Classic Audiobook Collection - The Dalehouse Murder by Francis Everton ~ Full Audiobook [mystery]

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

The Dalehouse Murder by Francis Everton audiobook. Genre: mystery When Francis Jeffcock accepts an invitation to a summer tennis tournament at the Merchester Lawn Tennis Club, he expects lazy matches, brisk gossip, and the comfortable routines of a well-bred circle. Instead, the weekend turns chilling when Stella Palfreeman, a dazzling young woman at the center of too many glances and private quarrels, is found dead under circumstances that suggest something far more deliberate than misfortune. Detective Inspector Allport arrives to impose order on the uneasy gathering, but the case refuses to stay neatly inside police procedure: every conversation hints at a hidden motive, every courtesy masks a grievance, and the smallest social detail becomes a clue. As Jeffcock watches the investigation tighten around friends and acquaintances, he is drawn into a web of rivalries, misdirection, and carefully kept secrets. An enigmatic physician, Dr. Wallace, adds an unsettling edge to the inquiry with his sharp observations and clinical interest in human behavior. Set against the deceptively genteel backdrop of lawns, clubrooms, and country-house propriety, The Dalehouse Murder is a classic whodunit that turns polite society into a pressure cooker where anyone could have something to hide. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:22:06) Chapter 02 (00:53:49) Chapter 03 (01:20:31) Chapter 04 (01:50:09) Chapter 05 (02:12:51) Chapter 06 (02:40:45) Chapter 07 (03:03:54) Chapter 08 (03:20:39) Chapter 09 (03:31:49) Chapter 10 (03:55:10) Chapter 11 (04:23:04) Chapter 12 (05:17:02) Chapter 13 (05:36:57) Chapter 14 (06:17:17) Chapter 15 (06:38:27) Chapter 16 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Dale House Murder Chapter 1 I go to Manchester Dear Francis It'll be jolly to see you again For your partner in the mix-ed I've only missed the most perfect peach By the skin of the pips

Do peaches have pips? I wonder See how poor we are However Margaret Hunter The girl you are to play with Is really very nice And let me warn you in time Has a devastating attraction for men

She's a muchester girl, but has been away for some time teaching in Sheffield, and as the aunt with whom she lives is away, she's staying with us for the tournament week. I reported fully on your great personal charm, so beware. The girl I just missed for you is Stella Palfreyman, one of the prettiest girls I ever set eyes on. I met her at the Camphor Tournament last week. She said stay with us too. Then there will be Kenneth, and of course Ralph Bennett, who by the way, article to the same solicitor in Sheffield, a regular house party for the event. Daddy has had a sort of nervous breakdown and has gone to Folkestone with Mother. They are to be there for a month,

and the Tandish is looking after the practice. I wish Daddy could get him for keeps. He needs someone badly. You've never met the Tandish, have you? I wonder how he will strike you. He's quite old, older than you by a year or two I should think. But like you, Jolly, in spite of his age, and greying hair. He can tell the most thrilling yarns about his experiences in China. So you see, I shall be acting as hostess, and I can tell you, we're going to make things bus. Yours ever, Ethel. P.S., can you come on Saturday? All the others will be here, then accepting Stella, who hails from London, and will not arrive until midday on Monday. It was Monday, June the 15th, the opening day of the Manchester Launtoness Club's annual open

tournament at which I had played regularly for the past few years. My sister Brenda and I were finishing an early breakfast, and I was rereading Ethel Hanson's letter. I should explain that I am chief engineer to a firm in the little Midland town of Millingham, where since her father's death, my sister and I have lived happily together. Wisely, we spend the holidays apart, and I, when I can, take mine in small doses. It suits my business arrangements to do so, and I spent such periods of leisure as I can snatch from my work and playing in the lawn tennis tournaments at the neighboring small towns.

Given kindly weather, I challenge anyone to name a more enjoyable little holiday. It's five years since I first went to Merchester and my friendship with hands and states from then. Ethel, I remember, had not left school, but I'd obtained a special holiday for the event. You will see that in a letter she refers to my age and grey hairs, but she is one of those intensely young things to whom anything over 30 is well on the downward slope. I'm 38, moderately good at my work and hardly that at games. I know that I'm quiet, and I believe that my friends count me dull. Indeed, I can lay claim only to one exceptional quality of any kind whatever,

and that, my remarkable acute sense of hearing, is nothing but an accident of birth. At times, though, I'm almost uncanny, and when playing tennis I can generally hear most of my opponent's private comments. Play everything on to Jeffcock, and we shall be sure to win. is a sort of remark I hear more often than I like. The summer was one of the hottest on record, and no drop of rain had fallen since the latter end of April. Day after day, the sun shone unclouded. Brass and gardens were scorched and brown,

and even the large shrubs and trees began to droop and wilt. Nearly everyone was feeling the unusual heat, and on Thursday I had caught a chill and had had to give up all idea of accepting Ethel's invitation for Saturday. But when Monday came, I decided that I was well enough to risk it, though Brenda did her best all to my decision. Had I known then of what the week held in store for me, I think I should have needed no persuasion of hers to make me stay away. Brenda, dear good soul that she is, had got the car round before we sat down to breakfast,

and shortly after half-past-ighted started out on my 40-mile run. It was scorching hot before I finished my journey, and having made good time, I drew into the side of the road under the shade of a tree in order to light my pipe. A slight rise in the ground gave me a wonderful view of Merchester Cathedral from where I set. It is built of a pale red sandstone that seems able to reflect every shade of light and colour. That morning it looked as so it were wrought and pale gold. With the windows ablaze, as they flashed back the sun and the lower part of the building

and the top of the hill on which it stands hidden by a summer morning haze, it seemed it might have been some fatty structure floating in the air. It seemed to dominate the whole countryside. The city lies huddled round the base of the hill on which the great cathedral and the clothes are grouped odd streets straggling out like the roots of some great tree into the surrounding

flats. I imagine there can hardly be a point in the whole city from which the cathedral cannot be seen towering up above and at the and at the quarters every street reverberates with the boom of the chimes from the central tower. The doctor's house stands just at the foot of the hill and the long garden behind it lies

dead level at first and then rises steeply at about half its length. The garage stands on a tiny plateau leveled off at the top of the slope. There is the shortest of wash yards and then a double door leading on to the narrow lane that runs the length of garden and enters the main road of the side of the house. The narrowness of the lane and the abrupt little hill make a very awkward entry and my old two-seater still bears the scouts of my first attempt to negotiate it. The house itself is built of a dull red brick and is of the jewell, Georgian period. There is something in the proportions and the setting of the windows that gives it a quite air of character and strength. It's far too large for the doctor's needs and the attics and

some of the upper rooms are never used. At some time or other, a one-story wing which is of stone with a flat-top roof had been built out at the back on the side next the lane. This Hansen has turned into a private business wing complete with consulting room, dispensary and waiting room. A small hall with a door opening on to the little lane, Dale House Lane it is called, another passage connecting it to the house itself make it a really convenient arrangement. The strip of garden in front of the house and the large garden behind are alike surrounded by a 10-foot wall, butt-rested intervals and built of the same red brick as the house. This wall, it must be some 18 inches thick, and is tiled at the top like the roof of a house, has made a very secluded sport of the doctor's garden,

and there is an air of quiet secrecy about the place that in some subtle ways enhanced by the fact that the front door bell is wrung from a door in the outer wall. Yes, sheltered and shut is the right description for the old garden with its red-buttuce walls that lies behind Dale House, and when after dinner we used to take a coffee on the lawn, Hanson and I with the pipes, and perhaps Mrs. Hanson and Ethel with their sewing and their books, I used to think it must be the most peaceful spot in all the world. one night on my last year's visit a particularly call to mind. Hansen and I were alone, and we sat almost silent where the light faded, and the moon crept over the top of the wall, and up the sky till it clear the cathedral tower. It was then that he first told me of his

friend, Dr. Wallace, the Tundish, and again the impression that he would not be disappointed, or surprised of Ethel and he were to make a match of it together. And now, only a few weeks ago, she had written to tell me that she was engaged to Kenneth Dane. He must have carried her off her feet pretty quickly, for I had seen the Hansen's wellly a month or so before, I know them well, and until I received a letter I had never even heard his name. As I sat, dreaming and wondering what manner of man I should find him, the slight change in angle as the scorching sun moved round

and caused the lights in the cathedral windows to flicker and fade away, and the colour of the stonework to change from pale gold to a gold of darker shade. I had dallied long enough, and starting up my engine, I slipped in the clutch and set out on the few remaining miles that separated me from the end of my journey. The cathedral clock was chiming ten, as I rounded the corner from the main road into the Dale House lane. I phoned Ethel and two of a guest under the old Cedar tree

that gives grateful summer shade to one side of the lawn. Whatever a false may be, and I could list several, beginning with a reference to a rather hasty little temper, she is entirely unaffected and honestly cordial. Indeed, I know of no one who can show Atwin so gaily and sincerely that she is pleased to see her friends, and as she met me I was gratified to feel that in spite of her engagement, I still held my old place in her affections. She introduced me to Ralph Bennett, and then to Kenneth Dane. To paint a word-picture of any human being is a hazardous undertaking.

But in the case of Kenneth Dane, I feel that the risk attached to the attempt is a little less than usual, for I summed him up at once, and my later experience proved me correct as one of those stone-bright souls who carried their character plainly written all over the them for each and sun-ray to read. Black for him, I felt certain, was always black, and white was always white, and that there simply were no intervening

shades of grey. Now, there could be no subtle grace for Kenneth. Tall, his broad sloping shoulders made him appear of medium height, Antlieu stood against him. With fair brown hair of that close, crisp, wavy kind, that it is a thousand pities, providence

does not keep exclusively for girls, eyes of a rather bright pale blue, a straight, aggressive nose and a firm mouth and chin to match. He was a fine example of athletic British manhood. The grip he gave to my hand, nearly making me cry out, and his deep, pleasant laugh as he acknowledged my congratulations, were both in keeping with his vigorous appearance. In Ralph Bennett, his friend, I found an entirely different type, slim and dark, with rather unusual dark brown eyes. You had wanted to see the two together, and I soon found that.

They were almost inseparable to recognize that while Kenneth might be the better equipped with character and determination, Ralph was more than his match so far as brain power and intelligence were concerned. But he was so quiet and reserved that one almost overlooked him, and later I was often to wonder on what foundation their friendship had been built. At matches to play, his schedule to start at ten o'clock, and though they are lenient to a fault about such matters, it was agreed that Ethel and the two boys should go on to the club, leaving me to garage my car, changing into flannels, and followed them as soon as I could.

I understood that Miss Hunter, my partner, had already left for the ground when I arrived. The doctor's garage was occupied, for young Bennett, whose people were of considerable wealth, had brought a splendid damler with him that entirely filled it, and so I had to find accommodation for my car the rear of a neighbouring inn. It was already intensely hot, and I felt dizzy on reaching my bedroom, which although the blinds had been drawn against the sun was like a baker's oven. Having rested for a short time, I bathed my face and changed, and came downstairs to meet Dr. Wallace at the bottom.

How he came by his nickname of the Tundish, I have never yet been able to fathom, but we introduced ourselves, no one being present to perform the ceremony for us. He was kindness itself in the way he questioned me about my cold, made me go back and pack up a couple of spare shirts, promised to change after each match, and vowed that when we return in the evening,

he would take me in hand and not only have me fit to play next day, but able to enjoy myself as well. Although I have no use for faith healing or any buncom of that description, there's no doubt that the personal equation does come into play where doctoring is concerned. When I sat on my bed holding my head in my hands, I had began to think that Brenda had been right after all, and that I had been a fool for coming, but it needed only a few of the doctor's short decisive sentences when, hey, presto, I was feeling a little better already,

and there was nothing so very much amiss. While I liked him from the outset, even at the beginning of her acquaintance, I think I felt that he was not exactly abnormal, but that he possessed hidden qualities that differentiated him from the rest of us. Of medium height and a thicket build, his black hair showed just a powdering of grey at the temples,

while his pallid regular features seemed a mask through which his deep-set twinkling eyes looked at you derisively, mocking you and defying you to guess what manner of man it really was that lay beneath. He took me with him into the dispensary to get some capsules to take with me to the club. It lies to the left of the passage that runs along the garden side of the doctor's wing. The consulting room is at the end of the passage and both rooms have doors opening on to the little hall or lobby that forms the patient's entrance from Dalehouse Lane. A further door connects the two rooms. Beyond the lobby is a small waiting room. I was leaning against the table

in the middle of the room, while the doctor, humming a gay air, was finding a pill-box to put the capsule in when I heard someone laughing, a woman most certainly, in the waiting room. Not a matter of a comment you may think, but you should have heard the laugh. It was very low, and apparently did not raise the doctor's less sensitive years, but oh, how mean and cruel it was. You know how a certain sound, or the scent of a flower, say, may recall to life some vivid scene of child will stay? When we were children at home, There was an old forbidden book describing the tortures with the Spanish Inquisition, and in it there was one illustration depicting a young girl stretched out on the rack

with a woman standing by her side, laughing at her, which had impressed my young imagination, and had caused me many hours of secret grief. It was an old woodcut, crudely drawn, and I had not thought of it for years, but the woman laughing in the waiting room brought the gruesome little picture back to life. The laugh came twice. then there was a sound of an opening door, then whispering in the lobby. Who was that, Miss Somerson?

Doctor asked. As the door connecting the dispensary with the lobby opened and a pale, nervous-looking girl wearing a white cover-all came in, the dispenser I gathered. The doctor was fiddling about with my pill-box as he spoke, but I was looking at her as she came in through the door,

and I could have sworn that she was startled when she saw that we were there. And if she were startled, I was surprised when she answered the doctor's question. There wasn't anyone, she said. I've been changing the water in the waiting room, and I shut the auto door as I crossed the lobby. Someone had left it ajar. Both a look and the rather over-elaborate nature of her explanation convinced me that she was lying.

Two, I could have sworn to that laugh, to the whispering, and to the fact that someone had been there besides Mrs. Somerson herself. At the time I thought very little about it, however, someone, someone with the most amazingly repulsive laugh, had been to see her, and she didn't want the doctor to know of the visit. That was no business of mine, and I was just making me way toward the lobby. The club lies at the end of Dalhouse Lane, when, who should come out of the consulting room, but ethel? She had been to the club,

and as she was not required to play for her time, she had come home for some rubber tape to wind round the handle of a racket. As soon as her wants had been supplied, we'd return to the ground together. On our way, I felt half inclined to tell her of Miss Somersen's little act of deceit. then how very easy it would have been. Later it was to become more difficult, but that I could not foresee.

No sooner had we reached the club then I heard the names Miss M. Hunter and F. H. Jeffcock being shouted down the conical sound muffle which her secretary is pleased to call a megaphone. We were to play on court number 10 and I found that both my partner and our opponents were waiting for me there. My partner looked a jolly girl, pink and white and well-rounded with the bluest of sparkling eyes and her hair tightly braided in two little

closed-packed coils, pale gold-shells hiding her pretty years, she had somehow missed real beauty. For a proper chocolate box lady, all the ingredients were there. But there was a certain slight heaviness about her features. That just... And Wally just spoiled the picture she made, and inexplicably led me to the conclusion that her mother was fat. Perhaps, however, that was due to the fact

that while the modern girl looks like a boy in a smoker, she seemed unwilling to disguise a pretty femininity. I found her an excellent partner, and we won our first match. Yes, so far as playing went, Miss Hunter and I got on very well together. But she was just a little annoying in the way she constantly reiterated, sorry, partner, whenever she missed a shot, and found it necessary to make some little remark or other whenever the opportunity occurred. Then I was still to learn that her conversational ability was prodigious

if volume alone were taken into account, and that she beat everyone I ever met for platitudes and proverbs. No doubt Ethel's description of her caused me to look out for something of the sort, but I could not help thinking that a rather pronounced physical attractions were deliberately assisted in their deadly work by all those little vials that a girl who sets herself out to captivate knows so readily how to use.

A coquette and a minx? No, certainly. A little immodest then? No, certainly not again. but somehow in a way that I cannot account for our very modesty itself seems suggestive of something that modesty ignores but in spite of the fact that I saw through her and was just a little annoyed with myself for feeling her attraction

nonetheless we got on very amicably and I was quite satisfied to have missed the beautiful Miss Palfrey man who had yet to arrive from London she arrived at lunchtime Ethel and Ralph going to meet her while Margaret and Kenneth and I reserved a table in the refreshment tent and started her meal. Ethel had not exaggerated a beauty.

Tall and slim, her coppery brown hair, which later was to learn was of the kinky variety, almost concealed by little hair that matched it exactly, it was a light in her amber eyes and a complexion that added more than anything else to her gentle loveliness, more than one head turned in her direction. The tent was almost unbearable,

but we were a gay little party. The liquid butter, the peculiar physiognomy of one of the waitresses, the hat of one of the competitors and such-like trivialities were each in turn the excuse were jest and laughter. The Tundas joined us in the middle of one of a bursts of merriment and had made the remark that it was obviously timed that a steadying element was added to the party

before we knew that he was there. I happened to be looking at Stella when he first began to speak in his distinctive tone of voice, and to my surprise I saw her suddenly and unmistakably turned pale and the glass she was lifting to her lips slip from her fingers to the ground. She stooped to pick it up and recover her composure so quickly that I imagine none of the others noticed it. They were introduced, and I half-fancy that she hesitated for the fraction of a second before holding out her hand, but I could see no disturbance on the doctor's placid face, and the greeting he gave her was swavity itself.

I did notice, however, that although I made room for him between Stella and myself, he squeezed himself in between Margaret and Kenneth, where the arrangement of the table dishes made it a much less convenient position. Ralph was obviously impressed with Stella, and I was not a little amused to see how readily and openly showed it. I gathered that Margaret's thoughts were running in the same direction, for I saw a glance at Stella and a little smile, a mixture of amusement and appreciation flicker across a rather full, wide mouth. It was unkind of me, perhaps, but I could not help imagining that there was a self-satisfaction in a smile as well, and that it might be the result of some such thought as, yes, very beautiful indeed. There's at least 15 between us.

But where men are concerned, cigarettes were alight, and we were on the point of leaving the table when Ethel, with the characteristic sadness, decided she would like another eyes. No, please don't. I think not. I think not.

I'm sure it'd be better without it, the Tunis warned her. Ethel going to have another ice, she laughed emphatically. I imagine mimicking some child would say, Ethel's doctor says she mustn't. Kenneth sprang to his feet, saying, Why, of course, she can.

It's just the weather for Isis. And he went over to the buffet and fetched her the pinkest and largest he can procure. She waited through it, quizzing the tundish with every spoonful she ate, and Kenneth seemed aggressively and absurdly pleased that he had persuaded her to ignore the doctor's wishes. But in some subtle way, the tundish, sitting with impassive face and twinkling eyes, seemed to turn his rebuff into a moral victory, and while he appeared satisfied and pleasant, they had the air of being a little ashamed of what they had done. Why this little incident should have stuck in my memory, I can't quite explain.

Except perhaps that it was a foreigner of so many similar little incidents between Kenneth and the doctor, but without opening his mouth, he had made them both look like naughty children disobeying the nurse, and I think that it was about from this time that I began to suspect that somehow, somewhere, there was something amiss with a party. Although we still continue to laugh and be jolly, I could not help feeling sensible that the pace was being forced, and that it was only by effort the ball was kept rolling. I wondered whether it was due to the arrival of the Tandish, and if so, why. Or whether it was due to the fact that my cold was making me feel depressed,

and that while I was approaching the 40s, the rest, with the exception of the Tandish himself, were all young and in the early 20s. The end of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of the Dale House Murder by Francis Everton. This Libby-Wox recording is in the public domain. read by Yoganand The Dale House Murder Chapter 2

The Chinese Poison That evening the four younger members of a party went to a scratch, brahmophone dance and the Tandish and I were left to our own devices He had tried to persuade them not to go on account of the heat and had been particularly emphatic so far as Margaret was concerned Stella did look a little fagged and pale But my partner seemed in the best of spirits

And I could not understand why he should think that she is especially required rest. Supper was late, as they dressed before they had it, but they did get away at length, and we went into the dispensary to get some medicine for my cold. While he was measuring it out, I wandered aimlessly round the room, glancing at the bottles on the shelves.

The labels were written in so neat a hand that I asked him who had done them. Oh, that's one of Miss Somersen's jobs, he explained. And as Miss Somersen deal with the high finance in addition to the other duties, I asked standing in front of what looked like a heavy safe. That's the poison cabot, and taking a small key from his waistcoat pocket, he opened the door. I was astonished at the number of bottles it contained. On the lower shelves, where the large ones, which I assumed, held the poisons more commonly used, but the top shelf was packed with diminutive bottles of uniform shape and size.

There was one, however, that differed from the rest, and that was the most peculiar little bottle I've ever set my eyes on. It was like a miniature flagon of burgundy in shape, but it had an exceptionally long and slender neck that was fitted with a large glass-topper of a flat, irregular design giving it the appearance of some delicate imitation toadstool, rearing its head above its little neighbours. What an extraordinary number of poisons, I exclaimed.

Surely all these are not the normal requirements of a country doctor's practice? And I took up the funny flagon as I spoke to examine it no closely. Be careful, put it back, put it down, man! He almost shouted at me, and banging the door shut, as soon as he had seen me restore the weird little bottle safely to its old position, he dragged me to the sink and made me rinse my hands in some strong disinfectant. I should have been amused, had he not been so obviously alarmed, and I protested that I might have been handling a bomb that had the fuse alight

by all the fuss he made about it. A bomb is a plaything for a baby in a pram, compared with that dear little bottle, he laughed, and went on to explain that Hansen was by way of being a bit of a specialist in the study of poisons, and that the little flagon I had handled so carelessly contained a very deadly and almost unknown poison that he, the tundish, had been fortunate in securing for his collection from central China. The tiny bottle apparently contained enough to finish off the whole of Merchester, and as yet they are not succeeded in finding any antidote to its action.

