carstairs said.
He walked out of the room, and Harrington made no move to detain him. The man seemed scarcely human. He heard a moan, and he saw Theresa clutching the wall for support. Now that the horrible ordeal was over, her nerves were giving way. He eased her to a chair and tried to make her comfortable. And then, unthinkingly, he kissed her. She smiled wanly and closed her eyes.
Presently Carstairs returned and applied a bandage to the injured hand. Harrington watched him in a daze, with a sense of mocking unreality. Whether he was inflicting torture or healing a wound, the man’s fingers seemed equally deft.
“You took me by surprise, Harrington,” he admitted, and his shadowy smile lit up his face again. “I never saw such a dare-devil stunt in my life.”
Harrington’s lips twisted into a cramped smile. It had not been dare-deviltry; it had been madness.
“And now,” Carstairs added, “I’m at your service.” Harrington stared at him groggily. A few moments ago he could have torn the man to pieces. Now he was rendered strangely speechless and diffident.
“I suppose I deserve almost any kind of punishment your brain can conceive,” Carstairs added. “Go ahead. I shan’t complain.”
He folded his arms and waited. Harrington did not move.
“I might add, though of course you won’t believe me,” Carstairs went on, “that I didn’t have the remotest idea of hurting Miss Lanyard. I wanted to frighten her and make her talk.”
“You chose a hellish way of doing it,” Harrington muttered.
“The only effective way. I knew it would make her tell, if she could. But a moment before you intervened in such a mad and stupendous fashion, I had become convinced that she couldn’t. I’m not apologizing. I’m no saint—far from it I And I know you won’t believe a word of what I am saying.”
Still Harrington did not speak. He felt ashamed of himself for an inclination to accept the man’s words at their face value. He felt Carstairs, no matter what sort of villain he might be, would scorn lies and subterfuges.
Now Carstairs took out his watch. “In sixty seconds I shall walk out of this room, unless you choose to detain me,” he announced.
Harrington did not detain him.