"To stop a draft," said Alice promptly.

"In which case, you stuff it carefully along the length of the crack, do you not?"

"I guess you do."

"But she didn't."

"No, she didn't."

"Then, do you think of another reason?"

"To stop a rattle," said Fred. "By gum!"

"That," said Duff, "is what occurred to me. A deaf woman?"

"Well, it makes you wonder," said Fred slowly, "doesn't it?"

"That's dreadful," said Alice, "to think of her hearing as well as anybody, and grinning to herself, and making all that fuss."

"I don't suppose there's much to make a fuss about, ordinarily," Duff reminded her. "The excitements of the last two days are rare. Ordinarily, being deaf would be more convenient than not being deaf. Isn't that so?"

"Do you think she can hear?"

"I find cause to wonder," Duff said, "that's all. Well, suppose we go over the attempts again. Let me see. The first one, the lamp falling. We had decided that it was not Maud, possibly Gertrude, possibly Isabel."

'We were wrong," said Fred.

"I did wonder how good Gertrude's perception is, in three dimensions," Duff said thoughtfully. "Especially since the bathroom off the lower hall was put there since her blindness. Could she know that a man emerging from that door would come, in just so many steps, exactly under the crossing edge of the upstairs hall? Judgment of distance, at least three-dimensional distance, depends so much on sight. Doesn't it strike you as difficult for a blind woman?"

"She could hear," said Alice. "Maybe the sound changed. His footsteps would seem louder when he got out from under, into the open hall."

"Perhaps," said Duff. "Still, it would seem that such a change would warn her too late. She would have to touch the lamp just before he emerged."

"That's when it fell," said Fred, "just before."

"Perhaps I am being too subtle," Duff admitted. "After all, we don't know how accurate the timing was, because you jumped first. Well, well say it's possible for Gertrude to have tried that. Even though her room is not upstairs and it meant, for her, planning to get up there. Being there, surely, before anyone could know that Innes would go into that bathroom at all."

"I see what you mean," Fred said, "but it couldn't have been planned by anybody. It was grabbing the chance. And she might have gone upstairs just for instance."

"Attempt number one, not Maud, possibly Gertrude, possibly Isabel."

"That's wrong. It could have been Maud. If she can hear."

"But not if Gertrude is blind."

"Why not?"

"Maud," said Duff, "was probably—and surely, if Gertrude is blind—downstairs at the time, in the parlor, behind the curtains, reading the newspapers."

"How do you know?"

"You couldn't see her face, could you?"

"No. That's what I told you."

"Why not?"

"Because she was holding the newspaper up."

"Was it a tabloid?"

"No."

"Then wilh how many hands was she holding it up?"

"With two hands," said Fred. "So, of course, it wasn't Isabel. I see."

"But . . ." Alice stopped herself.

"A blind woman, you know," Duff purred, "doesn't read the newspaper."

Alice and Fred looked at each other.

"Yes, but how did you know she was holding the thing spread out?"

"It must have been spread out, to hide her whole face and head. Try to hold a newspaper in one hand when it's spread out."

"One to you," said Fred. "O.K. Even if Gerty can see a little, she wouldn't be reading the newspaper. I give up. So it wasn't Maud." He leaned back, looking gloomy.

"Therefore, let us say in the case of attempt number one, only Maud couldn't have done it,"

"Go on," said Fred.

"Attempt number two, the accident to the car, the moving of the detour sign. Not Gertrude, was said."

"But possibly Maud."

"Especially if she can hear. If she did hear you say which road you'd be taking."

"That's right"

"And possibly Isabel, of course. Then let us say of attempt number two, only Gertrude couldn't have done it,"

"Go on," said Alice.

"Attempt number three, the coal gas, the tampering

with the furnace. What about that?"

"Not hkely Gertrude," said Fred. "She couldn't see the signs on the pipes."

"She knows everything about that house," objected Alice. "She makes a point of it. Besides, all she'd really have to know is which one went to Papa's room, and turn off all the rest."

"I had wondered," Duff said, "whether Maud could have moved as quietly as would have been necessary, if she couldn't hear her own noise. With the storm to help her, I had concluded that it was possible. But, of course, if she can hear . . ."

"Listen, old Maud could have managed that one. Gertrude's well. . . just a possibility. Barely."

"Barely," said Ahce significantly, and looked at Duff.

"But now Isabel," said Duff. "Number three, only Isabel couldn't have done it."

"Why couldn't she?"

"Whoever turned the dampers got a greasy stain on her arm when she reached for the pipe to the kitchen. No stained sleeves. Therefore a bare arm. Isabel can't scrub such a stain off her own left arm, with only her own left hand to do it."

"But Gertrude could have scrubbed it off for her," said Alice triumphantly, "with the witch hazel!"

Duffs eyes twinkled. "How true!" he said. "Gertrude denied it was her arm. Said it was her limb. A limb's a leg, isn't it? Could it possibly be anything else? However, what's to prevent Isabel from putting her hand into her bedroom slipper, shall we say. To a blind sister, her arm was her shin, or limb. Yes, it does look suspicious, especially if Gertrude is really blind. But alas, kids, Maud gives her an alibi."

"Maud says she came upstairs about eleven, when the heat was still pouring out of the registers, and that she did not go down later. At least not through Maud's room. Fred says she didn't go down by the only other route. Isabel has an alibi."

"We believe me," said Fred, "but do we believe Maud?"

"I don't know why we shouldn't," said Duff thoughtfully, "unless we beheve in a conspiracy."

"We don't, though."

"What do we believe?" cried Alice. "It seems to me that we're all at sea."

"I know what I think," said Fred, darkly. "So Maud didn't dump over the lamp. I'll grant her that But she caught on quick. I think Maud scooted down the hill in the dark and moved that sign. And when that didn't work, Maud went down cellar, between, say, eleven thirty and twelve, and monkeyed with those dampers."

"Maybe," said Alice. "But I think Isabel must have dumped the lamp. And I don't agree with you about the next one. I think Isabel must have been the one who moved the sign down the road. I do think that was Isabel."

They turned eagerly to Duff for his vote. But Duff wasn't voting. He said quietly, "Who was it that tried to poison Innes? Which one was that?"

"Poison!"

Alice said, trembling, "You mean the pillbox. You mean the pills." She took the box out of her pocket and opened it with fumbling hands. "These aren't right!" she said. "They don't look . . . No! They aren't the same!"

"Oh," said Duff lightly, "those are aspirin."

"Aspirm!"

He was smiling. "I did that while we conferred this morning. I have the others here." He took out an aspirin bottle and dumped the round white pills into his hand. "These were in your box. One of them is a trifle larger than the rest. You can hardly tell which, can you? Here it is."

"One of them," said Fred, staring.

Alice couldn't stop shaking. "And I was giving them to him! Two every three hours. Then one every six hours. I would have been the murderess!"

"What is it?" said Fred.

"Strychnine, I think."

"But only one pill," Fred said. "They'd have had a long wait, maybe. Why only one, Mr. Duff? Why not half a dozen?"

"It's safer," said Duff. "There would be no others left over in the box to show where it came from, after he was dead. Oh, we should know it came from the pillbox, but

160

not, perhaps, just what kind of dose and, therefore its original source. Poison was indicated, I thought. The flavor of these crimes, the haphazard methods, combined with perfect safety to tho one who was arranging these accidents, and perfect indifference to the chance of getting an innocent victim, poison seemed terribly fitting Ln that pattern. When I thought of poison, I thought of his pills, of course. I took them on a chance. After all, aspirin couldn't hurt him. Well, the poison's there, I think."