A colourless fluid with a distinctive taste and smell it was immediately narcotic, but it engendered a sleep from which no one ever woke. The body of the victim looked exactly as though it had passed out of a peaceful slumber into death, exit for the eyes, and they, in addition to the usual contraction of the pupils due to a narcotic, were horribly suffused with blood. It seems that had any of the poison got on to my fingers from the side of the bottle, and had I then allowed them to touch my lips, so deadly was his stuff that he might have been unable to save my life. All this he told me as I disinfected my hands at the sink, and by the time he had finished,

I began to think that I had had a lucky escape, and I was no longer interested. inclined to laugh at his considerate alarm. My hands properly rinsed and dried. We went back into the drawing room to finish the pipes before going to bed. The Tandish told some interesting tales about his life in China, where he had gone out to live with an uncle when he was 24, and had only returned a few years ago. Then a conversation turned to tennis and the tournament,

and I was telling him of the interest Miss Palfreyman had aroused as she joined us in the tent at lunchtime when he interrupted me. You know, it's a most extraordinary coincidence. He began with something akin to excitement in his usual level voice, and then, instead of telling me what the curious coincidence was, his statement dwindled into indecision, and he sat thoughtfully watching the blue smoke spirals that curled to the ceiling from his pipe. Well, I asked after a pause, turning to look at him in surprise.

But there he sat staring vacantly at nothing. His face and expressionless mask, his eyes introspective and dead. They regained their normal twink. as I watched and he continued, Oh, nothing really, nothing at all. Well, he, something, that something you said reminded me off. Now, I'm sure it's time that you went off to bed. We said good night at the bottom of the stairs,

and with my foot on the bottom step, I asked him what on earth had made him say that Miss Hunter in particular looked as though she needed rest. I cannot think what made me ask the question, and it had no sooner crossed my lips that I realized how indiscreet it was. He looked at me quizzically. Should a doctor tell, eh? I apologize, profusely.

Well, there's no harm done. And I don't mind telling you. No, after all, I think that perhaps I had better not. I thought, how annoying his little habit of starting out on some interesting confidential statement, and then breaking off in the middle of it was, but obviously could not press him. And I said, good night again, and went upstairs to bed. To bed, but not to sleep. for interminable arts

I checked the quarters chimed by the great cathedral clock And when sleep did come It was thin and dream-streaked Once more I was in the dispensary Standing in front with the poison cupboard With the murderous little bottle of poison in my hands The tundish Not a placid kindly man to whom I had said good-night

But a man with the face of a devil enraged Came rushing at me round the table in the middle of the room Put it down, you're damned fool He yelled and seizing me by my arm he twisted it back until my hand was thrust inside the safe. Then, in a flash, his anger was gone, the tundish was masked and placid again, and looking at me with a pleasant, quiet smile,

he said in the friendliest and silkiest of voices, "'poisoned I fancy, my dear Jeffcock, "'better have it off,' and he closed the heavy door with the crash, severing my hand above the wrist. I heard a tinkle of broken glass as the baby flagon dropped among its deadly little comrades, and then a plop as my own severed hand reached the bottom of the side,

and I awoke with a start to hear a door really banging in the hole below. Then giggles, and Stella's carrying high-pitched voice, Oh, for heaven's sake, don't make me laugh anymore, my sights are sore and aching as it is. Next, a noisy laugh from Ralph and Kenneth whispering, he meant it for a whisper, and urging him not to wake up Jeff Cork and the Tundish. The dancers were back home and coming upstairs to bed.

They laughed and played a boat on the landing and made as much noise again in urging one another to stop. I thought how selfish and inconsiderate they were. Then I heard Stella and Ralph go up to the landing above, and their doors spank shut. It was nearly three o'clock when at last I fell into a quiet and untroubled sleep. I woke surprisingly refreshed, and got downstairs to find the tundish seated and lonely stayed at the head of the breakfast table.

He greeted me with his friendly smile, asking whether I had been able to sleep through the dancing parties, united efforts to keep one another quiet. He told me that the thermometer had already beaten the record of yesterday at the same time, and that we were in for a frizzly time at the club. Stella came in just as we were finishing her last cups of coffee, and I noticed at once how wretchedly tired and pale she looked. The doctor remarked on it, too, and she told us that she had hardly slept,

and had wakened almost too wary to dress. On learning that she had been sleeping badly for some nights, he promised to put up a mild narcotic for her to take that night. He was kindness and tagged itself in that he made no reference to the dance and his own neglected advice, but Stella almost stopped him off for his trouble and hardly bothering to thank him, turned to me with some casual remark or other. Ethel, with Kenneth and Ralph, came in as the doctor was talking to Stella, and Margaret, pink and white and full-blown, Margaret smiling to herself,

followed them a moment later. I was looking at her as she came in to her. through the door, and whether I unconsciously stared a little, I don't know, but the pleasant smile vanished to be replaced when unpleasant from. The Tundish was right. We had a very warm time at the club that day, but in spite of my cold, I enjoyed the tennis, and in spite of her conversation, I enjoyed my partner. She and I had lunched alone together, and Sella was one of the many subjects we discussed. Do you think that she's very bewitching, she asked. She's certainly more than ordinarily pretty, I replied.

but as to being bewitching, that's another matter. Oh, don't make any mistake of that sort. 99 times out of a hundred's one and the same thing. A pretty face and a good figure seemed to meet the case with most men. I did not know we were discussing a case at all, I laughed. But she closed the conversation by adding, Fine feathers make fine birds. And she said it very impressively, though for the life of me I could not see the connection.

I played a number of matches during the day, and I did fairly well, but tennis has nothing to do with this story, and there's only one little incident that I need describe. It was just after tea, and I was in the umpire's chair. I had to keep my attention closely on the game. Both of the men having a service that was difficult to follow, but as I sat perched in my lofty seat, I noticed Ethel and the Tundish conversing very earnestly together. A few minutes later I heard Ethel say, well, it's spoiling everything, and I certainly wouldn't have offered to put her up for the tournament if you hadn't been so insistent. they were the full width of the court and then another space away but the whispered words came to my sensitive years with every inflection of ethel's voice distinct and clear i could hear the annoyance in it as though it were to me she had whispered and not to the doctor away across the court i wondered to which of the two girls she referred my partner or stella why it whatever it was was spoiling everything and why the tundish should have to suggest that either of them should be invited to dale house the more i thought of it the less

understood it, but Ethel was quite right about a party. There was something the matter with it. Something that I couldn't quite put my finger on was just spoil. Wake up, Empire, I did with a jerk, to find that they had played two unregistered points while my thoughts had wandered. It was a long three-sit match, and when I took the result into the referee's tent, although it was getting late, he put me to play, and it was a last of a party to leave the club. By the time I reached tailhouse, the others had nearly finished supper. There was a sudden lull in the conversation as I came into the room and I felt certain that I had been the subject of their talk. I quickly gathered from their subsequent remarks that Ethel had felt that one of the other two men should have waited for me at the ground.

It was quite absurd, of course, but a quick little temper was easily roused, especially so if she imagined that one of her friends had been slighted, and apparently she had not hesitated to lay down the law on the matter. I did my best to smooth things over, but if at lunchtime on the previous day I had felt the gaiety of her party was false and rank false, I had no doubt at all on this occasion that the general feeling of irritation was genuine enough. The very flies seemed to have caught the disease and to be more persistent than usual in their attempts to annoy. The Tundish was the only one of us to make the least attempt of gentle politeness, and he, I believe, was secretly amused at a united childish ill-humour. Stella was positively rude when he reminded her of the medicine that he had sent up to her room.

First she refused to take it at all. then she would take it at once and there was another little scene before she could be persevered to obey the doctor's wishes and wait for an hour after a meal. The two boys had left the room while we were pacifying Stella but when Ethel suggested that the four of us should have

a quiet game of bridge while the Tundish did some work in the dispensary and she and Margaret descended to the basement to tackle some ironing the boys were nowhere to be found. Ethel seemed absurdly put out over so trivial a matter. She went into the dispensary with the Tundish

and I overheard her say, it's abominably rude of Kenneth to leave Francis alone with nothing to do, and I shall tell him so when he gets back. And I must admit that I was childishly gratified that she should care enough about my comfort to risk having words with Kenneth. Truly, along with the rest,

I was feeling the heat. My ears must have been in a hypersensitive condition, for I had heard ethel in the dispensary quite plainly, and a little time later, as I stood at the telephone in the hall, trying to get a connection through to Brenda, I heard the Tundish talking to Stella in the drawing room, though the door was half closed. It was a moment before I realized that I was listening to a confidential conversation, and then it was too late.

It was a doctor speaking in his most persuasive voice. Look, Stella, I'm most truly sorry about it, but until I saw you at the club, I really had no idea that the Stella Pall Freeman Ethel spoke of was the dumps I used to know in Shanghai. Then I got my connection, and heard no more for a short time, but Brenda was out and my conversation with the maid was brief and they were still talking together when I put the receiver up. It was Stella speaking this time and she was not so clear.

Her voice came and went in broken snatches as though someone were opening the door and closing it again. A few words clear and distinct and then a blank. It's as well I came. The Hanson certainly ought to be told. Your abominable share. Father's death. I shall tell them.

Evidently it was the end of the conversation for as I was hurrying away from my embarrassing position, the Tundish came out of the drawing room and met me in the hall on his way back to the dispensary. He smiled at me pleasantly, appearing quite unnoted by the words I had overheard, and I thought to myself that whatever else he may have learned by his long residence among the Chinese,

he had certainly acquired their probable plant impassivity. I wandered into the garden where long evening shadows were creeping across the lawn and sat down in one of the wicker chairs that stood beneath the cedar, my thoughts turning naturally to what I had over. Now I began to understand better why Stella had dropped a glass. The little scene in that luncheon tent came back to me. Stella's momentary hesitation when the doctor held out his hand. The doctor swore and unperturbed, taking the less convenient seat.

Then I remembered what I had overheard between Ethel and the Tundish, as I sat in the umpire's chair, and Andy were to connect one conversation with the other. Had Ethel referred to Stella, when she said that she would not have asked her, unless he had persuaded to do it. But they had met only the week before it camphored. Or was it possible that he had seen Stella's name in the paper and had written asking Ethel to invite her to Dale House? In that case, Ethel probably knew something about the mystery.

If mystery there was, and the doctor had lied when he spoke to Stella in the drawing room. And if the reference had not been to Stella, that it must have been to Margaret, my partner. And that was equally inexplicable. For what possible reason could Ethel have for saying, that Margaret was spoiling everything? True, there was her rather inane conversation, but they were all friends, and Ethel must have known all about

that. No, I decided that she must have meant Stella, and no sooner had I come to the decision, then I felt equally convinced that the doctor did not look like a liar. Miss Somerson had lied in the dispensary, the place seemed full of lice and ill-temper. As I

said, pondering under the cedar, with its far-spreading bows, black against the sky, a couple of bats went fluttering in the fading light, and somehow their floppy uncertain flights seemed symbolic of deceit and lying too. The half-hour after nine came floating across a still calm air from the clock in the cathedral tower, looming big and white over the black of the shadowed garden wall. It looked ghostly, I thought, and it seemed less real than the bats and the shadows' temples. I rose and went back to the house full of a vague uneasiness and wishing that I was

home. Stella was still tucked up on the setty, immersed in a book, and obviously deciding neither company nor conversation. So I picked up the daily paper. I could not have been seated for more than five minutes when the bell at the consulting room entrance began to peed, and a few moments later ethyl appeared at the drawing room, though, asking me if I would go to the doctor in the dispensary. That had been a motor accident, and he required my help. I found a small boy of about eight stretched out on the couch. He had been badly cut by the broken glass and his poor little face, made a pitiful sight as the tears trickled down through the blood. It fell to Ethel's law to look after the parents

who were distracted to incapacity and to mind to hurl the child while the doctor swabbed and stretched and bandaged. I was astounded at the way he handled the small boy. His stepfingers moved at such lightning speed that the bandages seemed to fly into place of their own volition and all the time he worked he was chatting kindly to the boy and giving me instructions. How can I describe it?

Unadulterated genius. Magical. A superman at work on work he loved. Anyhow, incredible as it may sound, the job was completed, and he was lifting the patient into the taxi that Ethel had sent for as the cathedral clock chimed ten. Have I described the tundish as impassive and imperturbable man with a face like a mask that nothing could know?

That was not the man who had bent tenderly over the morsel of damaged humanity that I had held in my arms. No nurse could have been more gentle, no mother more anxiously loving. Night and day, ice and fire, could not have differed more. I was alone with Ethel for a moment while the doctor was talking at the side of the taxi, and she asked me, with an amused little flicker of a smile,

whether I had been impressed. Why, the man must be marvel, I replied. Please don't spoil it by telling me that all GPs can manage such things with similar proficiency. My dear old thing, she laughed. Did Daddy never tell you about a tundish? He's supposed to be one of the best surgeons in the country, and with children he's almost uncanny.

When he left Shanghai, they broke the yellow little hearts and dozens. Now he's a resident doctor at a large children's home in London. Melaevokos is so passionately fond of them and has money enough to do as he likes. But here he comes, and he wouldn't thank me or anyone else for singing his praises. Ethel returned to Margaret and the ironing, and the doctor and I went back to the drawing room where Stella was still reclining on the sette. He told her that she could take a draft any time she liked. said good-night to his birth, and went upstairs to bed.

Stella answered all my attempts at a conversation with a disheartening a yes or no, and after pottering about for a time, I left her two, intending to follow the doctor's example. I met the boys in the hall, however, and we all three proceeded to the basement to find out what progress the lawn-ristles were making. The hot weather had played havoc with the things, and they had kindly undertaken them. We were vastly amused at the ristles of their labours, a few passive socks, and a badly scotch shirt of my own, apparently representing the work of something over an hour.

They pleaded the interruption of the accident, a defective electrocine, the strained condition of the socks which they had to re-wash, and lastly that they had dealt with several garments of the feminine gender, which their maidenly modesty did not allow them neither to mention or produce. Ethel retaliated by asking for details of Kennet's and Ralph's movements since suppertime, and refused to be satisfied with the reply that they had been for a stroll to get cool. She asked them to state specifically where they had been, and they looked, I thought,

not a little confused. Kenneth definitely reddened, and she was unkind enough to call her general attention to the fact, and to say that his efforts to get cool must have sent a rush of blood to the head. We stood chafing one another pleasantly in this way for some little time, and I dare say it was after half-past ten when I left them at it and went to bed. I switched on the landing light from the bottom of the stairs, and when I got to the top, I found that the Tundish had written out a notice, and had stuck it up above the landing switch

so that we should all see it on our way to bed. It read, Please let a fellow get some sleep tonight and don't wake him up by telling one another to be quiet. Signed the Tundish. I took it down and going into my room, I found that the ink in my fountain pen was identical in colour as I half expected it to be,

having filled it only the previous day from the ink well in the consulting room, and that by writing with the back of the neb, I could imitate the thin strokes with which the doctor had written. I quickly added the words, Dark deeds are done at night, and stuck it up again in its old position. I made what I thought a very creditable copy of the doctor's print, having imitated to a nicety his flat-topped ace and sloping teeth.

My forgery completed, I got into bed. The others came up before I got to sleep, and I heard them discussing it in whispers, and then a little later calling out to one another to just come and look here with a great deal of laughing and running about from room to room. Next, I heard Kenneth say, Shall we go on pull him out of bed?

An Ethel replied that she believed it was I and not the Tandish at all. This was followed by a declaration that, where it was, they would deal with him tomorrow, and the household gradually settled down into silence and sleep. Next morning, Wednesday, I was up at times and out in the garden before breakfast. The Tandish joined me there. We were just going in, in answer to the gong, when he said, By the way, your addition to my little effort of last night was remarkably apt,

for I played old Harry with all the bedrooms before I went to bed. He went on to tell me that he had made a realistic skeleton with the aid of a bag of golf clubs in Kennet's bed, sticking the clubs down the legs and arms of his pyjamas and utilizing a pair of shoe trees for the years. Ethel's bed he had peppered with tennis and golf balls carefully placed beneath the under-blanket and Margaret's and Ralph's had also received treatment.

In spite of the merry twinkle in his eyes, such a practical joke seemed to be entirely out of keeping with his character. And though I am sure I gave no visible signs of my surprise, he might almost have read my thoughts, for he said at once, yes, I surprised myself too, but I fancy that I must have been a trifle fay last night. I shall have to look out tonight, though, for they are sure to attempt revenge. I told him of the whispered conversation I had overheard on the landing, and he suggested that, as I might be going home before night, we should attempt to make them believe that I had really been the culprit. We both of us agreed that two nice adherence to the truth

was not essential in the matter of a practical joke. No, we will both of us lie like troopers, he said, as we took our seats at the table, and whether I succeeded or not, he certainly kept his promise to the full. We arranged that we would both make out that we knew nothing about either the notice or the rated bits, but that my denials should be less assertive than his, so that their suspicions would gradually turn my direction. We had great difficulty, however,

at least I had, not give ourselves away by laughing when the others came into the room. They came in procession, marching solemnly round the table, Kenneth chanting, Always, always, a trial will be held. Ethel led the van, bearing the notice on a large tray, held out at arm's length. Then came Ralph carrying Kenneth's pajamas and the golf-bag. and clubs together with a collection of tennis and golf balls and other evidence.

Kenneth followed arrayed in an old cap and gown of Hansons and Margaret brought up the rear as train-barrow to Kenneth. They drew up in a row in front of us and said in unison, there had evidently been in rehearsal. There sits the culprit. But we noticed with secret satisfaction that while Margaret and Kenneth pointed at the tundish, Ethel and Ralph were pointing at me. It seems that up to this, point in telling my story, I must be constantly detailing trivial matters which can have no possible interest taken by themselves, and yet which have a real bearing on the more important later events. Kenneth's inquiry into the doings of the previous night was amusing at the time,

and I don't mean it kindly, but I'm sure he enjoyed showing Ethel how acute an inquiry he could be, but it is not a matter of sufficient apparent importance to set out at any length. And yet, I think we were all of us to go over every word that was spoken at the book, request table, time and again in our minds afterward, wondering what possible bearing they could have on the terrible tragedy that was so soon to befall us. I was sitting at right angles to the Tundish, who was at one end of the table, and Kenneth handed him the notice and took his seat at the other side of the table opposite to me, saying, well, a confession won't earn a free pardon, but it may certainly incline us to temperate justice with mercy. The Tundish turned the paper

round and round, pretending to examine it with surprise and care. "'And what may this be?' he said at last. "'I see that it has been written in my name. "'But apart from that it seems to be reasonable enough, "'and it expresses what I actually felt very aptly indeed. "'You didn't write it then, and stick it up on the landing?' "'My dear boy, I'm really far too old for that sort of childishness. "'Besides, I ask you, if I had been the author,

"'should I have bothered to print my name at the bottom "'instead of signing it in the ordinary way?' "'No, I think we shall find that the guilty party is seated immediately to my left, and if you haven't foolishly smudged it all over, we shall probably find his fingerprints. He was sprinkling the notice with salt and blowing it off again into Kenneth's bacon as he spoke, while I protested loudly that I could not understand what they were all of them talking about. Am I doing Kenneth an injustice, I wonder, and do I exaggerate his ill-temper and puerile behaviour? Then I had not realised how jealous he was of the doctor,

and could make no elevences for it, but oh, how much. How do you? easily he rose and how absurdly he showed his dislike. He resented the my dear boy, and he did not like the soul being blown into his bacon, but he endeavoured to imitate the doctor's bantering tones. My dear Tundish, he said, I happen to know that rough paper of that description does not show fingerprints. It was a poor imitation. As well might a cow pretend to be a swan, and even then he could not maintain the role he tried to play, adding with some heat, you may be very good surgeon, but you are a very good liar, too. Do you mean to tell me that you didn't upset all the bets last night?

The Tundish never turned a hair as he replied. I never did anything of the sort. Was your bed upset, Jeffcock? He could certainly lie magnificently, and he looked at the essence of simple, injured innocence. Of course his bed wasn't touched, Ethel Chibton endeavouring to save Kenneth from making a complete fool of himself. For the simple reason that he upset the rest, I, in turn, denied her accusations and that I had any knowledge of the affair.

I pointed out that the inquiry was entirely irregular inasmuch as Kenneth himself, who was acting as a judge, and the others, who presumably represented the jury, were all claimants in the action as well, which was a manifestly absurd position. My chief concern, I went on to add, was an account of ethel, as it went to my heart to think that she was the afferanced bride of a young man who had so little knowledge of the world that he could be duped by the statements of such an obvious liar as a tundish, but I am such a duffer at acting that quite unconsciously my denials only emphasized my guilt, and I did more to confuse them than the doctor himself.

Kenneth, who had regained some of his usual equanimity, next produced paper and pencils, and asked us both repeat the notice from memory, but this gave no very definite ristles. I tried to visualize the doctor's rather peculiar printing. I remember his sloping D's and flat-topped A's and made me attempts as much like the original as I could, but I went badly astray over some of the other letters. The Tundish, on the other hand, did his best to repress his normal style, but just failed to succeed, with the result that both a duplicates sell certain resemblances to the one that had been placed over the switch, and neither was quite like it.

It was the Tundish, who pointed out that any of the party in addition to arsullsals might equally have been responsible, that either Ethel or Margaret might quite easily have slipped upstairs from the basement during the evening and that, as a matter of fact, their poor performance as long-wresses was probably due to their absence and not to the reasons they had alleged, that Miss Paul Freeman had been left all alone while we had been engaged with the injured child, that Kenneth and Ralph had pretended to spend a whole evening strolling about to get cool, but that they obviously had some hidden secret and were unwilling to give any details of their movements, and finally that whichever of them had done it, he or she would certainly have upset his or our own bed as a blind for the rest of us, and that the fact that neither is bed nor mine had been touched was a most important piece of evidence in our favour.

In the end, after much argument carried on pleasantly by all of us, with the exception of Kenneth, who seemed incapable of differentiating between an argument and a dispute, they had to admit that each one of us had at the opportunity of spending at least a quarter of an hour upstairs, without being missed by the rest, and though suspicion remained divided, we had liked so well, that they were not only in doubt as to which of us was guilty, but they really began to wonder whether we were either of us responsible at all. When we had concluded that no conclusion could be reached,

Ethel got up from the table saying that she would run upstairs and find out whether Stella was getting up, or whether she might not like a break was sent up to her room. She was back in a couple of minutes, and although I was seated with my back to the door, I could tell at once by the way she almost tumble, into the room that there was something serious, Emma. She hardly had breath enough to speak, but at last she managed to get out. Tundish, I'm frightened. Do come and look at Stella. Oh,

I'm so afraid. The Tundish jumped to his feet, saying, what on earth is the matter? And hurried after her out of the room, leaving us to wonder what could have caused her extreme agitation. He returned in less than five minutes and stood in the doorway looking at us as we sat round the table. I've said, looking at us, but I very much doubt if he saw us at all, for he stood there in the doorway like a man in a trance, muttering away to himself again and again. I can't have made a mistake.

