"Look at it, Perry--look!" he muttered. "Look, man! Why--God's death,
Perry--it's her lace scarf--belongs to my Loveliness, Perry--should
know it anywhere--it's--hers, man--and here! Oh, damnation!"
In a flash he had picked it up and, roaring like a madman, hurled
himself against the closing door. For moment was a desperate scuffling
and frenzied straining and gasping, a creaking of stout panels, then
the door swung violently open and we burst into the room.
A disordered supper table littered with bottles, three or four
breathless gentlemen who panted and glared, and a curtained doorway in
one corner; all this I was aware of, though my gaze never left the
face of him who stood before this curtained door, a tall, slender man
very elegantly calm and wholly unperturbed, except for the slight
frown that puckered his thick brows,--a handsome face the paler by
contrast with its dark and glossy hair.
For a tense moment there was silence but for Anthony's loud and
irregular breathing; when at last he spoke his voice sounded wholly
unfamiliar:
"Damned scoundrels--look at this! My wife's scarf--is she here? By
God, if she is, I'll find her if I have to kill you one by one and
wreck this hellish place--"
"Fellow's drunk!" suggested some one, whereupon Anthony cursed them
one and all, and I heard the sharp click of the pistol as he cocked
it, but I restrained him with a gesture:
"Mr. Trenchard," said I, "Mr.
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