"You mean," said Alice, half-hysterically, "one of them has been waiting all this time for him to get the poisoned pill and die? One of them has been checking up, sort of, after every dose? Oh, Mr. Duff, I'm scared now, if I never was before! It's horrible!"

"Yeah," said Fred, "a good clean revolver shot would be decent compared to this kind of sneaky .. ." "But not so safe," said Duff quietly. "But look," said Fred, "why the coal gas, then? Or were two of them operating at once, for God's sake!"

"There had arisen a time element," said Duff. "The lawyer was coming, and they knew it. At least, Isabel did. Do you suppose she told the others?"

"Yes," said Fred promptiy, "if she's guilty she told them to help cover herself. If she isn't guilty, she told them because it's important news."

"He didn't die all day Friday," said Alice, shivering, "so they tried another way, during the night."

Duff was smiling. "It gives us a rather interesting situation," he said, "but let's first see whether we can figure out who put the poison pill in there and where she got it." "I don't see how," said Alice. "I've been in the room every time they came, I'm sure. And most of the time I've carried the box around with me. And nobody's been in my room at night. . . . I've never slept well enough yet. The only time I did, the doctor was with Innes and so were the pills. Mr. Duff, it's impossible."

Fred said, "Would the girls have a thing like that lying around the house? Something to match the stuff the doctor was prescribing? Seems to me they must have rummaged around some place where they had a choice of poisons. How about the doctor's stuff?"

"We must stop in at Dr. Follett's," Duff said. "The minister interrupted us this morning. I did mean to ask. But, tell me, did the doctor say aloud or write down what drugs he was going to administer?"

"He did say. Of course he did. Right after we got Innes to bed," cried Alice. "They were all there, too. In a row,in the hall. Then they went away. Fred, the doctor left his bag in the car while he helped carry Innes up the stairs. And you were sent for it."

"Yeah, and I put it down in the hall. You said you'd take it up. When the doctor sent me to his office."

"Yes, and I didn't take it up right away because I helped Mrs. Innes. I went down for it later. It was down there alone. And they were around. And . . . Oh, Mr. Duff, that's when I heard the funny little sound! You know. The cough-laugh."

"Ah yes," Duff said. "When something happens, you hear noises. So we are exacdy where we were, if this pill came out of the doctor's bag. They each had the chance."

"But Gertrude," objected Fred, "can hardly read the labels on pillboxes or bottles, can she?"

"She can smell?" suggested Duff.

"But nobody would know how strychnine smelled. Do ! you? Do I? Does it?"

"It doesn't," said Duff, his eyes twinkling. "No, we shall have to say it's beyond Gertrude, like everything else, unless she's a consummate actress with perfect control and a villainess of high degree."

"And Maud .. .? Heck, it's the same damn thing!" Fred pounded the seat cushion. "If she can't hear, she wouldn't know what the doctor said he was going to give him, so she couldn't go down there and put the wrong pill in the right box. But if she can hear, then she could have done it. « Isabel could manage, all right. She could open a pillbox f with one hand. How about a bottle, though?"

"If her fingers are strong."

"Her fingers are strong," said Alice grimly.

Fred looked despairing. "How are we going to stop this, Mr. Duff? How are we going to know?"

Duff chuckled. "It looks as if Innes has known how to stop it," he reminded them. "By appeasement. And don't you see? Somebody is going to have to unmurder Innes.

"Unmurder him?"

162

"Of course."

"What . . . ?"

"Somebody is going to have to make sure he doesn't take the poisoned pill, after all, now that things are different. Now that the advantage lies in keeping Innes alive."

"By golly," said Fred.

Alice began to laugh.

"So if we can't catch the murderer amurdering," said Duff, "we still have a chance to catch her in the act of un-murdering."

"It isn't a crime to unmurder anybody.''

"No, but at least we'll know."

"How will we know? Shall Fred and I take turns watching the pillbox?"

"Maybe we can set a trap," said Duff. "We shall now visit the doctor and get ourselves some equipment. We'll have a try. But when we get back to the house we must act dumb. We never suspected poison. We aren't pill-conscious. Try to remember that."

Alice said, with horror in her eyes, "It's a good thing you were, though, Mr. Duff. I might have given him the wrong pill any time. It was just luck that I didn't. Can't we catch the one . ..?"

"Or the two," said Fred.

"Or three," said Alice. "Can't we? It's so damned wicked!"

Duff said gently, "Once we know, perhaps something can be done. To the doctor's, Fred."

"Yes, sir."

Dr. Follett took the biggest pill in his clean fingers. He smelled it and touched it to his tongue. His trembling left hand caught his glasses before they fell.

"My fault," he gasped. "I should never carry such a thing. Never. I never meant to. This is a dispensLng pill. It . . . it's deadly. No drugstore in Ogaunee, Mr. Duff, you see? I do a great deal of my own prescription work. People have to go several miles. I ... I... A doctor shouldn't carry a fatal dose, in one pill. I have no excuse."

"How the heck did she know it was deadly?" demanded Fred. "Who knows, offhand, how many grains it takes?

For God's sake, did one of them ever study poisons?"

Duff said, with a gleam, "Who knows? Perhaps. Then again, perhaps she only hoped . . . This is a chancey murderess."

Alice took hold of her own hair, in the back, and pulled it, hard. The pain was steadying.

"How do you carry these?"

"In a bottle, sir."

"May I see?"

"Yes . . . yes."

"It's marked, of course?"

"Oh yes, plainly. And it's blue glass, not white. Besides that, the bottle—here it is—is ridged, you see. So that one can't make a mistake in the dark."

"Oh," said Alice. "Oh."

Duff took the botde and pressed his fingers on the ridges.

"The phenobarbital?"

"Another bottle.'' EVuff took the smooth white glass botde in his other hand and sniffed at the top.

The doctor was badly shaken. "I must have filled the pillbox and never noticed that odd one tumble in with the rest. Mr. Duff ... I... I should have been ruined."

"What a chance that was to take," said Fred in awe. "That the bad pill would tumble in."

"It was on topj" said Duff. "But she's chancey. Oh, she's chancey."

He looked down at the two botdes in his hands. His long face was grave and sad. "Not easy," he said. Then, "Doctor, I should like to make off with one or two things you can give me, if you will?"

The doctor was willing to do anything at all for Mr. Duff. Anything.

22

The haughty face of the Whidock house was indifferent to their return. Duff twisted the bell, and Josephine came to let them in. Alice walked through the open door first, with Duff behind her, and Fred last. They were all three still in

single file, and Josephine still stood with her hand on the doorknob when they heard it.

An odd httle sound, a scraping in the throat, the rusty unconscious stirring of a voice, a caw, a crow, of delighted malice, of secret rejoicing.

Alice turned swiftly around and looked up at Duff. Fred stepped closer and gripped Duffs arm. Josephine's round eyes rolled to and fro, with recognition and fear.

Duff read, in their three faces, confirmation that this was the sound. Were they going to catch her? Now? As easily as this?

In a body, the four of them moved opposite the arch. They looked past the velvet drapes into the parlor.

Gertrude sat in there, erect in her chair. Her face was calm, blank, secretive, and her hands were folded in her lap. Maud was there, too, with her heels on the fender. She was scratching among the wild strands of her fantastic coiffure with a big bent wire hairpin. Her fat face brooded. Isabel was also in the parlor, sitting on the edge of a small narrow sofa with her two feet flat on the floor, looking as if she were ready for flight, though she held a book in her lap.

Isabel held her page down with her left hand and looked at them with her quick, close-lipped smile. "Just in time for dinner. Alice, dear, Mr. Killeen is dining upstairs tonight. He is leaving, you know, on the ten o'clock train. Innes will have company, so you must join us and our guest. Won't you?"