No, I simply can't have made a mistake. I can see the scene again, all as clearly as this paper I am writing on. Ralph, who was seated next to me with his back to the door, looking over his shoulder, held his cup of coffee in mid-air. Kenneth, on the point of lifting a piece of bacon on his fork, held it poised. Margaret, sitting opposite, looked pale and scared,

and we were all looking first at the doctor, and then at one another, while he stood muttering in the doorway and gazing into space. It was almost as though some magician had suddenly thrown an evil spell, which we none of us could break. He seemed to come back to life quite suddenly, and to realize the amazement with which we were watching him, then, after a moment's hesitation, he said,

Stella is dead. And I have every reason to believe, that she has been poisoned. Please, all of you stay here for a few minutes until I come back. There was one wild piercing shriek and Margaret burst into half-historical sobs. It was horrible.

First the silence, while we waited, amazed for the doctor to speak, then the appalling words he spoke in his quiet, level voice, and then the sudden piercing shriek that filled the sunlit room. The end of chapter two. Chapter 3 of the Dale House Murder by Francis Everton. This Liberty Box recording is in the public domain, read by

Yoganan. The Dale House Murder, Chapter 3. Stella murdered. Stella dead. Stellar poisoned. I think that, apart from Margaret, who sat silent after her one piercing cry of alarm, we none of us quite realize the horror of the situation, and I'm sure that we none of us understood the doctor's muttered references to a mistake or gave any thought to the manner of a death. Nothing in the scene before a suggested tragedy. The sun shone in at the three long windows which were opened wide and one of the two family cats sat leisurely washing her face on the sill, the drowsy hum of the bees at work in the garden border below,

making a fitting accompaniment of a deliberate graceful moment. The breakfast table was in the homely disorder of a completed meal, and we sat round it in flannels prepared for tennis. Kenneth was still arrayed in cap and gown. The golf clubs, the shoe trees, and the tennis and golf balls collected from Ethel's bed, lay heaped together in one of the two armchairs. None of these things suggested tragedy and death,

but poor beautiful Stella lay dead upstairs. Only yesterday I had watched her playing vigorous tennis, and one little picture stood out clearly in my mind. She had stooped low to ground to reach the ball, a bare arm sweeping gracefully at its fullest stretch, a lovely pose, as lightly poised she held a balance with one white clad

shapely leg reaching out behind tip of torn fingertips of a free hand just touching the ground her coppery hair showing little pools of sun-kiss ruddy gold her amber eyes alight with pure enjoyment as she gave a little involuntary cry of pleasure when the ball, curving low, just skimmed the net

all made a vivid picture of joyous slim agility and that was only a few hours ago but now while we had been fooling round the breakfast table, she laid stiff and cold and dead. Kenneth took off his cap and gone, but for once Ralph was the first to speak.

Look here, we can't just sit round the table gaping. What did the tundish mean by a mistake? Where is he? And where on earth is ethel? I'm going out to find someone. I tried to persuade him to wait a few minutes as the doctor had so particularly asked us to stay until he came back and we sat silent again.

Then Ralph wondered, why on earth didn't he want us to leave the room? And Kenneth made for the door saying that he for one wasn't going to be told what he could and he couldn't do at a time like this. Fortunately, Ethel came back before he reached it and added a request to mine. She told us that the doctor was in the dispensary

examining the bottles from which she had made up Stella's sleeping craft and that he would be with us in less than five minutes. She went over to Kenneth and put one hand on his shoulder as she spoke saying, oh, it's all too dreadful. We must try to help the Tundish all we can. It's simply terrible for him. Do you mean that he has made a mistake then? Kenneth replied, and I was surprised to hear how hard and harsh his voice was.

No hint of sympathy softened the bluntness of his question, and Ethel's hand fell slowly from his shoulder. The door opened, and the Tundish came in. He stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at Kenneth, with as sad a smile as ever I wished to say. see. No, he said, I don't think I've made any mistake, but I have very serious news for you. Will you please sit down? He took the chair at the end of the breakfast table again, as he spoke, motioning to Ethel to come and sit beside him. His arm was resting on the table, and I saw her

put her hand against it with a timid little touch of sympathy which he acknowledged with a smile of thanks. Kenneth saw it too and reddened and said in an unnaturally formal voice, now doctor we are anxious to hear what you have to tell us I could have kicked him for the way he said it and I think that that was the first time that it crossed my mind that he might be jealous of the tundish The doctor took no notice of his remark but proceeded immediately to tell us in a calm friendly voice

that as we already knew he had made up an ordinary sleeping braff for Stella the night before the medicine had been taken up to a bedroom and placed on a little table by a bed by the maid Annie just before supper It had consisted of a mild narcotic taken from one of the bottles that stood on the lower shelf of the poison cabot, to which he had added one or two other invariants which it was not necessary for him to specify as they were entirely harmless in their action. Every prescription, he explained, was registered in a special book kept for the purpose in the dispensary as soon as it was made up,

and this he had done in the usual way. The draft was a mild one, and there was no possibility that, by itself, could have caused death, or have had any harmful action. He had just roughly checked over the contents of each of the bottles he had used and each of them contained exactly what they were alleged to contain. He told us how the poison cabot, in addition to the stock poisons that were placed on the lower shelf, held a number of rare and some of them very dangerous poisons collected by Dr. Hansen over a long period in connection with his research work on a shelf at the top.

These were seldom touched and it had not been necessary for him to handle them in making up the sleeping draft for Stella. As far as he could tell, they had not been disturbed. Here, he turned to me, saying, but you may be able to help us there, Jeffcock? For you saw them with me, only the night before last.

You had better come along and tell me, if, as far as he can remember, they were still placed as they were then. We trooped into the dispensary, and he opened the heavy steel door of the cupboard with the little key which he took from his waistcoat pocket. The bottles apparently were in the exact positions in which I had seen them only two nights before, the tiny Chinese flagon lifting its long slender neck with its queer flat-stopper above the diminutive bottles that surrounded it.

As far as I could recollect, it was in the identical place in which I had placed it where the Tundish had so urgently begged me to put it down, but as I explained, any of the other bottles might have been changed or moved about, for they were all identical in shape and size, and I had not taken any of the same. any note of the names and formulae on the neatly written labels. As far as you can see then, the Chinese flag and has not been moved, the Tandish asked. Do you think that you would be prepared to swear to that? I hesitated before I replied. No, I don't think I could swear to it, but I could state a note that if it has been, it has been put back again in very nearly the exact position in which I saw it last.

I pointed out, however, that unless some of the other bottles were moved as well, it would be practically impossible to have put it down anywhere else, and I finished up by asking him if the Chinese flagon were particularly important. Yes, he said, it is. I'm convinced that someone or other has added some of the contents of that little bottle to the draft which I made up for Stella, and that that is the cause of a death. He spoke in his quiet, precise voice, as though he had been making some trivial statement in general conversation,

but the rest of us were too astonished to say anything at all. come time presses he added after a pause let us go back to the dining room as soon as we were seated again in our old positions he repeated to the rest of what he had told me with regard to the history of the weird little chinese bottle and the action of its deadly contents he explained to us how in china he had seen a man who had been poisoned by it that stella's appearance was exactly similar and that he knew of no other poison which produced even approximately similar symptoms he feared although he yet of course only had time for a brief examination, that there was little, if any, likelihood of his opinion being incorrect. We sat, nerved and taught, as one sits looking for the lightning flashes in a violent storm, and it was Margaret who first broke the silence. I noticed that she was holding to the table edge,

and her fingertips were white with the pressure of her grip. Did Stella know of the Chinese flagon? she asked. No, not to my knowledge, he replied. Besides which, it is difficult to see how she can, could have caught at it had she wished to do so. There are only the two keys to the cupboard. Mine and Miss Somersons. Mine, I can answer for. And Miss Somerson left the dispensary yesterday after at three o'clock in order to go over to Millingham to see some friends of hers. I gave a special leave for the purpose, and she's not to return until midday today. She always carries the key on

a chain attached to her waist, and is a model of care in such matters. Then you really do suspect foul play? I asked. But who could have done it? And what motive could they have had? Yes, I suspect foul play. Murder in short, to use a horrid word, but I'm not able to answer the rest of a question. The position, as I see, is this. Besides the six of us sitting here at this table, there were only two mates in the house last night after the medicine was taken upstairs, making eight and all. Of the eight, obviously suspicion falls most readily on me, as I made the medicine up, but I can assure you most positively that no mistake was made with the prescription. So far as I know, Annie, who carried it upstairs, does not even know of the existence of the

little flagon, and I think that we can probably rule her out of it. Of the rest of you, suspicion points most readily to you, Jeffcock, for I told you all about the poison only the night before, and to you, Ethel, who already knew about it from your father. He put his hand over hers and smiled at her as he spoke, but Kenneth sprang up at once, crying out angrily, how dare you make such a suggestion about Miss Hanson? Don't be a fool, Kenneth, she replied tersely.

And I was ethel to the tundish when you were a little boy at school. The doctor stood up all pleasant serenity. I do think I was very careful to say that the suspicion pointed most readily to me, but we are delaying too long, and there are things that must be done. The police must be informed. They will have to investigate the matter.

And so this is perhaps the last opportunity we shall have of talking quietly together. Stella has been killed unmercifully and in cold blood. It seems impossible to believe, but terrible if it is true, that the murderer is probably here with us in this room now, possibly a wondering, even as I am talking to you, whether I am the murderer, and whether I could have nerve enough to face you all like this. Well, I want to beg and pray of you that you will put all such thoughts on one side,

for if we once allow our imagination to run right and let our suspicions, get the better of her friendships and beliefs. These next few days may grow memories that we shall all look back on with nothing but shame and regret. I do solemnly swear to you that I did not do this terrible thing. If I am arrested on suspicion, remember that suspicion may still fall on you.

We shall all be questioned again and again with the police. If any information should come to light to ease my own position, then it may equally throw suspicion on one of the rest of you. I don't for one moment suggest that we should do anything to hinder the investigations. But apart from that, for God's sake, let us keep a hedge and admit no one guilty until his or her guilt has been actually proved. I think that we were all impressed by the earnest way in which he spoke, and Ethel went up to him and kissed him there in front of us all. Of course. Of course you didn't do it, Tundr, she said. And no one who knows you could think so

for a moment. Kenneth said, oh yes, that's all very well. But doesn't it apply equally to us all? Why, of course, it does. Who suggested that it didn't? But unless the doctor is mistaken about the poison, one of us must have done it. You simply can't get away from that. I said, I'm sure that the doctor is right. The less we think about who it may have been, the better.

But I was already thinking of the conversation I had overheard between Ethel and the doctor at the club, and what he and Stella had said in the drawing room last night. The words, Your abominable share, father's death, I shall tell them, came whispering in my ears. Ethel had taken her chair again, and I saw the tears well up in a brown eyes as Kenneth was speaking, and then suddenly she buried her face in her arms. The Tundish put his hand on her

shoulder, saying, now we must waste no more time. First, the servants must be told. Ralph, please ring the bell. And I must telephone or wire to sell us people. What's her address, Ethel? It's in Kensington. She lives with her uncle, Mr. Croft. but she told me one last day that is away and that the house is shut. I haven't the least idea where he has gone to, or what his address is now. Whatever shall we do? Oh, don't worry about that. The police will see to it for us.

Very likely she may have some letters stating where he is. We will tell them directly they come. Annie, the maid, who had taken the faithful medicine upstairs the night before, appeared with the tray to clear away the things. She was a nice, quiet girl of about 28 who had been with the Anson's for a good time. ten years. She put the tray down on the sideboard, saying, Why, what's the matter, Miss Ethel? There's no bad news from Folkestone, I hope, sir?

No, Annie, but run downstairs and tell Cook that I want her at once. Come back again yourself. The cook was an acquisition of about six months. I suppose that it really is impossible for the mere male to appreciate the value of a good servant and to understand how easily the mistress of a house may be willing to allow efficiency to pardon defects in appearance and manner. But I felt that for myself, I would sooner live on perpetual bread and cheese, dancer for the Hanson's cook. Ethel had told me more than one story of her selfish unreasonableness, but had added that she was a good cook and that they preferred to put up with her, rather than risk a month or two of cooking and washing up with

possibly something more disastrous still at the end of it. She came back with Annie, standing just inside the door with her arms folded and a beady black eyes darting from one of us to the other as she took in the scene. A face was unhealthy, pasty and a small shapeless nose tilted upward with a mouth that seemed ever to be posed in a disagreeable smirk. The Tundish explained that Miss Palfrey man had been found dead in a bed and that, as there was some uncertainty as to the reason of her death, it would be necessary for him to call in the police and for an inquest to be held. cook, who had been questioned with the inappropriate name of Grace, was all alarm and anger in a moment. What, the police in this here house? she said, and the master and mistress away as well.

Not if I have anything to do with it by your leave, sir? I come here with a good character to cook. I did, and if I am to be questioned by the police, I had better pack and be off at once by her leave, Missythel. And she gave her head a nasty little shake, and stood with her arms folded and a smirk on a pale, unwholesome face as she waited for the doctor and Ethel to unite and begging her to stay. But she hadn't bargained for the tundish. Very well than Grace, you had better go and pack up your belongings at once, for the police will be here in less than half an hour.

I warn you, however, that they will look on your action as being very suspicious, and that they will take you to the police station and ask you any questions they may want to in public, instead of quietly here in private. You can go. And you, Annie, he added, turning to the younger woman. Oh, I shall stay, sir. Well, look, you, Annie, I may as well warn you that we are all in a pretty mess.

Miss Palfrey Man has most certainly been poisoned, and I don't see how she can possibly have poisoned herself. I shall be the object of no suspicion, as it was I who made up medicine for her last night. But you will be suspected, too, for you took it. upstairs to a room. But neither you nor I will have anything to fear if we answer truly all the questions we are asked. Now, be a good girl and get the table cleared quickly while I ring up the police. The telephone is fixed just outside the drawing room door on a little bracket in the hole

and he went to it as he finished speaking but before he reached the instrument the bell rang sharply. Somebody was calling us. The doctor lifted the receiver and we could tell at once by his tone of voice, as he replied, that he had been listening to serious news. Oh dear, I'm sorry. Yes, of course, I'll come at once. I'll put a few things together and be with you as soon as I can. He replaced a receiver and stood thinking deeply. Then he explained to us that he had been called to an urgent case, a case that he could not possibly hand over to another doctor, at least not without seeing him first. He could do nothing for Stella, and it was his obvious duty to go.

Would I ring up the police? And by the way, he added. You, Ralph, had better run up to the courts and scratch all your names from the tournament. You need not give too much information. Tell them that Miss Paul Freeman is ill and that the rest of you have decided to scratch on account of the heat.

We can then be guided by the police when they come. We must all of us remember that this is going to be none too good for your father's practice, Ethel. You ring up the police, Chief Cork, while Ralph goes to the club. I miss go at once. There are other people in trouble besides arsals. He turned at the door to give one look at Ethel,

who still sat at the table with a face buried on her arms. You look after her, Kenneth? He said kindly. But Kenneth looked straight back at him with his lips tight shut and his scowl on his handsome young face, and said never aware in reply. The tundish shrugged her shoulders, made a little grimace,

and went off down the passage to the dispensary. I went to the telephone. Now, I had some difficulty in getting my connection, and I dare say I may have stood for a full five minutes of the instrument with my back to the hall and the receiver pressed to my ear. The heat was already oppressive and the delay irritating in itself. My hand, I found, was trembling slightly as I held the receiver. The cathedral clock chimed out ten as I stood, and I had to look at my watch to make sure that I hadn't missed a chime, where it seemed incredible that Mali a little more than an hour had passed since the tundish and I sat down to breakfast, began the farce of the mock inquiry about the notice that he had stuck up over the landing switch.

To look back at the earlier part of the morning was, I felt, like looking at the sunshine receding across the valley as one sat perched on a molten side with the rain clouds and the thunder drifting up behind. I heard Margaret say that she would go to the basement and fetch something or other for Ethel, and she passed close behind me just as the exchange was putting me through to a wrong number. I had to shout, and it was some time before I could persuade whoever it was speaking to me to hang up his receiver. The girl at the exchange seemed to pay no attention to my repeated attempts to attract her attention. Then just as I did get the number I wanted at last, I fancied that I could hear someone

coming softly down the stairs behind my back, but my attention being all for my message, I did not turn round to see who it was. Fortunately, I got through to the station superintendent himself without any further delay. I told him briefly how one of the doctor's guests had been found dead in bed, and that Dr. Wallace, the physician in charge of the practice, had asked me to ring him up and tell him that he strongly suspected poison. Would he please send someone round at once along with Dr. Jeffries, the police surgeon, if he was available? He promised me that they would both be round in less than a quarter of an hour. I put down the instrument with a sigh of relief.

A step, however small I felt, had been taken toward knowledge and away from uncertainty and indecision. I turned round to find the tundice standing close behind me in the hall. I was surprised because my hearing is so acute that I am not often taken unawes. I wondered how long he had been standing there quietly behind me. He explained that he had come back to ask me to make quite sure that in his absence and no one went up to Stella's room before the police were on the scene. He ought to have locked the room but had forgotten. I promised him that I would see to it and he went back down the passage to the consulting room

and out into the Dale House lane, his patient apparently living in that direction. Margaret came up the stairs from the basement carrying a tray as we concluded a brief conversation and I stepped forward to take it from her some of other I felt every bit as sorry for her as I did for Ethel She was so soft and feminine And there had been such a note of horror in that one shrill cry of hers

When the Tundish had told us so calmly that Stella was dead And now that she had recovered from her first alarm She seemed all concerned for Ethel A blue eye shining brightly her deep breast rising and falling, and her hands fluttering against mine as we stood with the tray between us. How splendid he is, she whispered, looking back at the Tundish, as he disappeared through the base door at the end of the passage. How awful when they arrest him! And what will poor Miss Somerson do? Miss Somerson? I echoed in surprise, but she gave me no explanation, just shook a pretty golden head and turned into the dining room to rejoin the others.

We found Kenneth standing awkwardly in front of Ethel. She had been very brave and was recovering again from her little collapse. Margaret sat down at her side and made a drink and did her best to comfort her. It may be a mistake about the Chinese poison, dear, she said careasingly. Doctors do mistakes, you know. I remember the doctor's words, however, and how he had described a death like a peaceful slumber, a slumber rendered horrible by staring bloodshot eyes and narrow contracted pupils.

There could be no mistaking such a death, I thought. The front doorbell rang from the outer gate in the garden wall, and we could hear the tread of feet along the garden path. Annie came up to open the door. We were face to face with the situation at last. The three men who were shown into the room were of strikingly different types. The foremost, Inspector Brown, introduced the other two to us with a wave of his hand. With his flat-top peaked head, his dark blue uniform braided with black,

and his ruddy, healthy, none too intelligent face, I thought of typical of that section of the police who had been promoted from the helmet and the bead to higher spheres of action. He spoke briskly, however, and to the point. Dr. Jeffries, you know already I think, Miss Hanson, pointing to a thin, elderly grey-haired man, but I have been fortunate in bringing with me

Detective Inspector Alport of Scotland Yard, who happens to be in Manchester, and was, as a matter of fact, with me in my room when your message came through. Now we must all of us have painted, some sort of a mental picture of the detective of fiction, even if you have never seen the real living article in flush and blood. But I am not willing to imagine that Detective Inspector Alport of Scotland Yard

could hold a place in anybody's mental picture. Without exaggeration, he was the ugliest little man have ever set eyes on, and yet, scanning him feature by feature, I was only astonished that the tout ensemble was not even more grotesque. Little and undersized, his pale, watery eyes, bulged after the manner of those of a great many extraordinarily clever people. His forehead was broad but sloping, and if his skin had not been of such visibly coarse unhealthy-looking texture,

this would have been his one redeeming feature. His nose was bulbous, his mouth sloped all over the place, and his little chin was punched up into a kind of irregular prominence which was rendered interesting by reason of an unbelievably regular circular dimple in the middle. I gazed on him fascinated, and thought at once. that for a man so handicapped to be anything higher in the social scale than a lavatory attendant must argue a character and mental equipment to be reckoned with, and I very soon found out that if perhaps I was inclined to exaggerate his apparent deficiencies and defects,

I altogether underestimated his brain power and those hidden qualities that compel attention and respect. He took charge of the situation at once, speaking rapidly in a voice of markedly pleasant tone. Dr. Valas, I presume, he said turning to me. I explained the circumstances of the Tundish's enforced absence and how we had been unable to why to tell us uncle. Ethel gave him the uncle's address. I look after that. As you suggest, there may probably be information as to Mr. Croft's present

variables among the unfortunate young lady's papers. If not, they'll soon find it for me in London. You can leave it to me and need not bother further. But the doctor, it is very unfortunate that he has been in cold away, but I suppose that he will be back before long. He has no doubt left a note of the address to which he has gone. I had to confess that I didn't think he had and Ethel on being questioned could only state that,

so far as she could gather from what she has heard of his conversation of the telephone, it might be one of three. He pulled down a corner of his funny little moustache and stood biting at it obviously annoyed. Strange. Very strange that he should have left the house, he muttered angrily. However, doctor, you had better examine the unfortunate young lady yourself from the meantime. Perhaps Miss Hansel would be kind enough to show us up to her room?

The rest of you will kindly oblige me by not leaving this room until my return. Please call up the servants and keep them here as well. He asked Ithel if the room had been locked up and everything in it untouched and I explained that the Tundish had told me about how he had left the door unfastened and the instructions he had given me. The little gargoyle frowned his disapproval turned on his heel and left the room Ethel, Dr. Jeffreys, and the inspector following. I rang the bell for Annie and the cook.

Little swipe, was Kenneth's comment, and I think we all of us felt that we could endorse it. The mates came up at once. Grace, clad in her outdoor clothes, sat down ostentatiously on the edge of a chair with the feather in her atrocious head, nodding a disapproval and independence. Her whole attitude showed that she considered a term of service to be at an end,

and that far from taking the doctor's advice, another minute would have seen her out of the house. I saw Ethel give a right little smile. Annie stood respectfully against the wall. Grace, God save the mark, and Annie had barely settled down when we heard footsteps on the stairs. I imagine that it would be Alport and Brown

returning with Ethel to ask us the questions we all expected to have to answer, but to my surprise, Dr. Jeffreys came in with them as well. Alport came in first, rudely stepping straight in front of Ethel and his bulging eyes seemed more prominent there ever, as he asked me angrily, where is the key? You told me, Dr. Wallace said that the door of the room was unlocked.

