There was a queer grating little sound, followed by a sharp click.

Duncombe had swung round and faced them.

He had turned the key in the door, and was calmly pocketing it.
The hand which held that small shining revolver was certainly not the hand of a drunken man.
They all three looked at him in wonder--Madame, Monsieur Louis, and Mademoiselle Flossie.

The dark eyebrows of Madame almost met, and her eyes were full of the promise of evil things.

Monsieur Louis, cowering back from that steadily pointed revolver, was white with the inherited cowardice of the degenerate.