Gertrude said, "Of course, Alice, dear. And will you show Mr. Duff where he may wash, my dear?"

"Say, I'm hungry!" boomed Maud. "Where you folks been?"

Alice couldn't say a word. Duff bowed. "I've been taken exploring," he said smoothly, "I'm sorry if we've been long. You must forgive the enthusiasm of a man who has a hobby."

The three of them, stiU in a body, moved past the arch, while Josephine went by toward the kitchen, almost running. Duff motioned them upstairs.

In the upper hall he called them close. His face was more disturbed than Alice had ever seen it. "That was the

sound, of course," he said. "You're sure? It was the very same? No difference?"

"Oh, no," they said, "that was the same."

He let his head drop, as if it would fall off its stem, limp until his chia touched his chest. He stood, bowed and silent, thinking. Alice dared not move. She looked at Fred and caught a httle comfort from his eye.

Duff raised his head finally and drew an old envelope and a pencil from his pocket. He began to make quick marks on it. Alice could see them. It looked like algebra. There was a, b, c, d, and checks and symbols. Diiff reviewed his problem. His face relaxed.

"Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other," he said. "So . . ."

"So what?" Alice and Fred spoke together, and he caught her hand so naturally that they stood, hands clasped, like a pair of children, and never knew it.

"Logic," said Duff, "is a wonderful thing, after all. Yes, I know."

"Who?"

"Only one of them," Duff said.

"Which one?"

"There's an 'if.' Two 'ifs.' If this and if that, why, then I know. Not only that our wicked one is only one, but which one. The two sets of facts check, 'if' and 'if.' But the logic's so clear. The 'i£s' are nearly answered. They have to fit. After all, probability's a law, too."

Killeen came out of Innes's door. "Hello."

Duff paid no attention. He put his hands on Alice's shoulders and looked searchingly iato her face. "That funny Uttle sound," he said. "Why do we hear it now! What's happened? What thought went through that brain and set it off? Something's happened, if only a thought. If only an idea. Look here, my dear, we forgot something. There's another chance. Suppose she doesn't bother to unmurder Innes? Suppose, instead, she murders you7''

"M-me?" said Alice.

"What is this?" said Killeen.

"Murders you first," said Duff. "Do you see? Then, let Innes get his pill. Let that plot proceed. You can't inherit while he's still alive. And you can't inherit once you're

dead." He turned. "Mr. Killeen, if Alice dies and then, soon after, Innes dies, not having changed the will you've just drawn, what happens?"

"He'd be intestate, as far as the bulk of his fortune goes," said Killeen, looking white and shocked. "He directed that it be put in trust for Alice, and then for his children."

"But if there were no children?"

"To his kin," said Killeen.

"Not Alice's heirs?''

"No, no. Since she's not, herself, his natural heir. Not yet. Not until they are married. No, it would go to his mother and sisters."

"Why didn't he set up a trust for them, here and now, to continue whether he lived or died?"

"I wanted him to," said Killeen. "But he was so bent on making it plain and clear that they'd better leave him ahve."

"He overreached himself," said Duff. "You see? He should have made his life or death a matter of indifference to them."

"Listen," said Fred to Alice. "You've got to get out of here."

Killeen said, "Alice, take the train with me tonight."

"Yeah, go ahead," said Fred.

"We have to get down to dinner," she said. "We're late. We mustn't let them know what we think. Must we? Mr. Duff, you'll be here. Nothing will happen while you're here. Hadn't we better go down to dinner?"

Duffs face didn't lighten. "It may not be my departure, but Killeen's, she'll wait for. It may occur to her that, with 'KDleen handy, Innes could draw still another will.''

"After I'm dead, you mean," said Alice, with strange calm.

Fred said, "You're not going to be dead. You're going to scram out of here."

"Why take a chance?" Killeen pleaded. "Alice, what's the percentage . . .?"

"Ssh," she said. "Well have till ten o'clock, maybe. We ... we have to think."

Duff said, "Yes. Let's meet after dinner, in Innes's

room. I'll go there now. Susan?"

"Still here," said Killeen. ''Innes wants her to stay for dinner."

"You mean the trap?" said Fred. "You're going to tell her what to do? Are we going to go ahead with that?"

"May as well." Duffs face was grave and sad. "No harm. But this evil . . . How can we anticipate the works of a brain that works as this one does? Chancey, you know. How can we foresee what wild grabs at the passing skirts of mere chance she'll make, and we'll have to guard against? Alice, my dear . . ."

"But you know who it is!" she said.

"Suppose Vm wrong?" said MacDougal Duff.

He went into Innes's room,

Fred said to Alice, steadily, "Nothing's going to happen to you."

She snuled. "Oh, I don't think so either," she said, as if it were she who did the reassuring.

Killeen put his arm around her. "I won't leave unless you do," he said. "Listen, darling, you've got to play it safe. Safe for you."

He looked very stem and noble.

Alice slipped out of his arm, and her voice shook. "I know. Don't worry. My goodness, so nobody wants to die!"

The bathroom door closed on her light and shaky laughter, and they stood outside, Killeen on guard, like a soldier, Fred gnawing his thumb in worried thought

Dinner was pretty grim. Alice fiddled with her food. She couldn't help thinking of poison. She tried to taste only that which came from a common dish or what all three sisters were eating, and she tasted very littie. Her throat was too full to swallow, anyway. She must be frightened, she thought. But the fright was so deep, she knew it scarcely showed. She was able to do her part in the trap setting, as they had planned it, when the moment came.

Duff and Gertrude bore the conversational burden between them, but Duff wasn't sugary with her any more. He was sterner now. He let his views of history be little sermons. Alice wondered which one he was trying to touch and convert. He spoke some of the sifting history did. He said that only long-term virtues stuck to people, after history got through with them. He said patience, and endurance, and selfishness, and all the least flashy and dullest attributes stuck out like rocks after the looser soil had been washed away in the tides of time. He said the good opinion of one's contemporaries was unreliable. He said a truly fine person must disregard it in favor of his own approval or the vague thing called integrity, which was, nevertheless, one of the most solid things in the world. He said that was a fact.

Again he spoke, and said the day of greed was passing. He said it was outworn. It had done its worst. It would have to be over. Because it had wound the world up to a climax and brought forth the ultimate consequences for all to see. He said greed was in the process of committing suicide.

He said, again, apropos of nothing in particular, that to dodge one's responsibilities was to dodge life itself and die unsatisfied. He said that people's idea of heaven was a state of perfect ease. But, he said, we aren't built to endure that.

The Whidock girls were polite to him. Except Maud, of course, although even she forbore to interrupt him often with her hoarse irrelevancies. Gertrude listened as one superior being to another. Isabel listened, with her half-abstracted air. They agreed. Oh, yes, they agreed. His preaching struck off their surfaces. It got no deeper.

Alice tried to think ahead. Could she think through this night? Or was her intuition warning her, as it had twice before? Were her antennae cut off? She couldn't tell. She didn't have any subconscious promptings. She had too much fear in full consciousness.

One picture wouldn't seem real, the one about Alice and Art Killeen getting on the train together, riding away, leaving this mess behind them for somebody else to straighten out. Her mind wouldn't paint it or give it color. But that wasn't subconscious. That was just deliberately unconscious.

Josephine came down at last with the message from Susan, the one Susan had been told to send, the one that was part of their trap. Their silly litde trap.

Said Josephine, "Miz Lines says she wants to know where are Mr. Innes's pills, Miss Brennan. It's time for him to have one."

"No, it isn't," said AJice, glancing coolly at her watch. She was sustained by the plan. This she knew how to do. "I gave him one when I came in. He can't have one now."