The end of chapter three. Chapter 4 of the Dale House Murder by Francis Everton. This Liberty Box recording is in the public domain, read by Yogan. The Dale House Murder, Chapter 4. Detective Inspector Alport Ralph, evidently, had not heard what I had said about the key to the bedroom, and neither could he have heard Alport correctly, for he asked Kenneth in a loud whisper whether he was talking about the key of the poison cupboard. Alport gave him one swift glance, but then he turned to me waiting for my answer to his question. Surely you must be mistaken, I answered at length, when I had conquered my astonishment.

Dr. Valis told me most definitely that he had forgotten to lock the door, and he came back on purpose to ask me to prevent him. anyone from going upstairs until the police arrive to take charge. Oh, I must be mistaken then, of course, if you say so. The key is in the door all the time, and we all came downstairs again for the sake of a little exercise. My reply seemed to have angered him beyond all reason, and he stuck his ugly little apology for a face over the edge of his stiff, stand-up caller and glad at me as he spoke. Then he turned to Ethel. You are quite certain that the key was in the door?

But you told me just now that it was. I beg a pardon, but I said nothing of the kind. What I said was that the key was generally in the door. You don't suppose that I stopped to make an inventory? I could have clapped her on the back for standing up to the little spitfire, and as a matter of fact, he seemed rather to enjoy it himself, for he smiled quite amicably and turned to Annie, asking her if she could give him information on the subject.

No, sir. As Miss Ethel says, all the bedroom door keys are usually on the inside, and I should expect that Miss Paul Freeman should be there like the rest. did anyone else hear the doctor tell Mr. Jeffcock that he had forgotten to lock the door? Was his next question? No one replied, and I answered rather stiffly that I should have thought that my statement would have been enough. But, I dare say, was all the comment he made. This, I felt, was not a very auspicious start, and argued ill for the more detailed questioning to which we should have to submit, and I wondered what attitude he would take toward the tundish on his return

if he could behave so abominably to the rest of us now. However, there seemed to be nothing to gain by remonstrance, so I merely shrugged my shoulders and picked up the morning paper which was lying on the table. I think that neither Dr. Jeffries nor Inspector Brown relished their association with the boorish little man. He was undoubtedly master the situation, though, and he asked, or rather I should say, told Inspector Brown to have the bedroom door broken open immediately and to send a plaincloth man to the three addresses at which it was most probable the doctor, might be visiting. He got Ethel to write them down on a slip of paper. The man was to come back

at once if the doctor was not located. If he was, then he was to be told that he was wanted back at Dalehouse as urgently as possible, and the man was to wait and escort him home. His instructions were wrapped out without the least consideration for feelings, and I, for one, felt certain that the Tundish would be arrested on suspicion directly set foot inside the house. Having packed off Dr. Jeffries and the inspector, he crossed the room to where Ethel was standing a picture of unhappiness gazing out of the window at the sunlit garden. I think that even he was touched. I am truly very sorry, Miss Hansen, to cause all this bother, he said.

But it simply cannot be avoided. My temper may be at fault, but there is really no time on such occasions for niceties of conduct. As soon as I am satisfied that Dr. Jeffries can make his examination, and if it confirms Dr. Valis's opinion that Miss Paul Freeman has been poisoned, then the house must be searched from top to bottom before anything else is done. I'll have the kitchen premises dealt with fares so that the maids can return to them, and then the drawing-room, so that you can use it in addition to this. Later on, when my search is completed, I shall require you all to tell me everything you can think of

that might have a possible bearing on the case. That may be quite a lengthy business, and I can allow no delay for any reason whatsoever. Will you please, therefore, arrange for an early lunch, and I shall hope to be ready shortly after twelve. He made a stiff little bow, and without waiting for any reply, He left the room. I heard him run upstairs, and a little later a crash as the door of Stella's room was broken in. Then he came down to the telephone, and I heard him asking for additional men to be sent from the police station. To my astonishment, I next heard him ask for the clerk in charge at the exchange,

and after explaining who he was, tell her to take down in full and report immediately to him any messages that came either to or from our number until further notice. I suppose it was quite an ordinary precaution, but it brought home to me. as nothing else had, the terrible plight in which we all were. Apparently I was the only one to overhear his message, and I went over to Ethel, who was sitting in the windowsill with writing pair and pencil. She told me that she was writing to her father and mother, but did not know whether she ought to post it on account of her father's health.

I felt that her letters would probably be intercepted and opened, and I told her of the conversation I had overheard. But it's preposterous, she exclaimed angrily, and it seemed to me that there was a note of alarm in her voice. Surely he has no right to do a thing like that, and ought not he to have a warrant before he searches the house? I explained that he could most certainly get one if the Tunisia's diagnosis proved correct, and that we should gain nothing by delaying matters or by being awkward. She bent on a letter again saying,

Oh, how I wish he would come back. Kenneth was standing against the mantelpiece talking to Ralph, and I heard him mutter gruffly if he ever does come back. Ethel gave him one angry look but she made no reply. I could not understand Kenneth at all. Even if he did believe the doctor guilty, he seemed to have nothing to gain by his behaviour. He knew that the Tundish was a very old friend of Ethel, the girl to whom he had quite recently became engaged, and yet his love seemed to be of such poor stuff that he could not hide his feelings for a sake.

Ralph looked pale and wretchedly ill at ease, and I could more readily have understood it had he shown ill-will toward the doctor. He had fallen head over heels in love. with Stella. And whether his feelings went to any depth or not, it must have been a bitter blow for him. The evidence was certainly heavy against the Tundish. It seemed to be inevitable that Ralph should feel antagonistic toward him, and I thought that in the circumstances he was showing a very creditable forebearance. With Kenneth, on the other hand, there was no apparent reason for such uncontrolled hostility, but I had overlooked the very jealousy of a young man in love, and was yet to learn that

weeks before poor Stella's death, Ethel had already sown the seats from which many unhappy moments grew by singing the doctor's praises. Clean cut in his own opinions, he altogether failed to understand that while engaged to him, Ethel might yet have a very real affection for the Tundish. I believe that every action of hers showing loyalty to her old

friendship added fire to his hot resentment. Having once decided, in his own mind, that the doctor was guilty, then he was a murderer, no longer a human being in need of sympathy and understanding. Kenneth's love was overwhelmed by his jealousy, which in turn was fed by Ethel's

loyalty to her friend and his own utter inability to compromise or look at a situation through any eyes but his own. That she could distress herself over a man who in cold blood had taken the life of a young girl, a girl staying in her own home at the time, and that she could bracently kiss such a man in front of his all, was to him proof positive that her feelings were stronger than those of friendship alone. But in spite of his unreasonable behaviour, I was truly sorry for Kenneth, though it was incomprehensible to me that he could stand aloof and frowning while Ethel sat alone, wretched and distressed. It was bad enough for us all, but for her, with her father and mother away, it was a truly devastating experience. Never, I think, shall I forget

that half-hour's wait in the Dalehouse dining room. We could hear the police moving about as they searched their rooms. Any intimate conversation was impossible by reason of the presence of the two mates. The cook sat with folded arms, insolently defiant, sniffing loudly at intervals, and he stood with quiet tears rolling down her cheeks. They neither of them spoke a word. Ethel pretended to write. I leaned over the table with the morning paper spread out. But we were all of us listening, listening to the police and for the Tundish to return, wondering what the disagreeable little detective would do when he did come back and thinking which of the rest of us it could be if the doctor were acquitted.

Across my mind, as I leaned over the table, gazing with unseeing eyes of the paper I was pretending to read, there flashed a succession of little scenes. Ethel and the Tundish sitting close to each other, earnestly conversing, two coats and more away from where I sat perched in the umpire's chair, the Tundish talking to Stella in the drawing room, and the sound of threat in a high-pitched voice, the Tundish meeting me in the hall directly afterward, pleasant and serene, and lastly the sound of a woman laughing in the waiting room, suddenly reviving my child's terror-faced memorand, is pale Miss Somerson lying elaborately to the doctor in the dispensary, Anithel, who was supposed to be up at the club, appearing surprisingly from the consulting room, having returned to get some tape for the handle of a racket. The heat alone, apart from all of the considerations, was almost more than we could bear. While the clock on the mantelpiece ticked the seconds away with a regular monotony, times seemed to stand holding its breath. Her nerves were so on edge that when at last the door was briskly opened, there was not one amongst us that did

not give a little jump. It was Alport. He asked Ethel to go with him upstairs and tell him who had slept in different rooms. She was with us again in five minutes and told the mates that they could go downstairs and that we, if we wished, could use the drawing room once more. I felt as so we had been imprisoned for hours, but it was barely half-past eleven. Ethel and Margaret and I moved into the other room at once, but Kenneth and Ralph stayed where they were talking in low tones together. Itel hesitated at the door, and I wondered if she were going to ask them to join us, but she thought better of it and followed Margaret and me. She was about at the end of her endurance, and for her sake alone I had read at the impending conference. The drawing-room had been turned

topsy-turvy, the carpet had been rolled up into the middle of the floor, and the furniture, including the heavy piano, had all been hurriedly moored. The music, the bookshelves, the chair-covers, they had all been searched and scattered. We had expected nothing. We had so disturbing and thorough, and the state of the room took us all three by surprise, but I, for one, was secretly glad to have something active to do in putting things to rights. Margaret, I thought, was wholly admirable in the way she unselfishly suppressed her own feelings and helped to steady ethel. As we had crossed the hall, I observed that the policeman had been stationed at the end of the passage to the doctor's wing, standing in such a position that he could

command a view both of the stairs to the landing above and to the basement below. I wondered what our neighbours must be thinking of all this police activity and how long it would be before we had to bear with newspaper publicity narration to our other troubles. My imagination grew busy with the headlines. Early as it was, Annie was already setting out a cold lunch in the dining room, and Ethel explained that Alport had particularly asked her again to hurry it up, saying that directly the search was completed.

He would want to begin his preliminary inquiry. I could not understand the desperate hurry, but she said he had told her that speed was everything, that he could do nothing until he had all the available information at his finger ends and that such a detail as a meal time could not be allowed to interfere with his plans. He improved, she thought, on better acquaintance, but I agreed with Margaret when she said that it would be difficult to imagine him doing anything else. We had barely finished a little conversation and it was a great relief to talk

when the telephone bell rang in the hall. I opened the drawing room door. The policeman still stood on guard at the end of the passage, but although the instrument was only a few yards away from where he stood, he asked me to answer it for him. He evidently had very strict instructions not to move from his position. It was the police station calling and asking for Inspector Brown. I promised to tell him to ring them up at once, and after consulting the sentry, I went upstairs to find him. There was no one about on the landing, and full of curiosity as to what was going on, I ascended the stairs to the floor above. The room in which Stella had slept is so placed that anyone going up the stairs can see right into it when the door was open.

It was open on this occasion, and as my eyes reached the level of the upper landing, I found myself looking straight at the nightmare face of the hideous little detective. For a moment, I cannot understand how it could be at such a level, but on moving up a few steps, I realized that he was kneeling on the floor in the middle of the room. He had just taken a small envelope out of his pocket, and as I watched, he allowed water, looked like two tiny fragments of glass to trickle into it out of his head. He was evidently deep in thought and entirely lost to his surroundings, for I had taken no precautions to move quietly, and he neither saw me nor heard.

There he knelt immovable, the envelope in one hand, a perplexed little smile on his shapeless, protruding lips. I moved forward, but it was not until I was right up to the bedroom door that he realized that he was not alone. If not actual abuse, the very least I expected was some sarcastic remark about my intrusion, but he merely lifted up his hand for silence, for all the world like some diminutive father admonishing his child. I could hardly refrain from laughing at the grotesque little scene until I looked beyond him at the bed with its white sheet covering all that was left

of poor Stella. A single whisper of a kinky copper hair came curving over the edge of the sheet. He waited a minute and thought, and then asked me what I wanted, moving out to the landing and closing the door, which still hung on its hinges reverently behind him. This is a sad, strange business, he said. I told him about the call for the inspector, and he said he would go and find him at once, but the inspector saved him the trouble, for he came up the stairs as we were speaking together. He was carrying a coat, and he was evidently in a state of some excitement. Well, we have found the key, Mr. Alport, at least I believe we have.

And he put his hand into the side pocket of the court, and wrote out an ordinary bedroom door key. It fitted without any trouble, although the lock itself had been almost wrenched from the woodwork when the door was broken open. He handed it over to his superior. Where did you find it? He asked, holding out his hand for the coat as well. Among the other coats on the pegs in the hole. It was a thin alpaca housecoat that the tundish had been using during the hot weather. I recognized it at once, and remember that the doctor had been wearing it only that morning at breakfast time. My heart sank. It was difficult to believe. It was difficult to believe. It was a that in the excitement he might have locked Stella's door and then have forgotten all about it.

On the other hand, I could think of no reason, even assuming I were willing to admit him a liar, why he should so deliberately come and tell me that the room was unlocked, with a key with which he had locked it in one of his own pockets all the time. The detective asked me to whom the court belonged, and I had to tell him. We stood silently in the landing, the three of us, Alport holding out the key in front of him, as if it was some astonishing specimen instead of an ordinary key to a bedroom door. I remember how, as I stood at the telephone,

when ringing up the police, I had thought that I heard someone on the stairs and how, a few moments later, I had been surprised to find the tundish standing close behind me, but puzzled my brains as I might, I could see no reason why, even if he were guilty, as both the detective and the inspector obviously thought him,

he should run secretly upstairs to locks Stella's door and then go out of his way to tell me that he hadn't, while it did not seem to me to add much to the real evidence against him, it was certainly one more item for him to explain a way on his return. Now my thoughts had been so absorbing that for a time I had forgotten both my companions and my warabouts. However, a gentle chuckle from the inspector brought me to my senses, and looking up, I found that if my thoughts had been interesting, the detective was still gazing at the key as though he had been hypnotized.

That is strange, very strange, very strange indeed, he whispered at. last. Well, said the inspector, both of you two gentlemen might have been crystal gazing, but there seems to me to be nothing very extraordinary in Dr. Val is locking the door, putting the key in his pocket, and then forgetting that he had done it. Oh, was Alport's comment, and he shrugged the shoulders in a manner that must have riled the inspector for his shoulders, said, poor fool, as plainly as shoulders could, then smiling at me, he added, and so you found it rather intriguing also, my friend? no I wonder why

and he looked at me appraisingly as though I had suddenly gone up in his estimation then he stood thinking deeply again and I thought for a moment that he was sinking into another reverie but he went back to but he went back into Stella's room

and looked out of the window which was immediately over the flat-topped roof of the doctor's wing next to the house the roof is of plain cement but at the end away from it it is covered thickly by a large-leaved ivy which runs right a good foot deep. I went up and stood beside him, but I could see nothing that might have aroused a sudden interest, or which could have any possible connection with the key that had been found in the

doctor's pocket. He shut the window down again, saying, well, we are wasting time. Inspector, you're warned on the telephone. Mr. Jeffcock, and you, Inspector, as well, I want you both to promise me most solemnly that nothing we have spoken of together, and nothing you have seen, Mr. Jeff Cocker shall be mentioned to another soul. Neither the finding of the key nor anything else must be spoken of. I gave him my promise. I thank you. It's of great importance. And now, I shall be obliged if you will return to the rest. What on earth could he have seen that was so important the finding of the key in the doctor's court? Why did he go back into Stella's room and look out of the window, and what were the little pieces of glass that I had caught him so carefully preserving?

These were the questions I asked myself as I went back to the drawing room, but I agreed with Ethel that the little man was inclined to improve as one got to know him better. Ethel and Margaret had, I found, completed the straightening out of the furniture. I was afraid that they might ask me for the reason for my prolonged absence, and I had no answer ready to give them, but although I fancied Margaret washed me with a kind of half-eager expectation, they neither of them asked me any questions. Annie came to tell us that the lunch was served.

It was a sad meal A place had been set for Stella by mistake The Tandish had always said a short grace before our meals It was a practice of Hansen's which he kept up while he was away Itel began to say it in his absence But she broke down after the first sentence And had to retire to the window While she regained his self-control

What little we ate we ate in silence Any attempted general conversation seemed out of place And the thoughts that occupied all her minds Were too painful for speech yes, and too secret for speech. For I am sure that in spite of the doctor's appeal, we were each one of his busy with conjecture. The Tundish, and if not the Tundish, then who?

We were about halfway through our meal when he returned. We heard him tell the man's station in the hall to let Inspector Brown know that he was back, and then he opened the door. Ethel got apart once with a little cry and went to meet him, our arms half extended. We were all forgotten. How tundish! I'm so glad, so glad that you're back again, she said, and there was such

pleasure and trust in her voice, and such sympathy in a looks, that it was no wonder, cannot bit his lips and turned the other way. The doctor looked tired, and little beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead, the rist of a hurried witter and I surmised, and not of fear or panic, for his eyes were steady and his look self-confident and calm. You goose, he laughed, putting his hand gently on his shoulder. But where's my thin coat? This one is well my unbearable. I thought I'd left it hanging in the hole. Ethel told him how the whole of the house was being searched

and how Stella's toe had had to be broken down. I was observing him very closely, as indeed I think we all were, but he showed no trace of embarrassment. His astonishment seemed both spontaneous and genuine and to have no appearance of being overacted or forced. I concluded that it was altogether too natural to be simulated. But then I remembered how, within half a few,

minute of his conversation with Stella in the drawing room on the previous night. He had met me in the hall with a pleasant smile and a face that showed no trace of either trouble or concern. Now again he was not perturbed and he spoke quietly and without emphasis. But I know for a fact that I did not lock the door. I intended to go back and do it and then the telephone call came through and put it out of my head. You're sure that you didn't run upstairs and lock it after I spoke to you in the hall? I assured him that I had not and he stood for a month. obviously puzzled. I glanced round to see what the others were making of it. Kenneth sat looking straight at the doctor fears and grim. Ralph, his face pale and his head bent was playing with a little

heap of crumbs. Margaret was looking at Ralph. Oh well, that'll be another little mystery for our friends the pleas to explain, and he took his seat at the end of the table. It'll be for you to make the explanations. I thought to myself, as I remembered where the key had been found, and I must confess that I longed to break the solemn promise I had only just made. Directly the doctor took up his seat. Kenneth got up from his, the deliberate ostentation, though he obviously hadn't finished his lunch, asking Ethel if she would go with him into the drawing room.

She followed him reluctantly, and the Tundish went on with his meal, but I could see that his thoughts like mine were busy with the subject of the conversation. Shortly after they had left us, Alport came in, followed by Inspector Brown. The Tundish, bland and dignified, rose, Atkins to greet him. I'm so sorry that I have put you to all the trouble of sending out a man to track me down, he said, offering his hand to the inspector with whom he was evidently acquainted,

but I must confess that I deliberately omitted to leave my abreast. My case was a series one, and I had no wish to be interrupted. But now, gentlemen, I'm entirely at your disposal. He turned to Alport with a hand outstretched, a quick look at Inspector Brown inviting an introduction. The detective took his hand at quince, saying, that's all right, doctor. Though I admit that you have caused me some anxiety. Now, I should like you to take me into the dispensary and show me the poison cabot which up to now we haven't been stabbed. The Tandish asked if I might accompany them, explaining how I had been with him when the cupboard was last open, and that I could testify to the possession of some of the bottles. Alport agreed, and I went along with them.

The safe is opened, and for a time he stood silently looking at the collection of bottles. I could see how immediately the Chinese flagon attracted his attention. The doctor told him which bottle he had used in preparing the fatal draught. Alport grunted and asked the inspector to fetch him his bag from the hall. From it, he took a pair of rubber gloves, and putting them on, he picked up the bottle and placed it carefully in a box containing cotton wool at the bottom of the bag. Next, he asked the tundish from which bottle he thought the poison had been taken, assuming that an addition had been made to the sleeping graft in the manner he suspected.

That is undoubtedly the bottle, the tundish replied, pointed to the little flagon. You say, undoubtedly, how can you be so sure that it was poisoned from that particular little bottle and not from one of the others? There are many to choose from. I'm sure about it, first because of the peculiarly bloodshot eyes, and second, because of its very unusual smell. I smelled the dregs at the bottom of the medicine glass when I went upstairs immediately after breakfast to make my first examination, and having smelled it before, I cannot be mistaken. Does it taste? Yes, even in extremely dilute quantities.

it is bitter. Alpo took the fragile little bottle between finger and thumb of his cloud hand and held it up to the light. He held it up, looking at it absorbed and thought, and then quite suddenly I saw him give a little start, as if he had noticed something of particular interest, and he smiled to himself as I had watched him smiling on his knees in Tela's room. I turned from him to the bottle he held in his hand, but I failed to see what it was that had quickened his attention. But this bottle is very nearly full, he said after a pause, The neck is exceedingly narrow, and the liquid is less than half an inch from the bottom of the stopper. Once more, the Tandrish explained how he had obtained the poison,

telling the detective exactly what he had told me only two days ago. He ended up by saying that a single drop added to Stella's medicine would have been quite sufficient to kill. Can you tell me from the position of the liquid in the neck exactly how much of the poison has been used? The doctor thought for a moment and then replied, not with any great accuracy of course but I should say not more than two or three drops at the most I brought two similar bottles with me from China giving them both to Dr. Hanson

they were both of them full to the stoppers and I had them sealed before my journey Hansen used about half the contents of one bottle in the course of his investigations with which I helped him the reminder he sent away for further examination test to a chemical society to which we both belong of the contents of the second bottle

we used exactly one cubic centimeter and an experiment we made together last time I visited him, which would be about six months ago. As far as I can remember, we left it with a liquid in practically its present position. I asked Hanson, if he had done any further work on it, the day he left for Folkstone, and he told me that he had not.

You will understand we were interested together. That's why I can state with a considerable amount of certainty that at the most, only two or three drops have been used. Alport stood turning the tiny flag in this way and that but obviously listening attentively to the doctor's statement which had been made in a voice that showed not the slightest grammar or concern. Then he turned round quickly and asked him, You would be surprised then if I were to find any recent fingerprints of yours in the bottle? Yes, any more recent than six minutes ago?

