afraid--filled with a kind of
nameless dread--a horrible prescience of some villainy about to happen.
There was a motive in this programme of changing scents, a deeper
significance than the mere will to annoy. He knew without even asking
himself how he knew that the smell of pineapple would be next. But why
he should fear pineapple was not at the moment apparent. He only knew
that when it came he would have to command every nerve to prevent
crying out.

Sitting up in bed he sniffed the air tentatively.

"Nothing! (sniff) No, nothing. (sniff) Wait a bit, wasn't that--?
No. (sniff) No--"

And then it came--pungent, acrid, bitter sweet, gathering in intensity
second by second.

With a stifled cry he clapped both hands over his mouth and swung a leg
to the floor. His eyes wide open in the dark began to sting violently.
He caught his breath and burst into a spasm of coughing. Somewhere
from the wall by the bedside came the faint sound of gas hissing from a
cylinder.

"Phosgene!" shouted Richard Frencham Altar. "You dirty swine!
Phosgene!"

It is a smell that once learnt can never be forgotten--a smell pregnant
with memories. As it invades the nostrils the doors of a dreadful past
fly open. The white mist hanging over the sunken road, the clangour of
beaten shell cases ringing out alarm, the whistle of the warning
rockets and the noise of men choking in the spongy fog.

Richard struggled back to the farthest corner of the room. He had
picked up his shirt and thrust it over his mouth and nostrils but even
so his lungs were nearly bursting. "You rotten, rotten swine," he
repeated. "I'll make you pay for this."

And a voice answered out of the dark:

"If you find the atmosphere oppressive, Mr. Barraclough, why not go
into the next room. It's perfectly clear in there. But don't wait to
collect your blankets because we're going to intensify this little lot."

There followed a louder hissing from the cylinder and Richard waited
for no more. Somehow he located the door, dashed through into the
adjoining room, and fell gasping on the uncovered boards. For several
minutes he made no effort to rise, then he sat up and shivered. The
air was like ice. A bitter freezing draught swept across him, cold as
winter spray.

His inquisitors were following up an advantage. There was to be no
remission in the warfare. Dark, poison and cold. These were the
instruments of torture devised to make him speak.