"But . . ." Josephine hesitated.

"I left them on the mantel," said Alice, loud with impatience. Then she leaned over to Maud and smilingly, with gestures, borrowed that one's pad and pencil.

On the page she wrote, forming her letters clear and large, "In the blue box. But don't give him one now." Maud was beside her. Alice felt her glance, as if her fingertips could feel it. She handed the slip of paper around the table. It went through Gertrude's hands to I>uff, who took care to hand it to Isabel. Isabel gave it to the servant, with one of her abrupt twists of the body by which she seemed to compensate for her onesidedness.

That was done.

Now. She who could hear, but not see, would think the pills were on the mantel. And there was a white box of pills on the mantel up there, easUy found by questing fingers. She who could see, but not hear, would believe the pills were in a blue box. There was a blue box, a pillbox, conspicuous on the table beside Innes's bed. She who could both see and hear would look for a blue box on the mantel, and inside a blue china box, thereon, was a third pillbox. None of the pills in any of these boxes were dangerous. But they were different.

Very tricky, thought Alice. But perhaps it was too lat< for tricks. Her fork clattered on the dessert plate. She tool hold of her nerves and commanded her fingers to steadier.

When dinner came to an end at last, Mr. Duff excus( himselL He said he would go up to talk to Innes for a litdc while, and then he really must go home to bed. Alice sai< she would go upstairs, too.

So far, nothing. So far, so good.

Fred was lurkiag in the upper hall and followed them into Innes's room, where the defenders gathered around his bed, Innes, all smiles, happily imconscious of their new forebodings, was just saying an affectionate good night to his mother.

She went beaming away, and they let her go.

"Sit down. Sit down," said Innes. "You know, my mother has been scolding me. Really. She complains that Fm doing so much for the girls and nothirig at all for her. So Fve promised." He smiled tenderly. "Of course, it isn't that she needs it. Father left her very well off. It's just that she's jealous," he said

Duffs eyes looked alive and a little sly with amusement. "It's a very human failing," he suggested.

"Of course it is," said Innes, all wise and magnanimous. "Only natural. Mother's getting old, you know. She needs me. Well ... how did it go at dinner? You set the trap did you?"

"Mr. Whitlock"—Duff disposed his long bones in a chair, sorrowfully—"we smell danger. I'm sorry to have to point out that, unintentionally, of course, you have put Alice in a doubtful position."

As Duff talked, Innes began to disintegrate. His terror came back, all the worse for haviag been temporarily forgotten, and crept over him, drained his happy mood away, reduced him to a cowering, sweaty, pale, plump, middleaged man in fear of his life.

"Yes, I see. Yes, I see." He touched his dry lips with his tongue. "Alice, dear, you must get away. If you go and they can't get at you, then Fm safe." Even in his state, he caught the ungallantry. "We're both safe," he amended. "That's so, isn't it, Mr. Duff? Alice, dear, you will have to go."

"And then what?" said Alice.

"What do you mean, dear? Then they won't . . . Mr. Duff, explain it to her."

But Duff said, "What were you going to say, Alice?''

171

"I only want to know what happens to our plans if I go away."

"Our plans, such as they are, proceed," said Duff. "At least we can see who is interested in which pillbox. For she will have to unmurder Innes, surely, once youVe gone."

"I don't think much of that," said Alice.

"It's feeble," Duff agreed quickly. "But it may help."

"Here we are," she said, "three of you able-bodied men, and Innes, who's perfectly well able to yell, at least, and me, who am able-bodied and young and more or less bright. Do you mean to say that all of us are so scared of one handicapped old woman that we have to scatter and run?"

"Listen, don't be dumb," said Fred. "You .. ."

"I'm not dumb," said Alice hotly. "But what on earth's the use of fooling around with halfway measures? If you really want to play safe, Innes, why don't you make a big fuss? You can a&ord it. Get people in here, rouse the town, get the police. Or hire an ambulance and go somewhere else. Or hire a special train, for heaven's sake, and let's all run away!"

"Yeah, but we don't want to do that," said Fred. "Then we'd never know."

Alice ignored him. "Why don't you do that, Innes?"

"I I "

"You don't want to, do you?" she purred sweetly. "I know. Suppose we all run away and say we're safe, and she gets to thinking about murder . . . suppose she picksj out one of her sisters . . . suppose she kills your mother,! Innes ... or Josephine? Goodness knows, she must bej partly crazy. You can't just ignore this sort of thing and goj away and say, Tm safe so what's the difference?' You] couldn't do that, Innes, I know."

"No," he said, licking his lips nervously, "no, I .. ."

"Well, then," said Alice, "if we want to stop it and set'] tie the whole thing . . ."

Killeen said, "You're swell, Alice! You're perfecdy swell! But, don't you see, if it were anyone but you. . . . We can't let you be bait for this trap."

"Why not? I make pretty good bait, don't I?"

"Nuts, Brennan," said Fred sofdy.

"No . . . no . . ." said Innes. "The risk, my dear. The risk for you!"

Alice felt a wave of shame. She said, with sudden honesty, "I don't mean . . . Listen, I'm not so awful brave as all that. I only ... I don't want to run away." Tears stung behind her lids.

Fred said, ''We got the idea. Now you can run along. You'd better."

"Darling, it isn't safe . . ."

Alice was furious. "So who wants to be all the time safe!" she cried at them all. "I won't go. No, I won't. Not unless Innes goes, and I mean that"

KiUeen said, "Very Well. I won't go unless you do, and I mean that, too."

Duff said, "Fire, fire, bum stick, stick won't beat dog

99

• • •

Innes was all atremble. "But what shall we do? How ... what's the best... 7"

"What can you do?" said Fred in disgust "The lady wants to be a hera"

"I do not," snapped Alice. "I haven't the slightest intention ... I only th-thought . . ." She was shocked to find the tears escaped and rolling down her face.

Duff said calmly, "We must do the best we can."

They all turned. "We are in your hands, after all," said Killeen, " 'Lay on, Mac Duff, and damned be he who fijst cries . . .' "

MacDougal Duff looked pained. 'The cross I bear," he said. "Yes, of course." His lids fell, hiding the eyes. "Let Killeen appear to leave. He can come back secretiy. Let us rearrange ourselves, to be as safe as possible. Alice, my dear, we shall hide you somewhere. Mr. Whitiock must have a substitute, with soimd ribs. Let us then lie low and wait and see." He looked veiy sad and tired. "Our best may not be good enough."

"Thank you," said Alice.

She went out of the room blindly, but Killeen was after her. "You mustn't be alone," he whispered. "Where are you going?"

"To get my handkerchief."

"Darling"—he put his arm lightly around her—"why don't you take the train with me?"

"I don't want to. I don't know."

His arm fell away, a little stiffly. "You're in love with Innes."

"Don't be silly."

Alice wept quietly before her mirror and then tidied her face, wondering what she was crying about. Nerves, she thought. When she came out into the hall, determined to be composed, she found Fred on guard beside her door. She looked at him hostilely.

"I wish you'd change your mind," he said mildly. "No kidding. It's dangerous."

"Why don't you leave," said Alice fiercely, "if you don't like it here?"

"Uh, uh," he said. "I'm going to get into that bed and see if we can't fool them some. We're going to sneak Innes into my room. You and Killen wUl stay with him."

"It's dangerous," she said.

He snatched at her wrist. "I think you're crazy! What do you want to stick around and risk your life for? Listen, for the love of Mike, will you get some sense and scram out of here?"

"No."

"Why not!"

"The same to you."

"It isn't the same to me. For God's sake, stop saying that."

"I suppose if the ceiling falls down on Innes's bed and you're in it, that's not dangerous? What do you want to risk your life for?"