Has it occurred to you that whoever added the poison to Miss Paul Freeman's medicine, providing your character and your assumption that it has been taken from this bottle, must have been closely familiar with his properties? he or she evidently intended to kill or else why add poison at all yet on your own showing only two or three drops were added it was known to the murderer that that would be enough he was familiar with his action the fur of her stood in silence then he added very quietly that you will agree narrows to on the field of inquiry some what the tundish neither paled nor turned the hair as he replied yes oh yes it utterly narrows it down. As far as I can see, it reduces it to either me or Jeff Cock here, or to Miss Hansen. To my knowledge, we are the only three people in the house having information about the poison. To your knowledge? Why do you say that to your knowledge? Because it's always possible that the maids or someone else may have overheard Hansen and myself talking together about it.

Miss Somerson, for instance. Oh, Miss Somerson knows all about it. In fact, she has helped us with some of her experiments. She left the house, however, before the draft was made up and she has not yet returned. To your knowledge, Alport added. Why, whatever do you mean? The Tundish said, showing some little excitement at last. Miss Paul Freeman's room looks on to the flat top roof of the surgery wing, and an entry could have been made from it with the greatest ease. The window I take it would be open on night like last night. Yes, it was open wide at the bottom when I went to the room after breakfast. But Miss Hanson had been into the room before me. But it is possible. So far as I know, Miss Somerson and Miss Palfrey men were complete strangers to each other. To your knowledge once more,

the detective laughed. But if you had my experience, you would know that it is by no means safe to assume that apparent strangers are strangers in fact. Again, I saw that the Tundish was nude and his eyelids gave a flicker. Did the little man notice a toe? I wondered. And did he know of the to his previous meeting with Stella and China? Or was it as short in the dark? He seemed to be entirely absorbed in the little bottle and to be carrying on the conversation as a sort of accompaniment to his examination of it.

It almost appeared as if he thought that if he were only to look at it long enough and hard enough he might wring its secret from it. And all the time he looked, his face held its puzzled smile. Well, let us return to the dining room, he said at length, and he laid the Chinese flagon carefully in the box and his bag along with the other. We were just leaving the dispensity when a sudden thought occurred to me. Wait a moment, I cried. Surely it is not safe to assume that only two or three drops of poison

have been taken from the bottle? Anyone would almost certainly fill it up again to its old level, from the tab which is all handy at the sink, before they put it back in its place in the cupboard. Alport turned wrong with a smile of amusement at the excitement I had shown. Exactly so, he said. But I must confess that I have been expecting the doctor to call me attention to the possibility I never thought of it, said the Tundish. I'm glad was a rather surprising reply. The end of chapter four. Chapter 5 of the Dale House murder by Francis Everton.

This Libri-Wox recording is in the public domain. Read by Yoganand. The Dale House Murder, Chapter 5. Alport's alternatives. Without further remark, Alport turned and led the way back to the dining room, the inspector following it. immediately behind him, the tundish and I bringing up the rear. As we walked along the passage, the doctor decreased his pace,

so that after the two had passed through the dining-room door, he and I were alone for a moment in the hall. He whispered to me hurriedly, Chefcock, he must do all you can to keep the peace between Kenneth and Ethel. You can see for yourself that I can do nothing. What, with a hot temper and his subconscious determination to make his conduct match his mouth and chin, we shall have their young love affair on the rocks

before we know where we are. He gave my arm a squeeze of thanks as I promised to do whatever I could and we were at the door of the room with no more time for conversation. It was patent that Ethel and Kenneth had quarreled. They were standing a little apart in one of the windows at the far side of the room.

She was fondling the cat which still lay on the sill basking in the blazing sun and he stood looking at her, dour and sullen. She turned and spoke to him as we came into the room and I feel almost certain, she said very well then Kenneth, there's no more to be said. If your love for me depends on my deserting a friend in his trouble,

it's a sort of love I don't want. Alport broke in on them before Kenneth had time to make any reply, saying that he wanted to make the position clear to us all before he took any further steps in the task he had before him. I have two alternative courses of action before me, he explained. And the one I adopt will rest entirely with you, though I can hardly think that you will show any hesitation on making your choice. Dr. Jeffreys, I must tell you, agrees with Dr. Wallace that Miss Palfreyman met to death by poisoning.

He is unable to state the nature of the poison used, which tends to confirm Dr. Wallace's suspicion that an addition was made to the sleeping graft from the small flagon that I now have safely in my bag. That, of course, will be looked into more closely as soon as a proper post-mortem examination can be made. He paused for a moment to wipe the perspiration from his face. It was nearly midday and the room was suffocating. The sun shone straight on to the first. the three long windows, but the dark green blinds drawn half-air down prevented the little movement of air. A bee which had become trapped between one of the blinds and the window busts away

unhappily. I took advantage of the detectives pause to ask him if there could be no possibility of suicide. Ralph scowled at me for my pains, and it was only then that I remember that my suggestion would be casting a slur on poor Stella. It seemed to me, however, that would be comparatively happy solution, bearing in mind that the only alternative, was cold-blooded murder. Murder, too, not by some unknown outsider, but in all probability by one of us now in the room listening to the little detective

making his suggestions. The Tundish, Ralph, Kenneth, were one of the two girls. It seemed equally absurd to associate any one of them with such a crime. Alport soon settled the point, however. Suicides don't usually throw away the glass from which they have drunk, he said.

And in addition to that, there are other points which preclude any such possibility. I had given no thought to the glass from which the poison had been taken. The references seemed to rouse the tundish. He was sitting on the end of the table, apparently entirely at his ease, his legs swinging idly as he lighted a cigarette. The match burned down and scorched his finger-ends, making him start, so absorbed was his attention in the detective's remark.

Ethel had seated herself on the window-sill, where she was pensively stroking the cat, her mind occupied a felt shower, more with a quarrel with Kenneth, then with the matter immediately in hand. She turned round quickly, however, directly the glass was mentioned, and burst out with, but the glass! Then she paused uncomfortably,

reddened, and resumed a caressing of the cat. Yes, but the glass? Alport queried. It was a tundish who completed the broken sentence, however, calmly lighting another match as he did so. Miss Hansen was going to say that the glass was on the little table at the side of Miss Paul Freeman's bed

when she first went up to her room, It was still there when I went up a few minutes later to make my hurried examination. The glass was one of the usual graduated taper-measures. I lifted it from the table, saw that there were a few drops of liquid at the bottom, which I smelled, and then I put it back on the table again. When I came downstairs, I meant to lock the door, but forgot to do so. And as I have already explained, I asked Mr. Jeffcock to see that no one went into the room just before he went out to see my patient.

That's all I can tell you about it. No one of his spoke a word The detective was steep and thought He was half-seated on the arm of one of the two heavy armchairs That stood at either side of the fireplace Margaret and Ralph were leaning against the mantelpiece Which is spacked by a long low-looking glass framed in oak She was half turned toward it

And I could see a full-face reflection as I stood against the door Kenneth stood by the table Itel was still in the window seat A little way behind him The Tundish seemed the least disturbed of any of his and was obviously enjoying his cigarette. The bee, which was still buzzing behind the blind, escaped from its trap,

and the sudden cessation of its hum, somehow marked a period and plunged us into silence. At last the detective spoke. And the key was found, he spoke with a slow emphasis, turning toward the tundish and tilting his chair. Then he stood up suddenly, his sentence incomplete,

and his chair righted itself with a bang that came like a blow towards straining nerves. Margaret uttered a little startled cry And he was immediately profuse With redendent apology At one moment He had us all tense with excitement As so we were waiting a verdict

And the next He could find nothing better to do Than talk about his own clumsiness In partly overturning a chair I could not understand him at all And I saw an amused smile Play across the doctor's face As he repeated

And the key he was found Oh I don't think that matters Very much for the moment Was the amazing reply that can all be gone into later. Please don't divert me from the proposition I was about to put before you. Miss Paul Freeman has been poisoned without the least shadow of doubt. So he said, put that idea right out of your minds.

It is murder. My first DOT is to secure the murderer, and it must be obvious to you all that the facts, as we know them at present, point very definitely indeed to Dr. Valis. I think that even he will agree with me that that is not an exaggerated. statement. The Dundish nodded his head in Mermit, quite sir, with an air I can only describe as one of pleasant acquiescence, and the little man proceeded with his harangue. On the other hand, a very long experience has taught me that these definite first impressions are often quite misleading.

Either owing to a chain of unfortunate coincidences, or by the design of someone else, suspicion fastens on the innocent. That may seem a banal statement to make, but it is a possibility that is often overlooked. In this case, already there are apparently several pieces of conflicting evidence, which it will take time and further investigation to appraise at their proper value. One clue, which I'm not going to specify, distinctly indicates that the murder may have been committed by someone quite outside your house party here. I propose to follow that up immediately myself, and it will mean that I may have to be away for a day or two. I don't want to raise any false hopes, however, and I may as well tell you quite candidly that my opinion formed on the balance

of the facts is that the murderer is listening to me now. He paused impressively, Ethel half-stifled a sob. Now, share are my proposals to you, he continued. Either I must arrest Dr. Valis at once on suspicion, and your statements as to the events of last night must be taken down in the usual way, or, alternatively, you must all promise to obey my instructions to the letter, however absurd and unreasonable they may seem to you to be. Among other things, I shall want your promise that none of you leave the house. Saying that he had one or two things to utter to, which would take him about half an hour, and that it would give us a convenient opportunity for making a decision, he gave us a stiff

little bow and left the room. The Tundish refers to break the awkward silence. And if you don't mind, I think I'll follow a little French example and leave you to it. as he reached the door he turned and smiled at us all geniality and unconcerned five very uncomfortable people were left there could be no doubt about which of the two alternatives we should choose I think there was no doubt about that in any of our minds before a word was spoken

it was a tremendous difference between the reasons that led to our decisions that made our unanimity nothing but a mockery and created an atmosphere that was thick with jealousy and distrust as we stood about the room it seemed to me that we were like like the atoms of some unstable molecule momentarily an unhappy association, but ready to dissociate and fly off on some course of our own should the least provocation arise. It was Ralph, for once, who took the initiative and broke the unpleasant little silence. Well, of course, we must agree to do what he tells us, though it seems to me that it is only prolonging the agony, and if I were in

the doctor's place, I should be glad to be gone and have done with it. I could see that Kenneth was ready for an outburst, and it came directly. Ralph had completely. Ralph had completely. to his remark. I can't understand you. I can't make you out at all. The murder might hardly be criminal from the way you seem to take it, and even a detestable murder like this. A girl, poisoned in a bed, something to be born in silence. I can hardly keep my hands off the brood. And the rest of you seem quite willing and even anxious to be friends. Kenneth, how can you, how can you be so cruel? Suppose that you were in ternicious place. How would you like it if all of us turned against you and were ready to believe the worst.

You seem almost as though you were anxious to believe that he did it. Ethel had spoken quietly at first, but a sentence ended on a note of bitterness. That's a crossly unfair thing to say, Kenneth answered hotly. I may just as well say that you don't care whether he did it or not, and I begin to think that I shouldn't be far from truth if I did say that. Everything proves that he doped the draught, and you can kiss him in fondless hands. You don't even reserve your judgment, say this man may be a wild murder. You just flaunt your absurd hero worship in front of us all.

If he had a spark of decency in him, he would give himself up. I know that is exactly what you would do. I can just see you doing it. I suppose you haven't given a thought to what this will mean to Daddy's practice? Why, what on earth do you mean? Surely he's not implicated in any case? It can't make any difference to him. Oh, can't add? It was horrible to hear them quarreling, and I tried once or twice to interrupt them, but in their anger they ignored us entirely and might have been alone. At last I did manage to get in the remark that everyone should be considered innocent until his guilt has been proved. It was a fatuous remark, worthy of Margaret herself, and Kenneth sneered that I seemed to have rather funny ideas on the subject of innocence. It was Margaret, however, who ultimately turned the discussion in a more pacific direction.

She pointed out that Ethel knew the doctor about ten times as well as the rest of us, but even so she didn't see how anyone could be expected to ignore entirely all the evidence against him. However, she concluded, Mr. Ralford asked what has said that he thought that he probably did it, but that there may be just an outside chance that he didn't. Well, for my part, I'm quite willing to wait until he has investigated that outside chance. And she turned to Ralph asking him what he thought about it. Ralph paused perceptibly before replying.

There's nothing to be gained by beating about the bush. Alport would not have said what he did if he had. had much real hope from his outside clue. But for your sake, Ethel, and because of your father's practice, I'm willing to agree to anything he asks us to do. Honestly, though, as far as the practice is concerned, I can't see that it makes much difference.

This sort of thing can't be hushed up, you know? I protested that if the outside clue proved relevant, it did make all the difference in the world. Then none besides ourselves need know how heavily Dr. Hanson's locumptendants had been involved and endeavouring to carry out the tundicious request, I concluded with, for my part, whether this clue leads to anything or not, I shall take a lot of convincing

before I can believe that either he or any of the rest of you are poisonous. But even as I said the words, I was wondering, if the doctor hasn't done it, then which of the others has? Right then, now we all know exactly where we are, Kenneth grumbled. Heathel and you have quite determined that he is a hero. I know that he is a blackguard, and the other two know that he is one, but don't quite like to say, sir. You had better let the little man now. I can only hope that it won't be for long, and that you won't insist on my pretending to be friends. No one but a fool would think you capable of pretending anything, I retorted and went in search of Alport. I heard him busy with the telephone while we had been making a decision, and I found him talking with the inspector in the drawing room.

He was balancing himself on the curb around the fireplace, and I imagined he had been laying down the law to the local official, who looked annoyed and uncomfortable, and emitted a grunt of emphatic disapproval as I entered the room. Alport was grinning up. at him, his grotesque little face, puckering up in his amusement, and as he came toward me, he patted the big man on the back, saying, well, that my big friend is what I'm going to do, whether you like it or not. The drawing-room at Dale House is an exact duplicate of the dining room, as past far its dimensions are concerned, and with its long Georgian windows, it must, I imagine, have been a difficult room to furnish. Mrs. Hanson had done the best with it, but the deep, armchair and comfortable city always looked to me out of place,

and a little apologetic, like a party of chorus girls, who, going to a nightclub, have landed in a bishop's palace where mistake. A grand piano stood at right angles to the inside wall. It was little used, and on the top were several family photographs in frames. I had told Alport that we were ready for him when I interrupted his conversation with the inspector, and he came toward me smiling. I could not help thinking that he was pleased with the inspector's opposition. When he reached the piano, something caught his eye, however,

and I saw his amused expression die away and one of astonishment take its place. Then, to my surprise, he picked up one of the photographs, and after scrutinizing it closely, took it out of its frame and examined the back. Inspector Brown stood watching him from the heart-rug, and I gazed at him from the doorway. We exchanged an amused glance, hiss, I fancy, tinged with despair. But quite unconcerned, Alport put the photograph back in its frame, replaced it carefully on the piano, and bowed to us each in turn with whimsical smile. That's not a little puzzle for you, they said.

I told him of a decision. Good. And was it unanimous? We have all decided to do whatever you tell us, was all I replied. As soon as we had rejoined the others, he sent one of his men to find the Tundish, and then he made his promise individually that we would do exactly what he asked without any reservation, and that we would tell him everything we knew that had any batting on the matter. We took our places round the table. He at one end and the Tundish at the end.

other. I felt that the doctor's ordeal had begun, and I wondered what he would say about the key and whether he would make any statement about his quarrel with Stella the night before her death. But we were to be interrupted again. The man who had been stationed in the hole came in and whispered a few words in Alport's here. Alport nodded. Yes, sure and not once, he said in turning to the doctor, Miss Somerson has just returned. The plaincloth's man must have told her something of what had happen, because though she looked anxious and worried, she expressed no surprise when she came in and found her sitting round the table. She had already put on her white cover-all, and as she stood just inside the door with her hands clasped in front of her, and her fingers

working convulsively, I thought she made rather a lonely, piteous little picture. Some of the other, Miss Somerson, both surprised and intrigued me. Neither the lie she had told in the dispensary on the morning of my arrival, nor her gentle pallid, hesitating appearance seemed to be in keeping the character the Tundish had painted, and the neat, precise print I had been compelled to admire on the doctor's portals. She ought, by all the rules, to have been dark, decisive, efficient, and 50. And there she stood against the door. About 23, I thought, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands,

her colourless hair scrapped back into a kind of bun, her pale eyes with a fair lashes turning first to the doctor, and then to Alport, and a white face and cover-all, all helping to complete a picture that could represent incompetence and fright. I argued to myself that if normally she was efficient, then now she was afraid, and that if, on the other hand, she was not frightened now, then she could never be careful or precise, but to that conclusion the writing on the labels gave the lie.

So I guessed that she was badly scared. We were soon to learn one reason for embarrassment, however. For before Alport had time to ask her any question, she said in a voice that trembled with emotion, Doctor, I've lost the key to the poison compared, what can I do? What shall I do? Please tell us all about it, and if you can, when and where you lost it.

Alpert questioned in his iciest tones. I didn't miss it until I got to, she stammered, and then to our gentle discomfort chair, she reddened to the roots of her pale hair, put her hands to her face, and burst into tears. Ethel got up and went to her, while the rest of us waited unhappily for the flood of tears to abate. The detective looked angrily over his shoulder at the clock.

I never went at all, she sobbed at length, turning toward the tundish. I told you an untruth about going to milling him. I wanted the time off and thought that you would be more likely to let me go if I gave some definite reason. I'm so very sorry, she dried her eyes, and having made a little confession seemed to regain some of her composure. But what has all that got to do with your losing the key? Halport snapped. Please two answer my question.

She explained that she carried the keys in her special pocket that she wore underneath her skirt. They were apparently secured to a chain attached to some part of her underwear, 5 or 6 on one ring, and the key of the cupboard, being especially important, on a ring of its own, connected to the rest by a piece of leather lace. When she had opened the cupboard on Tuesday morning, she had noticed that the leather was becoming frayed

and had made up a mind to have it renewed. The key was there when she locked up the cabot at 3 o'clock the same afternoon, and she had put it back in her pocket, as usual, and had then gone home. She didn't notice that the lace was broken, and the ring with the key gone, until she unrest on going to bed. What did you do then? Nothing. What could I do? It was 11 o'clock.

But surely you ought to have come and told the doctor first thing in the morning. It was rather an important key to lose, wasn't it? Yes, but I thought that most likely it must have dropped out onto the dispensary floor. I don't use the pocket for anything but for the keys. Where were you this morning? In Manchester? Yes, first thing. And yet you didn't come to make sure that the key was safe.

No, and after some hesitation, I couldn't. Now, why couldn't you? Well, for one thing, I told Dr. Wallace that I was going to Millingham for the night when I wasn't. But it wasn't altogether that. What was it then? I don't want to tell you. But my dear young lady, you must tell me. This is not a game of clumps.

It's a serious matter. Come now. What is it that you don't want to tell me? I got engaged this morning. Oh, ho. Yes, but surely you could have spared just half an hour to ask about the key. But you see, I didn't know that I was going to get engaged. My fiancé came to stay with us yesterday afternoon.

He was going away by car first thing this morning, and we had arranged beforehand that I was to go as far as Boston with him, and then come back by train. We started at half-past six. I was upset about the key, but I wasn't going to give it all up. It, you see, it meant too much to me, and quite right too, came emphatically from the Tunnish. And, yes, I should think so indeed from Ethel.

Then it amounts to this, continued Alpo. who seemed quite careless to the girl's obvious and natural embarrassment, you had the key at three o'clock yesterday, and you missed it at eleven o'clock when you went to bed. I suppose you made a thorough search of all your pockets and your bedroom and so forth? Yes. Well then, will you please go into the dispensary and write down very carefully and in full detail exactly what you did and where you went between three and eleven o'clock yesterday?

That's all I want for the present. Miss Somerson had barely reached the door, however, when he called her back again and asked her to show him the other keys. She fumbled about underneath a cover-all and produced a small bunch of keys on a ring at the end of a chain. Tell me exactly how the other key was fastened to these. It was on a little ring by itself fastened to this ring by a short piece of leather lace. But what a most extraordinary arrangement. Why didn't you keep it on that ring along with the rest? It would have been safer, wouldn't it?

yes, I suppose so, but these are my own keys, and I wanted to keep the other separate. Why? Miss Somerson made no reply, but stood miserably in front of him, fiddling with a bunch of keys. You are sure that all this about the leather lace is not imagination? No, almost inaudibly, then. I mean to say, yes, there was a lace just like I've said. Have you ever seen this queer arrangement, doctor? The Tundish, I thought, hesitated for the merest fractured. of a second. Then he said pleasantly,

No, I don't think I have. I knew that Miss Somerson had the key secured to a chain, somewhat in the way she had described, but I never had any reason to handle the keys or ask her exactly how they were attached. Alport sat drumming with his fingers on the table for a time. Then he shrugged his shoulders and told her curtly that she could go, adding, please be careful to be exact on the report I've asked you to write out. Miss Somerson hurried from the room. The end of chapter 5.

Chapter 6 of the Dale House murder by Francis Everton. This Liberty Walk's recording is in the public domain, read by Yoganand. The Dale House Murder, Chapter 6. No one has found the key, I suppose, was Alport's first question as soon as Miss Somerson had shut the door. The maid would have reported it if she had found it when she swept out of the dispensit this morning, I suppose, Miss Hanson. Yes. but if you like I'll go and ask to make sure Ethel replied, no, don't bother to do that.

Then, after a pause, he asked, And which of you were in the dispensary last night after Miss Somerson locked the cupboard at three o'clock? Were you? He asked each of us the question, individually in turn, and it transpired that Ethel and the Tandish alone had passed from the hall into the dispensary itself, though I had been in the consulting room at the time of the accident to the boy.

I began to think that the inquiry would be a lengthy one, if each question were to be repeated so monotonous, but he seemed to take an enormous interest in our replies and to wait with a kind of cowlish excitement after each and by you as though he were hoping to catch us in the admission of an indiscretion i've often thought of that hour in the stifling dining-room at dale house as the most tense and exciting of my experience the little man seated at the end of the table was angrily determined to search out the truth in deadly earnest he looked at each speaker as one by one we answered his numerous questions but he found time to glance swiftly round the table now and again to see what impression this question or that had made on the rest of us, then back again like some hawk with its prey. While he seemed to have no method or order in framing his questions,

it soon occurred to me that a great many of them were put not so much for the purpose of getting any answer or even information, but rather to see what the effect of the question itself on the rest of us might be. The doctor sat bland and impassive through it all. Nothing disturbed him. His replies came out, swerve and sure. Never once did he hesitate. Not once did he give the impression of being on the defensive.

