Then driven by some force unknown to him, Sidney had soon nailed his arm, the foot and ankle with several heavy nails to the barn door. In his haste to hammer he stumbled over a small box which spilled out more nails.

Sidney then drew back from his handiwork. Roy appeared to have passed out, but then all at once he opened his eyes again. He was badly stained with blood which kept on running, trickling, even gurgling.

“Then in the morning,” Roy began to speak, but stopped. “In the morning you bring Brian, don’t forget,” he got out somehow.

“I think your arm needs a couple more nails,” Sidney spoke, his mouth open and working furiously.

Sidney pounded the extra nails in with vehement concentration.

He waited as if marveling at the many little streams of blood coming out of the body of Roy Sturtevant, like many little brooks and creeks swollen by sudden cloudburst.

“Then I will be back in the a.m. with Brian McFee,” Sidney announced with his mouth almost directly over the closed eyes of the man nailed to the barn door. “At the first flush of day I will bring him to you.”

Sidney De Lakes had been a high-­diver in high school among his other athletic accomplishments, and his coach had wanted him to try for a scholarship to a large school later on, and become one day, who knows? an Olympic star.

Even though he dived with the beauty and precision already of a laureate athlete he hated diving and hated water.

Now as he drove off in Roy Sturtevant’s truck with the pickaxe and other tools for digging, headed for the ceme­tery, he felt again as he had when he had dived into the pool to the plaudits and huzzahs of his coach. Actually when he had seen the admiration and even love on the face of the young man who had taught him to dive and swim so superbly he felt there was no need to go on and work harder to be an Olympic victor. His coach’s admiration and closeness completely satisfied his ambition.

Now again as he faced the imposed task of digging up Brian McFee he felt a new and infallible coach was commanding him to dive into some bottomless abyss, and he feared it much more than death itself as he feared more than death putting the first nail in the flesh of his enemy the renderer’s son, but then, having put in the first nail he had wanted to put in more, he had wanted as a matter of fact to cover entirely the scissors-­grinder’s body with nails so numerous that he would look like he was clothed in an iron suit composed of shiny little silver heads.