"It's my life, and I happen to have been bom stubborn. This is a rotten house, and the people are rotten, and I don't like them, and I want to see them put away where they belong, and it's no business of yours."

"My hero," said Alice.

"Shut up. What the hell's the matter with you? I can't leave him now."

"All right. I can't leave him either. Fred, it's a reflex. You said so yourself."

"Damn it. Listen, the only reason I give a damn . . . It's my fault you're here. I faked that breakdown with the car. I thought . . ."

"Oh, you did. What did you think?"

"I thought rd help you out."

"Oh, you did?"

"Yeah, sure. Thought if he hadda drag you in to meet his family it'd put you on the right basis. You wanted to marry him, then, remember? I didn't know you'd hooked him already."

"Never mind," she said. "Just the same, how can I run away? This is bad and rotten."

"Go onr he said.

"You said so yourself. You know we have to see it througji. And we have to help Mr. Duff, and we have to take ttie risk! Because we can't help it, either of us. Murder just happens to be against our principles."

"Principles!"

"We didn't think we had any," she said. "Isn't it funny?"

"It's a scream." Fred regarded her with level eyes, remote, speculative. "Why won't you go on that train with KiUeen?" Then, with anger breaking through, "You're in love mth him, aren't you?"

Alice nipped around on her heel and started down the hall. He ran after her and turned her around. "You're bound and determined to risk your life in this madhouse?" He was watching her face. What he said lacked steam.

Alice raised her eyes, round and innocent. "Why, you will protect me, Fred," she said demurely.

"How do you know!" He was furious.

"I don't know how I know, but I do know," said Alice childishly.

"I sure as hell will," he said through his teeth. "Fll protect you, never fear." He put his hand on her shoulder and spun her around. "And if you don't spend the most im-comfortable night you ever spent in your life . . . Go on, get in there."

Alice let him shove her back into Imies's room. Why, she wondered for a fleeting second, does it make me happy when Fred gets angry?

Killeen came swiftly to her. "I've got to go in a minute. Alice, I'm coming back, you know. Don't be too frightened."

"Fm not afraid at all," she said, and saw Fred's scowl and felt delighted.

"I've been thinking, Mr. Duff." Alice looked at him sharply. He was so grave and quietly concerned and the well-bred servant, suddenly. "Miss Brennan will have to be in here with me. You see, I'm supposed to be Mr, Whidock, and they ought to seem to be together. You know, because the whole point is to kill them off in succession, isn't it? She can get in there behind that headboard. She's skinny."

"Thanks," said Alice. "Don't you mean slender?"

"Then I can be sure she's not roaming around some place," Fred went on serenely. "She might get some crazy idea. Of course, it'll be more or less uncomfortable ... But don't you get my point, sir?"

"I do," said Duff, veiling his eyes and pulling his long upper lip down. "I see your point, I think."

Killeen looked about to protest. Innes looked startled. But Duff took charge.

"Mr. Killeen, you must leave this house now. Your train is nearly due. I -shall leave at the same time. These ar- : rangements stand. Be very careful and very quiet about shifting around up here."

"Yes, sir," said Fred.

"Alice, is there a key in your door?"

"Yes, sir," she said.

"Lock it, then. Better if they can't discover too easily that you're not there."

"I see."

"Mr. Killeen will return by this window as soon as this room dims to a night light."

"Yes, sir."

"Mind the pillboxes. If they come in here. Watch. You know, they may decide to give it up and remove that dangerous piU and unmurder him, after all."

"I know. Sure."

"Keep an eye on Alice, always. Stay in here until Mr Whitlock's normal bedtime."

"Yes, sir."

''Then dim these lights."

"What about me?" said Innes. "What about me? How can I get. . .?"

"Oh, we'll carry you, sir. It'll be easy."

"Where will you be, Mr. Duff?" asked Innes. "Don'

leave us. I... I'm very nervous."

"I shall be lying in ambush," said Duff, ''with an eye on the noble red man. Of course, you realize that nothiiig at all may happen." Their faces looked grave and a Utde disappointed. "But if it does," he said, "it'll be something you don't expect, so expect that."

He put his hand on Fred's shoulder for a minute, smiled at Alice, and went away, taking Killeen with him.

After that, for an hour, Innes took out his nervousness in half-whispered chatter, while Alice said "yes," "no," and "of course not."

Nobody came to bid him good night.

The house was quiet. In time it became evident that the Whidock girls had gone to bed.

Fred dimmed the light at eleven o'clock.

Nobody, so far, had bothered to unmurder Innes.

24

Alice was sitting on a pillow on the floor. She had to keep her shoulders parallel to the wall and her legs stretched pretty tight, that it would be more than the work of a moment to get out of there. In fact, she was a prisoner. She thought: I might better be in a straight jacket. But she was hidden. That was her advantage. That and Fred.

After Killeen had come silently up a ladder, after Innes had been borne stealthily through the hall while Alice kept guard at the top of the stairs, Fred had herded her into this big silent room with its elephantine furniture and its ridiculous dignity. "Well, let me get into my nightcap," he'd said, and peeled off his coat and shirt and put on the top of Innes's pajamas. Alice helpfully stuffed his own things behind a cushion.

"Get your slender frame in there," he'd commanded, "and let me see how it works."

Obediently, she had tucked herself between the bed and the wall, under the giant curve of the towering headboard.

"Do I show?"

"Nope," he said. "I didn't think you would. Well . . ." he sounded a little contrite.

"Oh, get in," said Alice, wildly exhilarated. She'd

wanted to scream with laughter. The bed springs creaked. "Stick your hand around here." He'd fastened on her wrist. "I hope you get a stiff neck."

"Don't worry. I will," she'd said without rancor. "Better not talk."

He hadn't talked, after that.

She tried to relax and make herself better able to bear the awkward position in which she would have to remain for no one knew how long. She was able to draw her legs up a little, bending them slightly at the knee. Her wrist was going to ache from stretching around the comer of the headboard. But she wouldn't withdraw it. Not yet

She could see along the wall, not much, not a very large portion of the room. One window. Not the door. There was the night light burning on the table at the other side of the bed, so it wasn't dark. Dust rose in her nostrils. Don't sneeze, she thought. What if a mouse ... Well, I must be brave, that's all. .

Fred was lying very quietly. Alice thought: Fm safe, and if Fm safe he's safe. I wonder how Innes is bearing up? Art Killeen had given her a queer, intense look before he'd closed the lumber-room door. "If you call, 111 come running," he'd said. Jealousy, thought AJice, is a very human failing. She began to feel a litde drowsy. Her right arm was getting numb.

The light went out.

Fred exdaimed under his breath and let go her wrist She heard him click the switch and lean over the other side of the bed to examine the cord and the plug that went into the baseboard.

''What the hell?" she heard him whisper.

Their hands groped for each other. She could sec nothing at all, now. The darkness was like a wall in front of her nose. The country darkness. No street light, no electric signs outside, to send a glow or to outline the window frames. It was pitch dark. The darkness was so thick it seemed to have body and press down.

Alice felt her ears growing in the dark. They seemed to strain to stand out from her head. Her hand, in Fred's hand, was getting a little slippery, a httle clammy, when they heard a distant whisper and creak of feet On the stairs?

The door next, she thought. It's going to happen. But the door wasn't next.

Instead, there was a stealthy scraping, a bump or two. Someone was moving something, just outside, in the haU. A metallic sound. Then a hollow thump, like a soft tap on a muffled drum. Was the metallic sound a key turning? Were they locked in? Alice's fingers twitched and grabbed. And Fred's responded.

Soft whisper of feet on the carpet outside. But going away! Gone!