And I think it was this quality in his replies that rather accentuated the feelings of all of us as we sat unhappily round the table. To Ethel, I feel sure, and to me as well, his calm and his dignity were splendid. To Kenneth, I'm equally sure. They were nothing but an additional proof of guilt. I could gauge his every thought.

No one but a villain could keep dust collected in the face of such suspicion, innocence surely would have shown more concern. And he tell, how could she? She seemed to hang on the doctor's every word. From him to Alport, as the answer followed question, she turned a pretty head, hurt when the questions were brutal and direct,

proud and glad for the dignified reply. He a murderer, poisoner, and she, the girl whom he loved, I believe his soul was sick with jealousy. And Margaret and Ralph, I could see, him guilty too, but they were more aloof, they did not condemn, and they had some sort of feeling of pity. There we sat through a long, long hour, the blinds drawn against the streaming sun, the pleasant garden noises coming in through the open windows.

The clock ticked the time slowly and leisurely away, and once there was a sound of tramping feet on the stairs, as they carried Stella's body down to take it to the mortuary. The room was at fever heat, and our pulses raised as Alport torched us each in turn. And your key, Dr. Wallace, where do you keep it? Here, in my waistcoat pocket. Not a very safe place, surely. I've always found itself. You're sure it has not been out of your possession?

Yes, I could swear to that. What do you do with it at night? I don't do anything with it. I leave it in the pocket. And do you really think it's safe to carry a key of such importance loose in your waistcoat pocket? Yes, I think it is as safe there as, it would be anywhere else.

And now I want you to tell me about these, taking out his pocketbook, and unfolding the notice the Tundish had printed, and the two duplicates he and I had printed later on at breakfast. He turned to the doctor for information, and was told in detail about the practical joke

about a conversation at the garden, and about Kenneth's inquiry at the breakfast table. The Tundish spoke simply and to the point, omitting nothing, not even our arrangement to lie like troopers in efforts to mystify the rest. Hmm It all sounds rather extraordinary, you know, doctor

Not that I should have expected Of you somehow I take it there was no ulterior motive No, it was a practical joke and nothing more You don't think it necessary to tell the truth Then I gather on every occasion No, I don't The Tundish answered pleasantly

Come now, Mr. Alport You know that that is not quite a fair implication I maintain that anyone might have arranged the joke and then have agreed to bluff it out, as Mr. Jeffcock and I did. You might just as reasonably call a man a liar and a cheat because he was fond of a game of poker. But Alport took no notice of his protest and turned to Kenneth. You, I understand, conducted this inquiry. The doctor has confessed that he was responsible for the notice and for the disturbed bets.

How was it that you failed to find him out? What did you find out? We came to no definite conclusion at all. but I wasn't then aware that the doctor and Mr. Jeffcock only tell the truth when it happens to suit them, Kenneth answered with an ugly sneer. We were divided, but we all felt sure that it was one of the two. I think it is rather significant, however, the Dr. Wallace took good care to point out in great detail that any one of us had opportunity to be alone upstairs at some time either during the evening without being missed. He went out of his way to prove it, and now I know why he added turning to the doctor with a scout. Itel half sobbed

Oh, how abominable of you But Alport would brook no interruption And wrap the table with his knuckles directly She opened her mouth You think he stressed the point He asked turning once more to Kenneth Yes, I do And what have you got to say about it, Mr. Jeffcock?

I replied it, I considered that the Tundish had made an entirely accurate statement about the whole affair And that, while I agreed with Kenneth That it was he who had pointed out that we all had the chance of doing it. It was, in my opinion, the natural outcome of a plough to confuse the rest, and that I could not agree that any particular emphasis had been given to the point. I was surprised to see that Alport paid really serious attention to Kenneth's horrible suggestion.

He sat frowning, drawing his little squares and designs in a notebook he had placed on the table before him when the inquiry began, and in which, from time to time, he had jotted something down, while we sat round the table watching and anxiously waiting for water, he would say. Yes, I think it is rather important, he said at length, looking up from his book, and down the table to where the tundish sat facing him, his chair tilted back and his knees against the table edge. Do you mind repeating the arguments he used? But I've already admitted that it was I who stuck up the notice and play the silly practical jokes. Yes, you have, doctor, but that is not the point.

The implication is that, first you poison Miss Paul Freeman, then you play the practical joke, as you call it, and that at breakfast time this morning you went out of your way to prove that any one of the rest of the party also had the opportunity to play the joke in order to establish it clearly beforehand, that any one of you could have added the poison to the sleeping raft as well. Now please repeat, ask nearly word for word as you can, what you said at breakfast time that has caused the strange and unpleasant fancies to come to Mr. Dane. At first I thought the doctor was going to refuse.

He seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second, and then, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, he repeated the bantering arguments he had adopted earlier in the day. He not only repeated the words, but he seemed to create the atmosphere of the earlier scene as well. He put the clock back somehow. We were all sitting round the breakfast table again, and he was teasing Kenneth.

I could almost smell the coffee and the bacon. Even little Alport was impressed. Yes, that certainly sounds really. realistic and innocent enough, he laughed, but he went over it all again, nevertheless, forcing to make notes in his book, and asking each of us in turn to corroborate the statements the doctor had made. It was ultimately established that he had given Annie the medicine to take upstairs immediately before he had joined the other five, Stella, Margaret, Ethel and the two boys in the dining room for supper. I had been alone upstairs while it changed, and could have added

the poison either then or later when, as a matter of fact, I was wandering about in the garden just prior to the accident. Kenneth and Ralph had been together the whole evening, at least so they both said. It transpired that the two had gone to a neighbouring hotel for a drink and admission they made with some little shame, pleading the heat as their excuse. Hanson, I should explain, is rather a strict teetotaller and alcoholic drinks at Tabu at Dale House. Ethel was alone in the surgery wing for about ten minutes after the accident, clearing up the mess. Margaret had been left by herself in the basement all the time that Ethel was occupied upstairs. Having sorted out all her moments to his satisfaction and having completed his notes about them,

he got up and rang the bell at the side of the five players behind him. When Annie appeared to answer it, he surprised us all by asking whether the little heap of washing he had noticed on the dresser when he had searched the basement was the clothes that had been ironed the night before, and whether they had yet been put away. No, sir, they are still on the dresser. fetch them. She brought them and put them before him on the table, and he turned them over one by one, including the undergarments, about which Ethel and Margaret had both been so modest.

It certainly does not look like a two-hour job even allowing for the iron in the accident. I agree with you there, doctor. Not on peace work pay anyhow, he concluded as he came to the socks at the bottom of this pile. But where's the brother to this? He asked sharply, holding up an odd sock that I recognised as one of mine. it was marked on the side and he noticed it at once. F. H.J. Which of you two ladies ironed Mr. Jeffcock's socks?

We all looked at Ethel and Margaret, and they at each other. Neither of them spoke, and then they both began to speak at once. You did, I think. Finally, though neither of them seemed very certain about it, it was agreed that probably Ethel had ironed that particular pair, though she denied most emphatically having either brought the odd sock upstairs or put it away. The Tandish agreed that she had not brought it up with her from the basement by accident when he called for her to help him with a boy, and both Annie and the cook on being called in question asserted that they had neither of them touched it. At length Alport gave up and discussed his attempt to locate it, and picking up the heap of cloths threw them angrily into one of the armchairs that stood at the side of the fireplace.

Having done so, he seemed to make a new start and turned to me. Now, I want you to tell me honestly Mr. Jeffcock. went you just a little surprised when the doctor told you what he had done? Didn't you think it rather peculiar that a man of his age and position should play tricks of that description? I had to confess that I had. And what made you add what you did to the notice? Dark deeds are done at night. I don't know why I made the addition.

But it seems to me such a peculiar thing that you should have picked on those words. Did you know then that the bedrooms had been upset? No. Did you know that Miss Paul Freeman was dead when you made the addition? No, we none of us knew till breakfast time this morning. Possibly not. Possibly not. Possibly one of you did.

I could have twisted his ugly little neck. You knew that Dr. Valis had lived in China? Yes. And Miss Paul Freeman? Now I had been wondering whether I ought to disclose a conversation between Stella and the Tundish that I had overheard, and whether I was right or wrong, I don't know, but I had made up my mind that I would say nothing about it, at any rate, for the present. In the first place, it seemed to me that if it were deceitful of me to keep my knowledge from the police, it would be still more dishonest to tell them what I had heard.

It was a private and confidential conversation, which quite unwittingly I had been able to overhear by reason of my abnormal powers. I had promised Alpo to keep nothing relevant hidden, along with the rest, including the Tundish, but how was I to know that it was really relevant? Might I not have misinterpreted what I did here? Those caps in Stella's speech in how many different ways could they not be felt? Again, was it my business or part of my undertaking to report half-heard remarks?

If it had been something to do with Stella's death, then surely it was a matter for the Tundish and he, God knows, was heavily enough involved without my going out of my way to add to his burden by ranging myself for the side of Kenneth. And so right or wrong, I decided to keep the overheard conversation to myself, but I did not quite realize that my resolve would necessitate the lie direct. I soon found out, however, that it did, and that as soon as I had told the first, I had to back it with another. I don't know whether she knew it or not.

I ventured and replied to his question after a moment's hesitation. Please don't play with me, sir, the little man almost shouted. You know perfectly well that I was asking if you knew that Miss Paul Freeman had to be. lived in China. No, I don't know that. That I was asking if you knew that Miss Paul Freeman had lived in China? No, that she had ever lived in China. I lied as boldly as I could. Did you know that they had quarreled? No, I lied again. He stared at me, and I was not surprised, for even to me it had sounded too loud a denial and somehow unconvincing. He continued to stare, and I could feel the questioning glances of the rest as he kept my gaze defiantly on his.

but he made no further comment. Perhaps you will tell us about it, Doctor? No, I don't think I shall. The Tundish replied pleasantly. All I can tell you is this. Ms. Powell Freeman's father was in Shanghai for two years while I was resident there. He was representing the foreign office in a political mission. We became acquainted, and our acquaintanceship grew into friendship.

Then we quarreled. In fact, it was largely an account of a quarrel that I'd left China when I did. But I never at any time had any difference a quarrel. with Miss Paulfrey man. She naturally enough took her father's side in our dispute. I don't know whether she knew any of the facts. The facts, I mean from a father's viewpoint. Of the true facts, only myself and one other were ever aware. Anyhow, she quite incorrectly thought that I ruined a father, and she disliked me accordingly. We only referred to the matter once during her visit here, and that was on the evening before her death when I tried to persuade her to forgive the past.

A father committed suicide, but if necessary I can prove conclusively that I had nothing whatever to do with the trouble that came to him. All I can tell you now is that I made a certain solemn promise that I intend to keep. That promise makes it impossible for me to tell you more than I have alder day. We are to accept your word for it then, doctor, that this time at any rate you are telling the truth, the detective sneered. That time must leave to your own discretion, the Tundrish answered with a pleasant smile quite impervious to the little man's incident. Then there followed a battle royal between the two of them, and the ugly little spitfire was for full ten minutes, persuasive, cutting, rude and threatening in turn, but the doctor sat unmoved through it all.

He refused even to answer yes and no to the many leading questions that were put to him, and beyond saying that he had no idea that Miss Paul Freeman was a girl he had known in Shanghai until he met her at the club, and that she was about 18 years old when he returned to England, he replied, I have nothing more to say to him. every question. Eventually, Alport gave up the unequal contest and returned his attention to Ethel. How long had she known Dr. Wallace? Did she know that he knew Stella before she asked her to stay at Delos for the tournament? Some of his questions were brutal, I thought, and seemed to be framed with a view to causing the maximum of annoyance, and I felt that it was only the realization of the

danger in which the doctor stood that made her able to bear the ordeal. I understand you're engaged to be married to Mr. Dane? No. No? No? but I certainly understood that you were. Ethel crimson and was silent, and Kenneth burst out with angry. But I say that can't have anything to do with Miss Paul Freeman's death. Alport held up his fat, podgy little hand in angry protest. That you must please leave for me to decide.

Either you must answer my question, or we must deal with the matter in a more formal manner. This, he said, with a threatening glance at the doctor. There was silence, and he continued. Come now, Miss Hanson, Why did you break off your engagement? Poor Ethel was very near to tears, but she started her answer bravely.

We deferred over Dr. Valis. Mr. Dane objected, Oh, but I can't tell you. It was too much for her, and she put her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. It was all ghastly, and I felt that a public inquiry could not be worse than these intimate exposures.

But Alport was immoable, inexorable. You are very fond of Dr. Wallace, then? Ethel nodded but did not look up. Very fond? Does that mean you are in love with him? No, she whispered. I could bat it no longer. Murder or no murder, I said. You have no right to ask questions like that.

Alport held up his hands in despair. You don't understand. You simply can't understand the position you are all of you in. Yes, all of you. Suppose Dr. Valis where brought a trial. What sort of questions do you? imagine the counsel for the difference would ask you? Isn't it better to talk to me here privately? You don't imagine I enjoy this kind of thing, I suppose? I heard Kenneth mutter. I'm not so sure of that,

but the Tunders pacified him with a genial. Yes, Mr. Alport, you're right, of course. But you can't expect us to enjoy it very much either. I'm sure you'd better tell him anything you can, he concluded turning to Ethel. But you're not willing to follow your own advice, Dr. Alport snapped. I told you all I was at liberty to tell you. I didn't resent any of your questions. The little detective shrugged her shoulders. Well then, Miss Hanson. I am to understand that you broke off your engagement with Mr. Dane,

because you deferred from him over this unfortunate affair, and that you are very fond of the doctor here, but that you are not in love with him. Is that correct? I suppose it's near enough, Ethel whispered. Now, I want you to answer this very carefully. had you noticed anything between the doctor and his poultry man? Had you any reason at all to suspect that while she disliked the doctor,

he might have had other feelings with regard to her? No. It's quite absurd. He hardly knew her. Pardon me, he has just informed us that for two years, her father was one of his most intimate friends. You're not asking me to believe that he hardly knew the daughter who was 18 at the time? Then, leaning over the table and speaking very slowly, he asked her, did you know where the Chinese poison was kept? Exactly which portlet was in, I mean?

Yes. And roughly what its action was? Yes. So that if you had found the key, Miss Somersen says she lost, you would have had no difficulty in getting at it and using it in the way it has been used? No, I suppose not. Ethel replied bravely, but going as white as a sheet. Next, he turned quite suddenly to Margaret.

And what were the papers you burned in your bedroom, Great Miss Hunter? I didn't burn any papers. Oh, please think carefully now. Surely you did burn something. I found the chart pieces there myself. And Annie has told me she cleaned out the grate only the morning before. What was it that you burned?

I didn't burn anything. Not a photograph, for instance? I didn't burn anything at all. I really didn't. Then you expect me to believe that someone else went into your room for the purpose of burning paper in that particular grade? Margaret made no reply to this, and Alport went on

to question her closely about where she had lived in Sheffield. At which school had she taught? Why did she leave it? Did she have to work for a living? Then there followed a whole string of rapid questions concerning a previous knowledge of Ralph. How far apart did they live? Did they belong to the same tennis club?

Did she see him once a month? once a week once a day had they ever been engaged to each other if he had been brutal to ethel he was like a dog with the bone of a poor margaret and after ten minutes or so she was white-faced too and holding on to the edge of the table ralph was barely able to contain himself but the little man almost growled at any interruption i'll have the truth i'll have the truth he cried and he paused only when he had reduced her to tears a sigh of relief went round the table the tundish lighted another cigarette. I hope that we were nearing the end, but he started off again quite pleasantly, his anger and excitement apparently having evaporated as quickly as they had horizon. He questioned Kenneth and Ralph, and then me again, and at the end of his questions, I think there was nothing in connection with our friendship with Hansons or a knowledge of one another that he didn't know. And now about the key of Miss Paul Freeman's bedroom, he said,

looking at the doctor when he had satisfied himself that he could extract no more information from me. What made you lie about it to Mr. Jeffcock? I beg your pardon. I did not lie, the Tundish replied with tinkling eyes. You are prepared to swear then that you left the door unfastened with the key in the lock? I certainly left the door

unlocked. I know nothing about the key. And yet, when Dr. Jeffreys went upstairs, the door was locked and the key too had gone. So I understand. Someone must have locked it, you know? Why, yes, certainly. And you still asked me to believe that you didn't, I can only repeat that I didn't. I was sitting next to Alport

and at right angles to him round the table corner. I felt his foot pressing gently against my leg and I looked up at him in surprise. Kenneth sat directly opposite to me and the little man was turned toward him a malicious smile on his ugly, clever face. And you didn't lock the door by any chance, I suppose, Mr. Dane?

His foot pressed hard against my leg again and he suddenly realized that he could not reach my foot but that he sat perched in his chair like a child with his tiny legs a dangle. Good Lord, no, Kenneth said. Whatever makes you ask me that? Oh, only because I happened to find the key in your bedroom, underneath the pillow. He gave my leg another little dick to remind me again of the promise I had made him on the landing when the inspector brought him the key that had been found in the doctor's pocket.

I must always reflect with shame on what followed, but I think that to some extent the heat of the room and the misery of all we had been through must have thrown us off a balance. We had gone beyond the limit of our endurance. There was a death-like silence after Alport had made his startling, and to my knowledge alone, untruthful statement. Kenneth was too taken aback to speak. His shot dropped open and his astonishment. He might have seen a ghost.

A Vasp flew in through one of the open windows and bust angrily over our heads, and I remember thinking of myself, Lord, here's another wasp. Then Ethel gave a little half-hysterical titter, and there must have been something infectious in its quality. For Margaret followed suit with a high hysterical laugh, and before I knew what had happened, and I swear without any conscious effort of my part, I was laughing at him, too. Ralph joined in, and there we sat round the table like mad people. It was unspeakably horrible and grotesque, murder and misery and death in the air, and the forefront was locked in the grip of helpless laughter. Margaret's was true hysteria.

Peel of shrill horror followed Peel. Ralph rumbled out a deep base, and I shook helplessly in my chair, the tears streaming down my cheeks. Alport sat at one end of the table. His stimulative face puckered up into a disapproving frown, the tundish at the other, placid and unconcerned. Kenneth went white as death,

and then the blood rushed back, flooding his face with an angry crimson as he rose slowly and unsteadily to his feet. You love it. You lie! He gasped in a low voice, husky with rage. You put it there, you murderous, bloody gad! He shouted furiously, pointing a shaking hand at the doctor.

Then before we realized what he was about, or could do anything to stop him, he turned round and picking up his chair by the back, he swung it over his head and hurled it down the table. He was strong and his uncontrollable rage added to his strength. The chair hit the table a foot or two in front of the Tundish, who instinctively put up a hand to watch. it off. The back caught his lifted arm, swung it round as if it were on a pivot, one of the legs catching Ethel as it swiveled round with terrific force straight across the mouth.

There was a startled cry and a flash of blood. The chair crashed to the floor between them. The Tundish jumped to his feet in a second and half fled, half carried her out of the room. Kenneth stood rigid, his face still scarlet, his rage still holding him. You turn it on you, poisoning cad, he yelled as the doctor vanished through the door. then he seemed suddenly to regain control and added in a low voice my god what have i done alport sprang to his side and dragged him down into his chair you had better sit down my friend he said and then turning to me he asked me to go and see if the doctor wanted any help I ran along to the consulting room to find Ethel flat on her back on the couch, and the tundish bending over her. Ah, thanks, Jeffcock, he said as I came up to him. I want a little help.

I fetched him basin and water and cotton wool, and he was soon at work with his deft and steady fingers. There was something bordering on the unnatural in his unruffled calm. It was not only that he was undisturbed, but it was the idea he gave of hidden reserve that impressed me so much. Nothing, I felt, in heaven or earth, natural or social. supernatural could move this quiet, pleasant man, and as I watched him tenderly at work, I remember the fearful danger he was in. I pictured him actually on the scaffold, the rope about his neck, the hangman ready to pull the fatal bolt and drop him to God alone no swear. My fancy even led me to the length of wondering how he would stand with folded arms and bended head. No, too melodramatic that.

Smoking a cigarette, perhaps? No again. that would say were too much of braggadocio finally i decided that he would in probability be blowing his nose i suppose that my little flight of cowlish fancy cannot have lasted for more than a second or so but he looked up at me amused almost as though he had guessed whither my thoughts had wandered come jeffcock you had better go back and tell them there isn't very much a mess they'll be anxious you know a badly cut lip and a couple of lucent teeth are the extent of the damage he was sitting on the edge of the edge of the the couch and as I closed the door behind me I heard Ethel whisper softly. Oh, Tundice tear, what a rock you are. What should I do without you? Was it my fancy? Had my hearing for once played me false? Or did he really reply? Well, why should you, Ethel, darling? The end of chapter six. Chapter 7 of the Dale House murder by Francis Everton. This Liberty-Wox recording is in the public domain, read by Yoganand

The Dale House Murder Chapter 7 I argue with Kenneth Up to this point in my story while as was only natural I had some doubt about the Tundish He certainly had all my sympathy

If Ethel was his most outspoken champion I was more than ready to endorse her opinions While she showed by every possible action And by every look that she was sure of his innocence, desolated by his own plight and ready to take his part against those of a party who were less inclined to ignore the evidence against him,

I was less demonstrative, and I think I'm more tolerant of the opinions held by Kenneth and to a less degree by Margaret and Ralph, but I was quite eager to feel as sure as she was about his innocence. I was ready to set down the finding of the key in his coat-pocket, his unsatisfactory account of his dealings with Stella's father, and all the other evidence that indicated his guilt so strongly as nothing more than a string of coincidences,

mere unfortunate accidents of circumstances, that time and patience would be sure to explain a way. Indeed, when I look back, I am always astonished at the way the doctor dominated our little party. He made no effort to clear himself. He accepted all the damning facts that told so heavily against him without either attempting to belittle or explain them away, and then he simply ignored the whole uncomfortable position. Kenneth and Ethel quarreled openly. Margaret, Ralph and I were worried and ill at ease.

he, in danger of immediate arrest, and the end of his medical career, alone remained calm and undisturbed, but somehow I did not like the idea of his falling in love with Ethel, or at any rate making any open declaration of his feelings. It was not only that I felt that it added yet another note to the general discord. It was unseemly and inappropriate, it was deliberately inconsiderate. And it was from this time that I began to wonder if Kenneth's attitude were not more reasonable than I had at first supposed it, and that my admiration for the doctor began to be more troubled in its quality. I admired him still, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that just conceivably my admiration might be misplaced. I returned to the dining room and reported on Ethel's condition.

