note.

"Vell! vell! Get it out! I s'pose you done something. Vot you done?"

For the first time Laurie's eyes met those of Doris. The look was so
charged with meaning that she sat up under it as if she had received a
shock. Yet she was not sure she understood it. Did he want her to help
him? She did not know. She only knew now that the thing she had feared
was here, and that if she did not speak out something in her head would
snap.

"He killed Herbert Shaw," she almost whispered.

For a long moment there was utter silence in the room, through which the
words just spoken seemed to scurry like living things, anxious to be out
and away. Laurie, his eyes on the girl, showed no change in his
position, though a spasm crossed his face. Epstein, putting up one fat
hand, feebly beat the air with it as if trying to push back something
that was approaching him, something intangible but terrible. Bangs alone
seemed at last to have taken in the full meaning of the curt
announcement. As if it had galvanized him into movement, he sprang to
his feet and, head down, charged the situation.

"What the devil is she talking about?" he cried out. "Laurie! What does
she mean?"

"She told you." Laurie spoke as quietly as before, but without looking
up.

"You--mean--it's--true?"

Rodney still spoke in a loud, aggressive voice, as if trying to awaken
himself and the others from a nightmare.

"Take it in," muttered Laurie. "Pull yourselves up to it. I had to."

An uncontrollable shudder ran over him. As if his nerve had suddenly
given way, he dropped his head on his bent arm. For another interval
Bangs stood staring at him in a stupefaction through which a slow tremor
ran.

"I--I _can't_ take it in," he stammered at last.

"I know. That's the way I felt."

Laurie spoke without raising his head. Bangs, watching him, saw him
shudder again, saw that his legs were giving under him, and that he was
literally holding to the mantel for support. The sight steadied his own
nerves. He pushed his chair forward, and with an arm across the other's
shoulder, forced him down into it.

"Then, in God's name, why are we wasting time here?" he suddenly
demanded. "Your car's outside. I'll drive you--anywhere. We'll get out
of the country. We'll travel at night and lie low in the daytime. Pull
yourself together, old man." Urgently, he grasped the other's shoulder.
"We've got things to do."

Laurie shook his head. He tried to smile. There was som