Fred moved with infinite care. His breath was in her face, as he leaned around the headboard. "Gone," he whispered. The word was so slight a sound that it was like telepathy.

"Are . . . we ... locked . . . m?" She breathed the question back.

He didn't know. The darkness and the silence answered her question as if he had shrugged his shoulders and she had felt the air disturbed and read the meaning. -"Shall ... I... go .. . see?"

Her hand clutched at his, saying, don't go. "Wait." Lonesome, far away, for all it was her own breath, the word raised tiny echoes in the dust. His hand said he would stay.

They waited. Alice thought, were they going to set the house on fire? Or would it be coal gas again? Innes couldn't smell. Couldn't smell smoke? She wondered. Her own nose felt keen and sharp as if her breath drew in and examined every least odor and searched the very air for danger. She thought: But Mr. IXiff knows who it is. How does he know? How can he know? She, herself, couldn't separate them any more. The menace was 'they." AH three. Half-crazy, she thought, warped and out of the world and fuU of evil. Prowling the house, for all she knew. Gertrude walking in the dark. Maud's reckless grin. Isabel, nerve driven, creeping in the dark.

When at last they heard the footsteps coming, it was a rehef. But not for long.

Now, the door was next. It wasn't locked at aU. It was being gently opened. Fred, who could have seen the door, had there been Ught, could see nothing. It didn't even make a patch in the darkness. But a faint movement of air

came through. It was open, and there was somebody there.

Somebody whispered, "Imies?"

There is no voice in a whisper. All whispers are gray in the dark, like cats, thought Alice.

Fred was directing his own breathing, making it slow as if he slept. Alice tried not to breathe at all. She found it easy. There seemed to be no breathable air, anyhow. How could they watch the pillboxes in the dark? she thought in dismay.

The steps crossed toward the bed. Alice felt Fred's fingers loosen. He would be bracing himself. The difference between Fred, awake and strong, and the man this silent creature thought was there, asleep and weak with broken bones bound up and drugs in his brain—that was the difference that would save them. If she ... If she ..,

What?

Fred felt a hand groping over his covered body. It found his arm and m,oved gentiy down to his wrist Cold fingers pressed there. He couldn't control his heartbeats. But they were less fast than strong. He devoted himself to slow breathing. Maybe that would make the heart behave.

The fingers let him go. Air swirled in the wake of the figure as it moved away. Was this aU? Was this aU?

They heard a breath sharply drawn.

Then the silence exploded into a thousand pieces. She called out. Lifted up her voice and called into the dark and waiting house. Called, and shivers crawled on the skin at the alarm in it. The warning, the terror of the cry.

"Alice," she called. "Alice." And again . . . "Alice.'

Fred's fingernails dug into the flesh of Alice's hand, and the pain was good. She kept quiet

For the call was going down the silent hall, around the comer, like a hound hunting. It went down the hall to Alice's door.

"AHce."

Would Alice come? She, herself, stiff behind the bed, so close, seemed to lose her identity. Surely there was an Alice somewhere else to hear that calling. And to answer. It must be answered. It couldn't be denied.

"Alice." It grew a litde sharper, that desperate cry. "Alice."

180

n

They heard a door, the faint click of the knob turning, the rustle of its opening. Half-fainting, Alice seemed to see her own ghost. Someone was opening the door of the room where she ought to be. Someone was coming to answer. Alice was comiug. Alice. It must be Alice. But Alice was here. No, Alice was in the hall. One could hear her feet. Reluctant, those feet. Groping, naturally, in the thick darkness. Cautious feet. But coming, answering.

Alice would come, if one called her in the night like that. Of course she would.

The voice called no more. But the footsteps . . . Not Alice. Art Killeen. The world tumbled back to another balance as Alice wrenched herself around to a reasonable belief. He'd come, she told herself. He'd come, no matter what, for that name, that wailing Alice!

There! Did the door click? This door?

A door opened. The feet. . . . Alice's feet? No, no, Killeen's ... the feet took a step in the dark.

It screamed. Alice's ghost, whatever it was. A strangling scream as if the throat closed with terror. Screamed, and the scream died away as if in the wind. Died away and was gone, and was out of the house. There was a terrible sound. Not very loud, but hideous, like the pulpy squash of a fly. Mingled with it, they thought they heard the little triumphant croak of evil victory.

Now the voice said, "Innes? Innes?" Urgendy, anxiously, aloud, with a nervous whine.

Out in the hall another voice said, "What's the matter? What's the matter?"

"Gertrude? Is that you, Gertrude?"

"Isabel?"

Calling to each other, the two sisters. Isabel in here, Gertrude out there. Which of them had made that litde horrible Well-remembered sound?

Alice's heart gave a great bound and returned to its work with a swift pounding. She felt her face get hot. Fred's fingers moved on her hand.

Oh, God, someone was coming in the window! The sash was thrown up, violently, not stealthily at all. They braced themselves again. But Duff's voice came through the dark with quiet authority.

"Stay exactly where you are, everybody."

Isabel said, rapidly, as if her jaw was oscillating out of her control. "Oh, Mr. Duff, is it you? Mr. Duff, what's happened? The lights. Innes. Something's wrong, I think. I think . . ."

"Be quiet," said Duff.

Footsteps in the haU again. But this was Gertrude. This was her firm tread, her unhesitating feet. From the top of the stairs, turning to the left, coming toward the door of Papa's room.

They stopped. It seemed very abrupt. It seemed like an exclamation of surprise.

"Isabel," Gertrude's voice was aggreived. "The chest of drawers has been moved. Isabel, Isabel . . ." They heard the woman's breath drawn. "The old porch door . . ."

"Miss Whidock," said Duff curtly, "come along to this room, please."

Gertrude's feet came on. She stopped accurately where the door was. They could tell by the heightened sound. She stepped in.

Duff nad moved near the bed, where Fred maintained his silence. "My flashlight has failed. I'm afraid Mr. Whidock, here, has fainted . . ."

Gertrude was quivering. Even in the dark silence, they could tell. "Where is Innes?" she said. Her voice went higher, like a frightened child's. "Where is he?"

It became immediately plain where Innes was. A door burst open down the hall. They could hear his sobbing, his hysteria.

Duff said, "Perhaps some sedative. If I could make this Ught. . ."

Gertrude went across the room. "On the mantel," she said. They couldn't see her but they could hear her fingers as they went along the wood. "Mr. Duff .. ." she said as if she held something out to him,

"Wait a minute. I think . . . yes . . ." His flashhght sprang on. The beam leaped to Gertrude, as she stood beside the mantel with a white pillbox in her hand.

Isabel was stock still, her Ups drawn back from her teeth in a kind of grisly surprise. She wheeled about, with her jerky manner. "Not those," she said. Her claw took the cover off the blue china box.

Duff took the box from Isabel.

Then Mr. Johnson was standing m the door. Duff sent the light glancing across the dark face. It was calm. "Innes wants you."

"Not now. Give him one or two of these, if you can." The light danced as Duff shook two pills out into his dirty hand.

Gertrude's tall body wavered as if she weren't quite steady on her feet. "I don't understand. Mr. Duff?" she said. Her voice began to trail as if she were losing at least a part of her consciousness. Her thumb moved on the pDlbox in her hand. "What pills are these? Mr. Duff, is she dead?"

"Oh, yes," he said.

Mr. Johnson spoke. "Broken neck," he said, neither question nor answer. He moved out of the hght, silently.

"My fault," said Isabel. Her face looked hollowed in the light coming from below. Her eyes seemed wild with sorrow. "My fault, because I called her. I called her name. The lights . . . Innes ... I thought something was wrong. Poor girl. Poor Alice."