Kenneth sat at the end of the table in the chair that little Alport had been occupying. His own still lay in the floor where he had hurled it. He was looking straight before him, a picture of plum despair. It has often occurred to me that people of a quick and ready, temper must be altogether lacking so far as any sense of humor is concerned, and these hot bursts of passion must leave such a feeling of ridicule and shame that only those insensible to both could afford to indulge. Kenneth, however, was not of the hot temper type, and as I saw him seated morosely at the end of the table, I was both sorry and concerned. Sorry for him,

wholeheartedly sorry, concerned for the future. How were we to get through the next few days? I wondered, with the doctor and Ethel and Kenneth all confined within the ten-foot wall, that circled Dale House and its secluded sun-baked garden. Barely six hours had passed since Ethel had left the breakfast table to waken Stella, and yet here we were, all at loggerheads and enmity, Ethel's and Kenneth's engagement broken, probably beyond repair, the doctor making love to Ethel, if my hearing had not played me trick,

Kenneth giving way to violence and the hurling of chairs, each one of his busy with his own dark thoughts and conjectures. How were we to get through the hours that, ahead? Alport was writing up some notes in his notebook and looked up as I made my statement. Well, that's a mercy at any rate, he grumbled, and with a glance over his shoulder at the clock, will the doctor be long before he is back? I want to see him again, and I must leave the house by three o'clock. Would you mind telling him, and ask Miss Somerson to bring me the statement she has been writing out? I had forgotten all about Miss Somersen, but I hurried back along the passage

to the consulting room to give the Tundish to the detective's message. Itil was still on the couch, lying on her back, with the lower part of her face heavily bandaged. Her raised eyebrows by way of a smile of greeting, it was all she could do, poor girl, and in answer to my question as to the doctor's wadabotts, she pointed to the door of the dispensary. I found him standing against a desk holding a sealed envelope in one hand. To my astonishment, he was humming a gentle air. Here is Miss Somerson's report, he laughed. But where? Oh, where is Miss Somerson herself? I don't think our little friend will be over-pleased Wally? Do you mean to say she is gone? Yes, and after all she wasn't definitely

told to stay. However, let us take her report to Alport and hear what he has to say. We found the little man watch in hand. Oh, here you are at last, he said. I've got exactly five minutes left, and these are my instructions. You, Dr. Valis, can go on your rounds as usual. It might appear too extraordinary to do not, but one of my men is to act as chauffeur. I've already arranged it with Inspector Brown. If anyone ask questions, as no doubt they will, you ought to say that Ms. Palfreyman died in a sleep

and that the police are arranging for a post-mortem to find out the cause if they can. You can say it's a mystery, as indeed it is, and you need mention neither suicide, no murder. I don't know will be your best answer to most of the questions you are likely to be asked.

Apart from the doctor, none of you is to leave the house and garden, and you are not to make any mention of Ms. Paul Freeman's death either over the telephone or by letter. Miss Hanson, for instance, is not a right to a father or mother about it. There'll be a formal inquest the day after tomorrow, which you will have to attend. But I am arranging it so that practically no question at all will be asked here. It'll be a purely formal affair, postpone until after my return.

Then he added after a brief pause, I've been wondering whether you should like one of my men to sleep in the house? What do you say, Miss Hunter? Margaret looked at him wide-eyed. "'Shallick, that is hardly necessary,' she said. "'It shall be as you wish, if Miss Hanson and the others agree. "'I'll ask Miss Hanson myself. "'How do you feel about it, Mr. Dane?'

"'Kennett looks stonily ahead and refused to answer. "'Alport shrugged her shoulders, saying, "'Well, if you feel safe and the doctor here agrees as well, "'Miss Hunter shall have a way. "'I don't imagine you're likely to have any more trouble, "'at least no trouble that any man of mine could prevent.' "'And now, where's Miss Summend?' "'She has gone,' said the Tundush.

"'I found this address to you on the desk in the dispensary just now. "'The devil she has!' He tore open the envelope and hastily read the contents, a sarcastic smile twisting his sloppy mouth. Then he included us all in a stiff, formal little bow, and left the room. A few minutes later, we heard the front door bang, and we were alone once more left to our own resources. Another devastating silence.

A silence, which awkward and uncomfortable as it was, it seemed yet more awkward to break, settle down on us. Kenneth made no moment, and we four stood tongue-tied, looking first at him, and then at one another. The doctor was at first to speak. A cold bath and a change is a proper prescription for all of us I fancy. But if the inspector can lend me a bodyguard, I have one or two patients who will be feeling neglected. Ethelot to go to a room and lie down. Margaret, will you try to persuade her too?

She is to keep the bandage on until I come back. then a piece of plaster will be all that is required. You needn't feel that she's badly hurt, Kenneth? God to hell, was Kenneth's comment. I'll go to my patience first, the Tandush replied pleasantly. I'll order tea for half-past four, and as this room is so hot, I'll tell Annie to set it in the garden. I was glad when he was gone.

I could see that his good-temper tolerance acted like a red rag to a bull as far as Kenneth was concerned, and I feared another explosion. Margaret departed to sea after Ethel, and I went to the telephone. to explain my lengthened holiday as well as I might to Brenda. I got through promptly, but I found my talk more difficult than I had anticipated. The line was clear, and she was full of awkward questions. Are you in the finals then? She queried an adjusting voice that was anything but complimentary. No, but I'm staying on over Thursday, and perhaps until the end of the week. I thought you were to

be in London on Friday? That'll have to be postponed. I can't help myself. I shall get back as soon as I can, but it may not be till Saturday. You do sound mysterious and not a bit as of you are enjoying yourself. What on earth's the matter? There's nothing the matter, and I'll let you know more exactly when I shall be home as soon as I can. You must hold your curiosity and check until you see me. Oh, I say, and then with a giggle that sounded doubly inane over the wire, have you gone and done it at last?

I put the receiver down with the bang. Why unearthed it? Brenda always imagined that it was on the brink of a matrimonial adventure? she was nearly as bad as the diminutive Alport. A bath and a change of cloths brought some relief from the depressing heat. I had an encounter with Kenneth which went very far to nullify it and I came to the conclusion that I had better leave matters alone and that peace would be attained only if those of us who differed could keep apart.

He was coming out of the bathroom as I came out of my bedroom to go downstairs. His dark blue dressing-gown open at the throat and showing the splendid proportions of his chest. I asked if I could come along with him and have a chat while he dressed. Why, yes, of course, he answered pleasantly enough. He phoned me cigarettes and matches and pulled out a wicker-armed chair. Look here, how are we going to get through the time until Alport releases us? I began with some little hesitation. Can't we arrange some sort of a compromise? Surely we have compromised. At any rate, we have agreed to put up with him for a couple of days.

Yes, but that's not much good. If you and he are going to quarrel whenever you meet, I venture. it. Won't you try to believe that he may be innocent, until Alport has gone into it a little further? No, I won't. You mean well, Jeffcock, I know, but it's no good. You think I'm unreasonable, but just ask yourself how you would like it if you were in my place. He commits a cold-blooded murder and then takes advantage of Ethel's absurd hero-worship to persuade her to break off her engagement with me. Ever since I first knew her, she has been singing his praises. But you can't be as certain as all that, I insisted, and I don't believe he has said a single thing to try to persuade Ethel to break away from you. In fact, he asked me to do my best to keep you together, to

prevent your falling apart over him. And besides that, even if most of the evidence points to him, we are all of us pretty well tared with the same brush. I knew all about the poison and so did Ethel. The key of the bedroom door was found under your pillow, you know? I added rather maliciously. Yes, and who put it there? He questioned. Why, he did. Of course he did. And the rest of of you will be willing to believe every word he says. He is only to ask you to keep ethel and meet together. Damn his impudence. And you immediately believe that he is a paragon of unselfish piety,

a sort of martyr sacrificing himself for others. Do you honestly mean to tell me that you have no doubts about the man yourself? I can't conceive it possible that either he or you or any of the other could have done such a thing. But Stella was murdered, you know? You simply can't get away from it. opportunity, motive, everything points as clearly as it can to the doctor. It's possible to overlook what he said, or rather what he didn't say, about his quarrel with his father, and then she's found poison the day after arrival.

And quite apart from all that, the way he allows Ethel to slop over him is sufficient to damn him, in my opinion. No real man would encourage it when she was engaged to me. Then he puts the key under my pillow so that she may begin to have doubts about me. "'Nonsense, I cried. "'Ethel hasn't any ideas of the kind. "'Even I know are very well enough for that. "'As for the key, any one of us could have put it under your pillow. "'And after all, we have only the detective's word for it

"'that it was found there at all. "'Oh, don't be a fool. Of course it was found there. "'You can talk about it until you are blue in the gills, "'but I shall still believe him a poisoning.' "'He was lacing up his shoes, and one of the lasers broke with a snap. "'It was a last straw. "'Curs him,' he cried. you say how are we going to get through the time till Alport comes back

he'll be damned lucky if he gets through without a broken neck and in heaven's name what good would that do you I asked good why the same sort of good that it does to me to tell you that you are nothing but a blinking fool clear out I went I felt that I was doing more harm than good and that I almost deserved his description my original estimate of his character had been correct there were no grace for Kenneth On the landing, I stood for a moment

considering whether I would go back to my room and sit there till tea time, or try to find some shady spot in the garden. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think. But there was another little surprise awaiting me. As I stood, I heard a swishing noise on the stairs leading up to the floor above. It was too intermittent to have been made by one of the maids sweeping down. A shuffle and then a gentle pad, pad, pad,

and then another shuffle. My curiosity was aroused. I couldn't make it out. I tiptold along the landing to the foot of the stairs. It was Margaret. She was down on her hands and knees searching for something. She was patting the pile of the stair carpet, and that had made the padding noise that had attracted my attention. There was something feverish and urgent about the way she searched.

Hello. Lost anything? I called out. She stopped a search quite suddenly and did not answer me at once. The post was perhaps no longer than a second, but it was there. Why? Yes. I've dropped a six-pence. It's so unlucky on the stairs, you know, and I think it must have rolled into a crack. I have just been up to tell Annie that Ethel wants a tea in a room.

Never mind it, I'll tell Annie to keep her eyes open for it. We went downstairs, she to her bedroom and I to the hole below, where I nearly ran full tilt into Annie at the top of the basement stairs. I sauntered out into the garden and lighted my pipe. I had paced once along the lawn and the shade of the cedar, and was retracing my steps towards the house when Margaret came to meet me. "'Have you seen Annie anywhere?' she queried. "'Yes. She came up the basement stairs as he came down just now.

"'Oh, did you tell her about Ethel's tea?' "'No. I thought you had been up to the top landing to tell her that. "'I did, but she wasn't there in a room. "'I'll just run in her tell her, and then come back to you. "'I do so want a quiet talk with someone sensible and sane.' "'She hurried back to the house and opened a couple of deck chairs "'and sat down to await her return. "'How I wanted an opportunity for an arse, quiet thought.

But the heat and the midges were terrible. They were all pervading. They swamped thought and everything else. There must be, I thought, some pernicious influence at work. On my previous visits, I had always been impressed with the calm and ordered life at Dale House. I had enjoyed sitting out in this lovely sheltered garden after dinner with Hansen, pipes-going, conversation natural and unlaboured, while the light faded away to leave the great cathedral silhouated in black against the sky. The cathedral still towered up above the garden wall, but that was all of calm and peace that remained.

Even before the awful discovery of Stella's death, I had sensed an uncomfortable restraint in the air. And now every little incident and every simple conversation seemed fraught with some hidden meaning and double purpose. I could not even accept Margaret's simple assertion that she had lost her six-penny bit on the stairs without wondering why she should have been handling money on the way to speak to Annie. Could she have pulled it out with a handkerchief? I began to ponder on how and where girls carried them. I found that I was very vague about it, but I had a general impression that pockets no longer existed,

and that even if they carried passes at all, they did not have to extract them when a handkerchief was required. What did they do with their money? No, it somehow did not seem natural and reasonable that she should have dropped of sixpence on those stairs, but why she should lie to me about it, or for what else she could have been looking so urgently if she had lied? I could not guess.

Looking over a conversation, I found that I could not remember whether she told me she had actually given Annie a message or not, but I almost certainly had the impression that Annie was upstairs in a room, or why should I have been so surprised when I ran into her a moment later at the top of the basement stairs? Margaret came and sat down in the deck chair beside me. She had brought out a red parasol with her, and as she lay back in a chair, it heightened the rosy color in a pink and white cheeks and tinted her golden hair of ruddy bronze. She heaved a little sigh of satisfaction As she settled down against her cushions Rather like a cat she was a thought Where cushions and comfort were concerned She made a luxury of them

I wonder how long this is going to last She said pensively And then after a pause You know I have a sort of feeling that it's this awful eat That is making things so terrible It gives to everything a feverish Unnatural kind of air I'm so glad to hear

They are having praise for rain in the cathedral I assented and continued to puff away silently my pipe. Annie came out with a tray and began to set out the tea things on a little table in the shade of the house. The cathedral chimed the quarter after four, and so hot and still was it that the last fading note left the air pregnant with unvoiced vibrations. The clash of clapper on hot metal in the high cathedral tower, the dull boom of the note, and then the air thick with cows of sound. It came to me that there were some similar quality in the Embarrass silences that seemed to stand out so sharply from all the conversations.

The air was full of the thoughts we were all afraid to voice. Mr. Jeffcock, she continued after time. I want you to promise not to be vexed. But I do so long to ask you a question, I nodded. Are you sure you won't mind? Promise? She repeated, holding up one finger with a cockatish air. I promise I won't show it anyhow, I returned.

Well, she continued. You remember? Tell me, did you put the key under Kenneth's pillow? I was aghast. There was a little puzzle frown on her face. I looked at her closely, but she gave me a look for look. I did no such thing. What on earth made you think that I did? I replied trying to keep my voice pleasant and unconcerned. Why, I have been thinking it over, and it simply can't have been anyone else. Oh, it's all so thrilling. You remember, just before Dr. Wallace went out to see his patient this morning, I came up from the basement with some things for Ethel and met you on. in the hall? Yes, I remember that. Well, you know how the basement stairs go down under the main stairs up from the hall to the first landing? I don't know if you have noticed how plainly you can hear anyone on the stairs just about, but I could swear that as I came up from the kitchen, I heard someone tiptoeing down them over my head. I did really, Mr. Jeffcock, then I found you in the hall.

Wasn't it queer? Do you really mean to say that it wasn't you? No, it most certainly was not I. I was at the telephone until just before you appeared, and I never left the hall at all. I hesitated whether to tell her how I too had fancied that I heard a stealthy tread on the stair, but a good five minutes must have passed between what I heard and the time when she came up from the basement, for I had continued to speak to the police station, and then I had spoken to the tundish after that. Could the noise I thought I had heard have been someone creeping up the stairs, not downed them, but in that case who could it possibly have been? Everyone, including the Tundush, could then be a countered-for.

I decided to say nothing at all about it. Instead, I asked her as pleasantly as I could. And have you conveyed your rather unkind suspicions to any one of the others? No. Oh, no, she replied, and I really did not mean to be unkind. But the whole affair is so puzzling. Things happen. There's no one to make them happen. There's no good solid reason for anything.

then after a little pause she added do you think then that kenneth threw away the medicine glass i suppose that he must have done it and then have locked the door to stella's room and put the key under the pillow in his own meaning to throw it away as well a little later on but why oh why should he do it he can't have done it i reminded her he was in the dining room with ethel and ralph all the time don't worry your head about it leave it to alport here's annie with the tea Annie put the teapot on the table and was just on the point of returning to the house when she turned round and called out good-naturedly oh please miss I found your sixpence Thank you so much Annie Where was it on the landing miss

Oh it must have rolled down then after all I'm so glad It's so unlucky in the stairs It was the first time I'd heard the theory That ill luck followed the dropping of money on a staircase But Margaret was famous for such quaint little superstitions About ladders, umbrellas the moon and so forth, and she was continually throwing salt over shoulders, or doing something

equallyly to save herself from catastrophe. She was half a generation behind the times I think, but she was so good-natured and simple over at all, and we readily forgive her upsetities, and the many conversational bricks she dropped. Anyhow, I thought to myself, that solved the mystery of the girl who searched the stairs and fevered haste, and I wondered how many of the other little incidents on which I had pondered, and how many of the intriguing remarks had overheard might not be capable of explaining in a similarly simple manner. We found that the table had been laid for three, Kenneth and Ralph doubtless, with the view of avoiding the doctor, having decided to stay indoors for their tea. We removed the little table from the back of the house to the shade of the cedar tree,

and the Tundish joined us just as we were sitting down. I envy the easy way in which he kept the conversation going, without once touching or obviously appearing to avoid the unhappy subject of all the thoughts. There had been a stack-fire at the Caterson's form. mile or two out of the city. A horse had been burned to death. Cannon's Searle had been nearly drowned on holiday at Bournemouth, cramp, when he was swimming out of his depth, so on and so forth for a full 20 minutes. It was a relief to hear someone talking naturally and lightly about nothing in particular, and then he pulled up sharply in the middle of his sentence. I looked up to see what had caught his attention. Two men were coming in through the door

in the wall at the end of the surgery wing. Each held one end of a ladder. They proceeded to rear it up, against the coping of the flat-top roof onto which Stella's bedroom window looked. Then they produced a pair of shares in a small saw and began to clip the tangled mass of large-leaved ivy. Are the gardeners? Margaret asked. Police,

the Tundish replied laconically and added, toning for glass. Margaret emitted a little, oh! We heard the telephone ring faintly in the hall and the doctor left us. We too continue to watch the gardeners. The thing that we longed to forget was back with us.

again. The end of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of the Dale House Murder by Francis Everton. This Libby Vox recording is in the public domain, read by Yoganand. The Dale House Mada

Chapter 8 Dr. Hanson's case book. For pleasure comfort of any sort, it was too hot in the Walgud garden, but merely to be away from the house brought a certain sense of ease and rest, sitting under the old shady cedar, it was easier to keep dark thoughts away and difficult to realize that the

homely-looking red brick house was a shelter for murder and crime. Difficult to realize that at some hour during the previous night, the little Chinese flagon had been secretly lifted from its place on the shelf among its almost equally deadly little neighbors. Lifted, oh so gently, and the queer flat-stopper quietly removed from its fragile, slender neck, then just a tilt, and drip, drip, drip, a few drops added to the contents of a tapering glass and at some hour of the hot still night, Pirstella had slipped out of sleep into death.

Whose hand, I wondered, had said that murderous little bottle back in its place? Was it a hand that trembled and shook, or was it steady and deft like the hands I had seen, so swiftly busy with the bandages around a small boy's face? Inspector Brown's two gardeners were making laborious work of their search. The end of the roof where the ivy grew was full on the blaze of the sun and coats and waistcoats were in turn discarded. There were intuils for chatty little rest and the mopping of faces.

In three quarters of an hour a very small bit of the roof had been dealt with and I calculated that it would be dark before the hole could be cleared unless progress was speeded up. The inspector was evidently of the same opinion, for he came in while we were watching and we soon heard his loud-voiced complaints across the lawn. A little later the party was increased to three. They clear the roof methodically, a foot at a time. When the main strands of the tangled growth had been cut and disentangled, they were carefully shaken out and thrown to the lawn below. The loose leaves on the roof were examined and put into a bucket.

These, having been removed, the smaller bits were collected together and riddled through a sieve. The siftings were swept aside, and the remainder carefully searched. Then another few strands were cut, and the process repeated. Margaret and I watched them idly as we said, their clippings and the noise of the bucket as it was handled up and down from the roof punctuating our desultory conversation. I fancy we were both meditating with lazy inconsequence on the day's evenings, and a few remarks reflected our meditations. We are sure to have some of them down from the club to make inquiries this evening, I said.

Yes, it'll be rather awkward, what it? A long pass in which I puffed away leisurely at my pipe, and she lay back gently rotating a red parasol. don't you think we ought to have some definite understanding about what we are all of us going to say when call us do appear we are sure to have no and directly it gets about the hansets nearly everyone dares to know in marchester and i can assure you from my own experience that we simply can't be beaten where curiosity is concerned she moved a chair round as she spoke to get a better view of the surgery wing i think that you are right i said knocking the ashes out of my pipe i'll have a word with the doctor about it he would deal with them better than any of she agreed but he may not be here all the time and I can't imagine that either Ethel or Kenneth would excellent job. They are both too, she paused for a word. Exactly I laughed. They are both of them too and you can leave it at that. We fell back on the meditations and I thought

what a peaceful drowsy's scene it would have made if only the men at work on the roof had been gardeners indeed and Margaret and I remnant of some pleasant social gathering. Gardner is plunding an ivory tree for next year's more vigorous growth, hope for the future and life. Plainclothes policemen searching for a piece of poison glass, murder and death. The cathedral chimes rang out again and rooster's boat. It was six o'clock. We had sat in the garden for nearly an hour. We got up and went back to the house. She to go to Ethel and I to find the tundish. He was in the dispensary, the coolest spot in the house.

His feet on the desk in front of him and his chair tilted back at a dangerous angle. he was scowling at the manuscript in which he was deeply engrossed. No, I had anticipated his pleasant, hello, Jeffcock, but it was met with a frown and a curtly spoken, well, it was the first time I had seen him either bothered or abrupt. The heat of the past few days, which had prostrated the rest of us, and made his irritable and touchy, had not been sufficient to sap his energy or sore as sweet temper. I remember that, in addition to facing the appalling position in which he found himself here at a tailhouse,

he had had to rush away directly after breakfast to some other scene of illness and distress. He had hurried back through the sweltering heat to meet the asperians of Alport and the angry attack of Kenneth. Throughout the fevered day he had been calm, kindly and unruffled. A rock, as Ethel had whispered for all of us to lean on. I was surprised, therefore, to find him frowning and sharp-spoken, and he either saw my surprise, or else he read my thoughts, for he closed the book with a bang, took his feet off the desk, and stood up saying,

Sorry, Jeffcock, old man, but I've got an insipient hump. In my opinion, you've been through enough to turn you into a veritable dromedary, so far as hums are concerned, I answered. Oh, that, you mean my strong position as favorite for the gallows' stakes? No, my dear Jeffcock, to be perfectly truthful, that bothers me not at all.

