The clock on the mantelpiece struck ten o'clock.
The three faces seemed to change before my eyes and reveal their secrets. The young one was the murderer. Now I saw cruelty and ruthlessness, where before I had only seen good-humour. His knife, I made certain, had skewered Scudder to the floor. His kind had put the bullet in Karolides.
The plump man's features seemed to dislimn, and form again, as I looked at them. He hadn't a face,only a hundred masks that he could assume when he pleased. That chap must have been a superb actor.Perhaps he had been Lord Alloa of the night before;perhaps not; it didn't matter. I wondered if he was the fellow who had first tracked Scudder, and left his card on him. Scudder had said he lisped, and I could imagine how the adoption of a lisp might add terror.