Gertrude said, "Is there light? Mr. Duff, can you see?"

"I can see," he said.

"Then why don't you see . . ." Gertrude put out her hand gropingly, for the first time. "I am blind," she said weakly. "Who is in this room? Who is here?"

The Indian had gone to his master.

Duff said, "I am here, Miss Whitlock, and your sister Isabel, and . . ."

"And Fred," said Isabel rather tartly.

"Is there a chair?" said Gertrude piteously.

Fred let go of Alice's hand and sat up in bed as if he liad been released. "What happened?" he demanded.

Duffs voice was drearily cadenced. "I suppose she started down the hall in the dark. She came to the chest of drawers that always stood just before you reached this door. So she opened the door that was next to the chest of drawers and it led out to nowhere."

"Why wasn't it locked!"

"Because this is murder."

"That's impossible," said Gertrude. "I'm . . ."

"No, it isn't impossible. As a matter of fact, Miss Isabel arranged it"

Isabel had her lip caught m her teeth. Her queer eyes looked aslant.

"You killed her. Miss Isabel, just as much as if you'd shot her, you know. That's murder. The law will say so. Premeditated. DeUberate. Planned."

Isabel shook her head.

"You tried three times to kill your brother Imies. And failed. Then you tried to kill Alice Brennan."

She shook her head.

"After that," said Duff, ''you tried a fourth time to kill your brother Innes. But he's safe."

He took the aspirin bottie from his pocket and shook it, lightly. "The poisoned pill's in here," he said. He put the bottle down on the bedside table.

Gertrude said, with a ghostly indignation, forceless, perfunctory, "Mr. Duff, you realize you are speaking of my sister?"

"Yes," said Duff, "to your sister, who is a murderess. Miss Whitiock. Because you are blind and Maud could hear. Therefore, I know. Understand, Miss Isabel? I am sure. Your sister Maud could hear. She heard and she was curious, and so she died."

Isabel said, "Maud! MaudI"

"Alice," said Duff quietly.

Alice found her voice a little one, weak, in the back of her throat. "Pm here," she said, sounding meek and childish. "I'm still here."

Isabel's one hand clutched the footboard, and she leaned on that arm.

"It reaUy doesn't matter," Duffs voice went on, dreamy again. "No, it really doesn't matter that you got the wrong person. You killed her. You moved the chest and you put out the lights. Coming along the hall in the dark, one would grope for the door one knew came just beyond that chest. This door. But it wasn't this door. Oh yes, you are guilty.

"Why, Miss Isabel? Why did you do it? Because you couldn't let go? You thought you were going to get a quarter of a million, roughly. And you couldn't let it go. Not for enough to keep you in comfort for the rest of your life. Not for anything less. You never took your losses, did you? And your gains are no good, either. Because nothing is ever enough. There must be more and more, until you lose everything. Strange you couldn't see how inevitably you'd lose it all."

Isabel said!, "I never meant anything. I never meant anything at all. I. . . Somebody else must have moved the chest . . ."

"No," said Duff.

"But I . . ."

"You had the key to the old porch door. You had a thousand keys."

"But I . . ."

"You kept things," said Duff.

"I only called Alice because I. . ."

"No," said Duff.

"I was worried about Innes."

"To be sure, you had to know that he hadn't got the poisoned pill yet."

"She felt my pulse," said Fred.

"Yes," said Duff. "You see?"

"But I . . ."

Alice, on the edge of the bed with Fred's arm around her, saw the queer eyes lick out, this way and that, for an opening. Saw her find it.

Gertrude was as white as death in her chair, and her sightless eyes were closed. She moaned. The sound called Duff. The light went with him, brightening that comer and letting shadow fall on the rest.

Isabel picked up the aspirin bottle.

Fred jumped, but Alice's dead weight followed him and entangled him.

The ghastliest sight she ever saw, thought Alice, was Isabel, in the half-dark, shaking the aspirin bottle into her open mouth with her only hand.

Fred said, "Well, she got it. It was poison, ail right."

Duff looked down.

"What is justice?" he said, "I don't know, do you? Perhaps they'd call her mad."

"I guess this is justice," Fred said grimly, "or a facsimile of same."

Art Killeen came charging in. "Alice. Alice, I thought ... I thought. . ."

"Did you think it was me?" she said without much emotion. "How funny! I thought it was you." He looked at her and shook his head, puzzled, without comprehension. ''No percentage," said Alice.

"Look out," cried Fred. "Put her head down."

When Alice, lying on the bed, heard a woman scream, she felt scarcely able to take an interest. She turned her head, idly. Women were always screaming, and this was only Susan Innes, shocked, in the door.

"I saw the lights ... I had come . . . Oh, Mr. Duff, what happened?"

But Gertrude answered. The straw-colored woman, brittle and shining and weak, like straw. Her voice was clear, and the bell tones were sad. She held herself stiffly, and the syllables tinkled mourning. "Poor Maud," she said. "Poor, poor Isabel. Oh, Susan, there has been a dreadful tragedy. Isabel moved the chest in the hall. And poor Maud was deceived in the dark. Maud fell out the old porch door. She's dead. And Isabel"—Gertrude's face was frozen—"Isabel, in her remorse . . ." the voice was cool . . . "over the accident. . ." said Gertrude.

"Oh, my dear!"

"Yes, I shall be alone," said Gertrude. "Well, I shall never be a burden." She stood up and moved lq her uncanny way. She went out the door and down the hall. She paused at the open outer door, the one that led to nothing.

But she went on. The feet found the stairs easily in the dark.

"So that's her version," muttered Fred.

"Forever," said Duff sadly.

Killeen was stroking Alice's hair. "Be quiet. Just rest."

"Where's everybody?"

"You're in your own room. They're . . . attending to things. Darling . . ."

"I wish you'd get over that," said Alice crossly. "Where's Mr. Duff? Where's Fred?" It was as if she'd said, "Where are my friends?"

Innes was calling, somewhere.

"Hadn't you better trot?" said Alice. "Don't you hear him calling you?"

He said, "Good-by, darling."

"But she is blind," Fred said, later, "physically bhnd, I mean?"

It was nearly morning. The doctor was in the house. He had looked at the dead and comforted the living. He was with Gertrude now. Duff and Fred had come to Ahce's room. They were all three sitting in a row on the bed.

"Yes, I'm sure of it," Duff said. "She knew you m the dark, Fred. When Isabel didn't. How do the blind recognize people? They do, you know. With all their other senses. Somehow, and we who can see are never sure quite how, they can tell one of us from another. The dark was no barrier to her. She knew you. And she knew Alice was there too."

"She passed the pillbox test," said Alice.

"Yes. She did."

"But Maud was a fraud," Fred grinned. "Hey, that's a rhyme. Must I speak of the dead nothing but good?"

"Not these dead," said Alice grimly. "Go on. Maud was a fraud. But how did that prove it was Isabel?"

Duff drew his algebra problem out of his pocket. "A stands for attempt, b for blind, c for crippled, d for deaf. And things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Therefore, when three of you identified the same sound as the sound you'd each heard separately, it was the same sound, all along."

"And that told you Isabel did everything?"

"Say it confirmed me in my suspicion," said Duff. "Isabel fitted. Yes, it told me I was right. It checked. If Maud could hear, and if Gertrude was blind, then Isabel was the active murderess. Because if Gertrude was really blind she could have been fooled by the witch hazel and a bedroom slipper. And that's how the stain came off Isabel's arm. And if Maud could hear, why, she rested her alibi for Isabel on what she heard, of course. She really thought Isabel had gone through her room at about eleven. Why? Not necessarily because she had noticed the clock. Maud was never time-conscious."

