The Councillors of Falconhoe by Fred M. White

The cry of mingled surprise and fear and anger which was torn from Barrados's lips was in itself an admission of guilt. And, indeed, there was cause enough for his wonder and agitation. He saw in front of him on the dazzling white disc something in the nature of a moving drama. He was looking into the interior of a room, a massive, well-furnished room, which was strangely familiar to him. It seemed as if he stood outside in a garden on a level with a balcony, on to which opened a great bay window with a large writing table pushed up against it. At the table, with his back to the room, a man sat busily writing. He was an elderly man with sallow cheeks fringed with a mass of dark hair. Then, as the machine clicked on, Barrados could see a door at the back of the room open, and another familiar face look in. And those familiar features were Barrados's own. It seemed almost weird to stand there in the darkness, looking at the counterfeit presentment of himself. There was a fierce gleam in his eyes, and a convulsive setting of the features which was horribly sinister. Had he really looked like that? Barrados wondered. Was that precisely as his face offered itself to observation with the veneer stripped off at the very moment when he held in his hand the revolver which was to end von Eckhardt's career, as the same weapon had ended the career of more than one of Eckhardt's associates?

But there was no time to waste on this problem just now. The machine clicked on, and the drama developed. Barrados was standing in the room, with five other men huddled up behind him, and those others the men who had accompanied him from Berlin on that grim errand. It was easily possible to recognise those acting under Barrados's instructions, for their faces were as plain as his own. Then he saw the little group come forward, and could see his own lips moving as he flung contemptuous and insulting words at the man seated silently in the window. No doubt, von Eckhardt had realised that his hour had come, but he was determined not to show it. Then the revolvers began to spit fire and smoke, and the man at the writing-table pitched down and lay dead on the floor. Almost simultaneously von Dornn threw up his hands and collapsed without a sign. Then the room was empty, and at the same moment the lights went up and the brilliant white disc resolved itself into a plain table-cloth again.