He said: "You damned pig-headed fool!
I tell you it's been stolen from me!"
Wargrave asked: "When did you see it last?"
"Last night. It was in the drawer when I went to bed - ready in case anything happened."
The judge nodded.
He said: "It must have been taken this morning during the confusion of searching for Rogers or after his dead body was discovered."
Vera said: "It must be hidden somewhere about the house.
We must look for it."
Mr. Justice Wargrave's finger was stroking his chin.
He said: "I doubt if our search will result in anything.
Our murderer has had plenty of time to devise a hiding-place.
I do not fancy we shall find that revolver easily."
Blore said forcefully: "I don't know where the revolver is, but I'll bet I know where something else is - that hypodermic syringe.
Follow me."
He opened the front door and led the way round the house.
A little distance away from the dining-room window he found the syringe.
Beside it was a smashed china figure - a sixth broken Indian boy.
Blore said in a satisfied voice: "Only place it could be.
After he'd killed her, he opened the window and threw out the syringe and picked up the china figure from the table and followed on with that."
There were no prints on the syringe.
It had been carefully wiped.
Vera said in a determined voice:
"Now let us look for the revolver."
Mr. Justice Wargrave said: "By all means.
But in doing so let us be careful to keep together.
Remember, if we separate, the murderer gets his chance."
They searched the house carefully from attic to cellars, but without result.
The revolver was still missing.
Chapter 13
"One of us... One of us... One of us..." Three words, endlessly repeated, dinning themselves hour after hour into receptive brains.
Five people - five frightened people.
Five people who watched each other, who now hardly troubled to hide their state of nervous tension.
There was little pretence now - no formal veneer of conversation.
They were five enemies linked together by a mutual instinct of self-preservation.
And all of them, suddenly, looked less like human beings.
They were reverted to more bestial types.
Like a wary old tortoise, Mr. Justice Wargrave sat hunched up, his body motionless, his eyes keen and alert.
Ex-Inspector Blore looked coarser and clumsier in build.
His walk was that of a slow padding animal.
His eyes were bloodshot.
There was a look of mingled ferocity and stupidity about him.
He was like a beast at bay ready to charge its pursuers.
Philip Lombard's senses seemed heightened, rather than diminished.
His ears reacted to the slightest sound.
His step was lighter and quicker, his body was lithe and graceful.
And he smiled often, his lips curling back from his long white teeth.
Vera Claythorne was very quiet. She sat most of the time huddled in a chair.
Her eyes stared ahead of her into space. She looked dazed.
She was like a bird that has dashed its head against glass and that has been picked up by a human hand.
It crouches there, terrified, unable to move, hoping to save itself by its immobility.