"Just mealtimes," said Fred.

187

"But I had said to Alice that Susan put the time of her call at eleven. Maud heard me, do you see? And Maud heard the phone. Or, if she didn't, still she heard us say that Isabel had come upstairs immediately after the phone call, the phone call was at eleven . . . She rested her evidence on hearsay."

"When do you think the telephone really rang?"

"Qose to twelve," said Duff. "When Fred was in the bathroom. Isabel had been downstairs the whole time. In the cellar at work, perhaps soon after eleven thirty. She answered the phone. She got Gertrude to wash her arm. She came upstairs, triumphant. She went through Maud's room to avoid Fred. Maud would never notice the time, thought she. Anyhow, what did the time matter? Isabel didn't know that Alice knew or noticed heat still coming up at eleven fifteen. Isabel wasn't so very clever. After all, she never got her victim, though she tried four times. She never got her prize. She murdered the wrong person. And she had to die her way out of it."

"But I still . . . What does this mean?" Alice picked up the piece of paper.

"It told me that Isabel had made the first two attempts. Without doubt. It convinced me that she had also made the third. Therefore, it prepared me to beUeve that, whatever might be done tonight, Isabel would do it. And I was frightened for you, Alice. Because she, alone, of the three would rather kill you and Innes both than give up the fortune she had begun to think of as hers. Gertrude had enough with the allowance. She would have her particular brand of prestige, the thing she'd buy. Maud, too, had what she wanted. You can buy only so much candy, so many peanuts. The love of things, you see, is the root. Isabel loved things, just to pK>ssess them, and there are never enough things, as I told her." Duff fell silent.

"But how did it tell you?" insisted Alice.

"Look. Attempt nmnber one. The falling lamp. Not Maud. That we knew. Maud was in the parlor whether she was deaf or not. Fortunately, we had that double check on Maud for attempt number one. Now, suppose Gertrude dropped the lamp and made the httle sound. Then, when we come to number two, we see that it must also have been Gertrude, and it wasn't. Why must Gertrude have done

both, if she did the first? Because Maud and Isabel both had something wrong with their voices. No range. No control. No flexibility. Neither could have imitated that sound. Either of them could have made it, understand, but not copied it from hearing Gertrude make it. So, if Gertrude dropped the lamp she also did everything else. But she couldn't have gone down the road and moved the detour sign. That leaves Isabel. Number one. Isabel. Dear?"

"O.K. Go ahead."

"Attempt number two, the sign moved. The car cracked up. Not Gertrude but—see, children—not Maud either. Because Maud didn't do number one, and therefore would have had to imitate Isabel. And she couldn't Therefore, attempt number two was made by Isabel."

"Just what I said," said Alice.

"Go on," said Fred.

"Attempt number X. The poisoned pill. Same as number two."

"Is it?"

"Exactly."

"But Gertrude could have felt those ridges on the blue bottle," said Alice.

"How could she teU which smooth bottle held the phenobarbital? It has no odor."

"Oh."

"Not Gertrude. Not Maud, because she stiU can't imitate."

"Yes, I see. Go on."

"Attempt number three. The coal gas and the dampers. Now if one and two were done by Isabel, number three can't be Maud either. She still can't imitate that sound."

"Gertrude could."

"Yes, Gertrude could. Gertrude had a flexible voice. She had keen ears. She might have done so. The only trouble is," said Duff, "why would Gertrude, who sleeps on the first floor, come upstairs outside of Alice's door in the middle of the night, having done a crinunal deed, having completed it, having nothing further to do up here that would lead to its success—why, I say, would she come up here and laugh? Just to laugh? Just to make the little sound? The imitated soimd? Why? To incriminate Isabel? Did she know Alice was awake to hear it? If so, how? Did she know it had been heard before? If so, how? People don't often do things for no reason at all. There wasn't even a wrong reason.

"So I was convinced that it must have been Isabel, herself, going by your door soon after twelve. So, you see, I had to figure out why Maud gave her an alibi.

''It became plain that Maud could have done so, honestly, only if she could hear. If she heard our mistake. Her clock was accurate. Would Maud alibi her sister just for loyalty's sake?"

"No," said Fred.

"I thought not, myself. So I couldn't disregard Isabel's alibi as a plain lie by Maud. A good chance she was honest How, then, could she have been mistaken? If she gave the time by hearsay. She did give us the time by hearsay. Must have. You see now?" He crumpled up the paper.

"Yeah," said Fred slowly.

"You always thought it was Isabel by intuition. ... I mean, by the other way?"

"Isabel scarcely let her right eye know what her left eye was doing," said Duff.

"Well, Gertrude survives. What's the moral?"

"The moral is," said Fred, "you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your relatives."

"The moral is . . . Never mind," said Alice. "It's all over."

Duff said with a light in his eyes, "So it is. I am going down and talk to Mr. Johnson."

"Good morning, Alice." Innes smiled at her with sheepish cheer from his pillows in Papa's bed. He reached for her hand, and she let him have it. After all, he was still alive and deserved congratulations.

"My dear," he said, "you look lovely. You're such a lovely person, Alice. You never meant to break our engagement, did you? I thought over what you said. I think you were simply being terribly honest." His eyes appealed to her. "But now, when we've been through so much together, I feel I know you better than ever and need you more. And you wouldn't leave me. Alice . . ."

"No," said Alice kindly. "No, please. I'm sorry. You'd better change that awful will. Innes, I was going to marry

you for your money, but now I don't want the money. Please change it, Innes. Because I'm not going to marry you. Really I'm not. I just don't want to."

Innes closed his eyes in pain. "I thought, when we'd been through so much . . . Alice, how can you leave me now?"

Because you're a whining, weak, silly man, thought Alice. "Oh," she said aloud, ''you'U get over it, Innes. And I'd like to resign as your secretary, too."

He looked at her, incredulously, she thought. Or was it timidly? Or was it suspiciously? Was there a sly fear?

She marched to the door and flung it open. Somebody must hear this. There was only Fred, coming out of the bathroom with his hair wet and slicked down.

"Come in here, Fred."

Fred came in.

"I want you to be a witness," said Alice loudly. "I have just told Mr. Whitlock that I won't marry him. I am breaking the engagement. If I ever been a suit for breach of promise, you can teU about this. Also, I quit my job. There."

"Alice," said Innes pitifully.

But she left the room.

"Anything you want, Mr. Whitlock?" said Fred, respectfully.

"Nothing," said Innes. "Nothing . . . nothing . . ." He blew a little breath through pursed lips, and it puffed his cheeks out. They collapsed with a sigh.

Alice heard Fred coming after her as she ran downstairs. He caught her at the bottom.

"What do you mean, you quit your job?" he said fiercely. "Are you nuts?"

"I guess so," she said.

He was very angry. "Are you going to get married? Is that it?"

"I hadn't thought of it," said Alice, "but I'd like to."

Fred shook her. "To that Killeen? That's it, isn't it?"

"Uh uh," she said, shaking her head as if her tongue was tied.

"Then what's this about getting married?"

"You started it."

"Look," said Fred, "if they won't take me in the Army,

I'm still a darned good mechanic. I can get a job . .." "You're wonderful," said Alice and closed her eyes. "We're crazy," said Fred. Then furiously, "You don't want to marry me!" "I do, too," said Alice.

Diiff looked dreamily over the sunken pit. "Your grandfather," he said, "was he a chief?" Mr. Johnson spat. "Or a medicine man?" "Naw."

"What did he do?"

"Lived aroimd here," said Mr. Johnson. "Then he died."

"Sums up most of us," Duff said provocatively.

"Sure," said Mr. Johnson.

Duff sighed. The mystery was as thick as ever.