Death is a friend we shall all have to shake by the hand. It's this depressing little record of unwholesome happenings and disease that nearly gave me a fit of the blues. I looked at the book with interest. It's Hanson's casebook, he answered my unspoken question. Such books should be burnt, burnt, and then the ashes scattered at sea, for half the world's unhappiness springs from the disorders that we docked us write up so secretly in our casebooks, and keep hidden away under lock and key.

He flicked the pages between finger and thumb with a look of sad disgust as he spoke. He said, as he replaced the book on a drawer in the desk, which he pushed home with an angry bang. I asked him what he thought. we ought to say to any callers who might come, and whether we had not better have some agreement among ourselves as to how much information we were to give them when they came. Why, yes, of course, we must, he said pleasantly. I hope that I shan't have to go out again tonight, and probably I'd better see anyone who calls

while I'm here. I shall be able to choke them off more easily than Ethel would, and it'll appear quite natural for me to explain that she has gone to lie down and rest. Then at supper-time we can decide together what to say to all the merchant. just a busy body's tomorrow. It surprises me that we have not been pestered with callus L.D.D. It's all over the city, I know. For half a dozen of my patients found it difficult to hide their curiosity when I was out of my rounds this afternoon. You'll see that, quite apart from the kindly counsel of Hanson's more intimate friends, half-mastaster will be calling or ringing us up during the next 24 hours, they'll come for subscriptions, to borrow books,

and to be treated for imaginary complaints. Anything, in fact, that will give them a chance to satisfy the Gaulish curiosity. And here is affairs to them now, unless I am very much mistaken. The bell had begun to ring as he was speaking, and Annie announced Rushton, the secretary of the tennis club. He was asking for ethel. We had him shown into the dispensary. After shaking hands with us, and refusing to sit down, as he wanted to get back to the

club as soon as he could, he came to the object of his visit with commendable brevity. He hoped that it was not true that Miss Paul Freeman was dead, but that she was merely ill. as Mr. Bennett had told them, when he called at the club to scratch her names in the morning. He was rather a nervous little man at best of times, and it was obvious that he was not enjoying his visit. It's unfortunately wanted too true, the Tanish replied. She died at some hour during the night, and Miss Hanson had the shock of trying to wake her up this morning. Oh, I say, I'm so sorry. And is it true that there is to be an inquest?

Yes, that is true, too. no one was with her when she died and I'm unable to certify the cause of her death we have consulted the police and they tell us that an inquest can't possibly be avoided Russian stood embarrassed and muttering oh tear

how sad how very very sad he was tracing half circles on the cork matting with the toe of his shoe look here I don't want to add to your troubles he said looking up suddenly as though he had made up his mind to go through with an unpleasant task

but I thought I ought to tell Miss Hansen about it at once. I wanted to see her and tell her. There are all manner of things being whispered about at the club. He hesitated again uncomfortably and then went on with a sort of nervous rush. They are saying that the police have been in and out of the house all day long. That Miss Paul Freeman was murdered, that you have all of you have been detained, and that you, Dr. Wallace, were seen being driven off to the police station itself under his court.

There are all sorts of whisperings, and each that I have overheard has been a little more gruesome than the last. It's beastly unpleasant news to have to give you, but I really felt that someone ought to come and let you know of the things that are being said. It has been exceedingly kind and considerate of view, the Tundish reassured him. From the question I was asked and the looks I got, looks that I could almost over here. When I paid a few professional whistles this afternoon,

I guess that some such stories must be afloat. The facts, however, or as I have told you, Miss Paul Freeman's death is at present a mystery to us all. She was rather overtired, but otherwise in normal health when she retired for the night. The police have moved a body to the mortuary so that a careful examination can be made. There's to be an inquest.

And Mr. Jeff Cock here and the others have been asked to remain in Merchastairantlet is over. That is really all that we can tell you. We are nearly as much in the dark as to anyone else. It's a very painful position without exaggeration. And if you can help to thin out some of the rumors that are thickening the air, We shall all be not a little grateful.

Oh, I will. I'm most certainly well. I'll do everything I possibly can. He retreated nervously. The doctor, I felt, had not been over-convincing. Rushden, I'm sure, really came to us out of kindness, and because he felt that someone ought to warn us of what was being said, however unpleasant the task might be. But if he had no suspicions of his own before he came,

the doctor's so-called explanations would most surely have aroused them. A doctor in the house, a mysterious death, which the doctor would not certify, a body remote to the mortuary by the police, and an inquest, an unpleasant string of facts to have to admit, add a little imagination, a dash at two of spite, and a misunderstanding here and there as the details had whispered by one scandal-loving cathedral matron to the next,

and it is easy to realize that the final story might even outrinsen the actual facts. The Tundish had done his best, but it was very evident that until the whole abominable business was properly cleared up, and Stella's murder, discovered, court, nothing that we could say or do would silence the gossip that was about. That is a first of a great many kindly people who will make it their business to call

because they felt that we ought to know of the awful things that are being said. The Tundish remarked with a wryik grimace. Don't you think that he really did feel like that? Oh, yes, yes. And so will many of the others who come for the same purpose. But they will one and all go away to strengthen the rumors of which they came to warn us. I'm not blaming them. It's human nature.

We shall find it rather trying, though, I fancy. It's half past six. I'll just run upstairs and find out how Ethel is getting on. And then if it's not too hot for you, I'll join you in the garden for a stroll. I agreed, and went out through the front door, round the end of the house, and into the garden behind. The heat was still devastating. Not a leaf was Esther. Not even a stray, wisp of cloud broke the pale blue of the sky,

a blue that faded imperceptibly into a misty white above the top of the high garden. wall. Inspector Brown's three men were still busy with the ivy on the roof and the heap on the lawn had grown to a goodly size. Nearly three quarters of the roof had been cleared. The inspector himself stood watching them at work, peaked hat in hand, his red-brown face looking like a damp, boiled beetroote from underneath his handkerchief, which he had knotted at the corners and placed on his head for protection against his son. He beckoned to me as I rounded the end of the house and I went and stood by his side. you're making good progress I said yes have you found what you are looking for yes but you're going to clear the lot while you are about it eh yes and looking at me queerly and mimicking the little exclamation with which I had finished my own sentence he added there might be something else he continued to stare his eyes looking for all the world like a couple of bright blue buttons struck in his big red face and then he surprised me by asking do your initials happen to be F. H. Mr. Jeffcock? Yes. Why do you ask? But I never got an answer to my question. He turned abruptly and walked away, ignoring me rudely and completely. I half thought of following him to make further inquiry, but his broad, solid bag and his thick bull neck both looked unresponsive, so I mastered my curiosity, and crossing the lawn to the cedar tree, sat down in the shade to wait for the tundish.

I was beginning to think that he must have forgotten me, when Margaret hurried to me. He wants us both in the dispensary, she said, before she reached me, and turned quickly back to the house, beckoning me to follow. He got up from the desk as we entered and placed a prescription book, in which he had been writing on the table that stood in the middle of the room. Then he took three bottles, and had tape a medicine glass from the shelves over the bench, and put them on the table by the book. He was solemn and portentous. Margaret and I were silent as we stood and watched him. I am going to prepare some medicine for Ethel, he informed us when he had got everything ready,

and in the circumstances I feel that I should like you to see me make it up. I can't explain my wish in so many words. In fact, I really don't know why I want you to be here. If I wanted to poison ethyl, I could of course do it with the greatest ease while you both stand looking on. For instance, you can check the prescription which you have written out in full,

and you can check the bottles with the prescription. But you can't possibly be sure that I haven't already tampered with the bottles. So you see, it's all rather farcical, and yet I do very definitely feel that I should like you to witness me making it up. I was aghast at the horrible suggestionist words contained, but he stood smiling at us pleasantly, impertable, inscrutable. I think that I can understand your feelings a little, Margaret said inaptly. You're afraid it might somehow happen again. Is Ethel really ill then? No, oh no, not exactly ill.

but the bang in her mouth has loosened one teeth and some of the others have had a nasty jar. It has given a neuralgia and I want her to have a comfortable night if she can. We still have some unpleasant hours ahead, I fear. He was making of the medicine as he spoke, pouring first from one and then from the other bottles, a series of simple acts which he seemed to invest

with some quality of magic. The glass lightly held between finger and thumb might have stood on a slab of stone of steadiness. Each ingredient trickled quickly, yet surely to fill it to within a hair's breadth of the graduation mark against which he had placed his thumb. Not once did he have to make an addition or adjustment, and so quick and precise was it all that he had finished while he was answering Margaret's question and the simple everyday movements took on the aspect of a conjuring trick.

We initial the labels of the bottle he had used and the prescription he had written in the book after checking the one with the other. Margaret too had evidently been impressed by the slate of hand. And now, shall I sit on a broomstick and whisk it upstairs to Ethel? It was a most original remark I'd ever heard a make. No thanks. I'll take it up myself. Margaret Redden, but he smiled at her coolly, adding, I want to have a chat with her, and he picked up the glass and whisked on. We didn't say anything, but if looks could speak, I think we were both of us wondering why he should have bothered to ask us to see and prepare the medicine, and then, having had his for witness, have refused to let Margaret take it up to Ethel.

He could have gone up with her for his little chat. It was queer and extraordinary. I could not understand it. The end of chapter 8. Chapter 9 of the Dale House Murder by Francis Everton. This Libby Walk's recording is in the public domain. Read by Yoganand. The Dale House Murder.

Chapter 9. Kenneth and the Tundish. ethyl did not come down to dinner and altogether it was an unsatisfactory unsatisfying meal jaded and worn out we were really in need of food but the meat was neither hot nor cold the potatoes uncooked and uneatable cook being evidently too overcome to attend to such everyday affairs annie poor girl looked tired out and not a little ashamed at having to set such dishes before us indeed she nearly broke down altogether when she informed us that she was sorry but cook had made no pudding why are not annie what are she thinking of the tundish exclaimed she says she's all of a flutter-sa you know how she goes on i'd have made you something or other myself wally she told me nothing about it until it was too late you're a good girl annie and it's no fault of yours i'll see cook afterward margaret looked her amusement and as usual managed to bring in one of her proverbial sayings this time it was passably apt however fools russian were angels feared a tread, she said, glancing round the table brightly. Kenneth's lips curled. The doctor was interfering again. The telephone bell rang a good half-dousin

times before we had finished, and each time the Tandish got up to answer it without murmur or protest. I could hear his end of the conversation, which ran almost word-for-word alike on each occasion. I'm sorry, but she's going to lie down, and I don't want to disturb her. Yes, very sad indeed. Sorry, but I can't hear what you're saying. This line is very indistinct. Hello, I let her know that you rang her up. Then the receiver was put up, and he would return looking amused.

It's easy work on the telephone, he laughed. It's all far too easy, was Kenneth's comment. After dinner, we sat about uncomfortably, Margaret curling herself up like some large cat in one of the big armchairs, and busing herself with her interminable knitting. I felt that somehow it would have been in keeping with her had she produced black wool, but it was still a pink jumper which had appeared at many odd moments before that engaged her attention. The two boys strolled up and down the garden for a time,

and then they tried a game of chess. I went out into the garden with a book and sat under the cedar with the tundish. We hardly spoke. He was really reading, I think, from the regular way he turned the pages of his book, but try as I might. My own thoughts would wander from the printed page and revert to the day's events. But I could not think consecutively. Heathel had set the seal of terror on us all when she had burst in on us at breakfast time with her, too come, I'm afraid. And from that moment while the sun had blazed and scorched, we had passed from distress to distress. Now the shadow under the garden wall was broadening out across the alarm toward us. With the darker shadow that seemed to threaten this unruffle man reading so calmly and so peacefully at my side,

its steady, inexorable encroachment, darkenest life, and then blot him out forever? Or would a dough in the high wall open, slashing the shadow with the path of light down which he would pass? Perched high on the centre post of the arch that spans the garden walk where it appears as a hedge of a yew, a thrush was filling the air with its limpid song, and when the deeper notes of the chimes came booming down from the cathedral tower, he would stop a while, bright head-cocked, alert and listening. Then, as they died away, he would throw himself back, and with throbbing throat, fill the air again with pure ecstasy. The long, hot day of death and horror was closing on a note of peace.

That was my hope, as I sat in the mellowing evening light, but the sun was not to set before I witnessed yet another angry scene between Kenneth and the doctor. He and Ralph came round to the end of the house, as the thought crossed my mind. Catching side of us, they halted, talking urgently together. Even from where I said, I could see that Kenneth was obstinately overriding advice that Ralph was giving. He stood with his legs wide apart, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, his chin stuck out, stolid and determined to have his own way. Then they hurried toward us, Ralph lagging behind a little, half-relectant. I wondered what new trouble at Arison. It was

some medicine the tundrish had given to Ethel. Margaret had told them about it. Kenneth was furious. I say, is it true about you giving some medicine to Ethel? He asked, planting himself straight in front of the doctor's chair. Yes, quite true. Have you any objection? The Tunish replied, gently closing his book, keeping his place with inserted finger and looking up with a slow smile in a twinkling eye. Objection? I should think I damn well have. I, for one, don't care for your way of making up prescriptions. No? Well, if you should be taken ill, Kenneth, and I have to prescribe, the medicine shall be made up at the chemist and delivered in a sealed bottle. Now, if you will excuse me, I should like to get on with my book.

but Margaret says she has just been upstairs to find out if Ethel wanted anything and a bedroom door is locked and there's no reply when she knocked Ralph urged looking anxiously up at Ethel's bedroom window in which the blinds were drawn My dear young friend I told her to lock it myself I hope that Margaret hasn't waked her up

Now please be sensible And let the poor girl have what rest she can get You can do no earthly good by making any bother If I have poisoned Ethel's medicine Which I take it is a friendly suggestion you are both of you making, she is dead by now, and nothing that you or anyone else could do would save her. If I haven't, then isn't it rather a pity to wake her up merely to satisfy your curiosity? That's the logic of the position, but if you feel it to be your duty, go and have a word

with Inspector Brown about it. He's just packing up his treasures prior to departure. This, I felt, was taking things a little too calmly, and I could understand the frown that had gathered on Ralph's dark face while the doctor was speaking. Could not his sense. behaviour, which I had described to myself as calm and unruffled, perhaps be more aptly labelled careless and cold-blooded? And if so, what provision of ideas and estimates of possibilities might not then be necessary? Kenneth had turned round and called out to the inspector at once, as he was on the point of opening the door into Dale House lane.

Ralph was hesitant, but Kenneth took him by the arm and dragged him across the loan. While I watched them talking to the inspector wondering with interest what that stolid individual would advise him to do, the Tundrish had returned to his book. He was absorbed immediately, lost to the world. He had given them his advice, and that apparently was the end of it as far as he was concerned. After a few minutes' conversation, Inspector Brown departed. A brief consultation between the two boys followed, and then Kenneth came back to us alone. We have decided to do as you asked us, he said tersely. Thank you. I'm glad to hear it. Kenneth came a step nearer. but if anything happens to Ethel, I'll kill you.

He spoke very slowly and leaned over toward the doctor. His fists were clenched, and for a moment I thought that he was going to strike. The Tandish never moved a muscle. Do the hangman out of one job and give him another? That the idea? He laughed pleasantly and returned once more to his interrupted reading. Kenneth controlled himself with difficulty and stowed away. A boy went whistling down the lane.

The doctor continued his reading. I looked at him slylyly as he sat quietly engrossed by my side. I can't help sympathizing with Kenneth and Ralph, you know, I said. It isn't that I suspect you of having had anything to do with Stella's death, but... But, he interrupted quizzically. I did not know how to finish my sentence. How to put into words that would not offend. The feeling I had that there was something foreboding,

something suggestive in his having made it medicine for Stella one night, and then again after the terrible disaster for Ethel. The circumstances were too much alike, two taper glasses, too. Come, Jeffcock, he said kindly when he saw my hesitation. For heaven's sake, don't let the hot weather get on your nerves, too. That's all very well, I reminded him, but you must have had some very similar feelings yourself. Or why did you want us to witness your making up of Ethel's prescription? He looked at me and laughed outright.

Wrong again. I never felt a qualm. I want you and Margaret in the dispensary for a very different reason. I am sure that my astonishment was obvious, but he ignored my surprise and closed his book, saying, Now I'm going to bed. Thank God this awful day is over. It was evident that I should get no further information from him as to his real reasons for a presence in the dispensary, even if I pressed him. The subject was closed.

We walked slowly across a brown scotch lawn and back to the house. In the hall we met Cook, dirty and unkempt, a whisper of greasy hair straggling across a pasty, unhealthy-looking. face. She was on a way upstairs to bed. The Tandish was asked as good as his word and asked her rather sharply why the dinner had been so badly cooked. She folded her arms across her floppy ample bosom

and leered him offensively. Come, Grace, I want an answer to my question. She tilted back her ugly, pasty face, half-closed to beady eyes, and nodded slowly backward and forward the greasy whisper of hair waving ludicrously with every movement that she made. The leer

became an ugly smile, and then she laughed aloud, a low, disturbing laugh. Fat, red arms folded against her untidy dress. She looked revolting as she stood there, nodding at his, layering and laughing in tense. The doctor gazed at her solemnly, unmoved, showing neither annoyance nor the discuss that I felt myself. His steady eyes were disconcerting. Her laughing ceased. Then she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, stuck her head forward at the doctor, and whispered hostly. I know what I knows, Dr. Wallace. She rattled away. unsteadily. I turned to the tarnish to see how he would take it. He was standing immovable

and seen him, and seeing, while in the same morning, had I seen him standing thus in the doorway as we were having breakfast. His brain so deep in thought that his eyes, while open wide, were blind, inanimate and uncontrolled. Then he had muttered, I can't have made a mistake. I simply can't have made a mistake. But now he whispered nearly inaudibly, I wonder what she knows. Now, I wonder what she knows. He came back to life with a start and a smile of amusement at his own abstraction, told me that he was going straight to bed, as he half expected that he might be called out in the early hours to a case of indisputable first aid,

and then with one foot on the bottom stair, he turned to me and said, And by the way, Jeff Cock, if you'll take my advice, you'll lock your bedroom door tonight. Then he said, good night, and was gone. The end of Chapter 9. 10 of the Dale House murder by Francis Everton. This Libby-Wox recording is in the public domain. Read by Yoganand.

The Dale House Murder Chapter 10 I analyzed the position. I moved across the hall into the drawing room. The two boys I learned had already gone to bed, but Margaret was still curled up in a chair by the window placidly knitting. She looked pretty, I thought, with a fading evening light from the window shining on

one tight little coil of golden hair, the graceful curve with the back of her head emphasized by the parting that ran down the middle. Her occupation somehow seemed proper to the setting and enhanced the pretty picture that she made. Ethel-knitted jumpers too, but she went at them with a rush. With Margaret, it was all leisurely movement and grace,

and I imagined her feelings when knitting as those of a cat which sits in the sun and slowly and endlessly washes its face. She greeted me with a sleepy smile, stifled a yawn, and proceeded to gather belongings together, but a scissors could not be found though we searched the floor together and fell down the hidey hole between the back and the seat of a chair. Finally we had to give them up for lost, though she was sure that she had had them only five minutes before, and she bade

me good-night and left me. I was alone. The house was very still and quiet. It was yet daylight, but the light was fading rapidly and he switched on one of the electric lamps. The high red wall sheltered us completely from the road. There was no need to draw the the blinds. The window stood wide open, but so stifling and quiet was the air that they might have looked out onto some huge, overheated greenhouse instead of an English garden. Tired out, I yet had no desire for sleep. For the first time during the long, trying day, I was absolutely alone, unobserved, and with time and solitude for thought. I paced up and down the room for a full half-hour, pipe and mouth, basically rehearsing first this incident, then that, in a way in a

him to achieve some recent explanations, some possible solution of the mystery that surrounded Stella's sudden death. Alone and away from the influence of his calm assurance, my instinctive, unreasoning belief in the doctor began to weaken and give way under the combined bludgeonings of evidence and argument. Seeing a writing pad lying on one of the window seats, I drew up a chair to a small occasional table and taking a pencil out of my pocket, I proceeded to make out a list of all who were in the house on the previous night, setting down every piece of evidence, every possible

relevant fact in an attempt to clear my mind and analyze the situation. At the outset I came to the conclusion that on the important question of notew I should not only have to consider the obvious and the possible but also the unlikely and the grotesque. The murder must have been premeditated, cold-blooded and abnormality. It would not be surprising, therefore, should the notive, the root from which the evil deed had sprung, be found, if ever unearthed as something twisted and rotten. I kept the rough notes that I made, and on referring to them, I see that I was methodical enough to add my own name to the list. They were detailed and tedious, and I will only quote in full the remarks I wrote down about the doctor on that hot, sultry night in the Dale House drawing room. Here they are.

Dr. Valis The poison. The Chinese poison on which he and Dr. Hansen had been working would leap to his mind at once, did he wish to kill by poisoning. Its action is difficult to diagnose, but would he then have called Alport's attention to its peculiar taste? Would he have stated that he found the glass at Stella Spitzhead with a drop at the bottom of it, and that he suspected the Chinese poison at once by reason of its smell? Yes, he might. He would know that he would be suspected at once,

and he might reasonably argue that, by calling attention to the Chinese poison himself, he would be creating a favorable impression, an impression that would be strengthened when it was found that the medicine glass had been thrown away. But the key in his own pocket? Could he not have poisoned her equally easily at any other time? Yes, but what better time could he have had? He was making up medicine for her. He had just been threatened with some sort of exposure. Then he played the practical joke on the bitch, and took care to have it clearly established that we all of us had the chance to be upstairs, and alone on the evening of the murder. The cabot key had his own all the time. The medicine.

Yes, both knowledge and opportunity. The bedroom key. He could have thrown the glass away after Ethel came downstairs, have locked the door, and have put the key in the pocket of his thin coat which he was wearing at the time. But why should he then come and tell me that he had left the door unlocked? Obviously, to make it look as though someone else had locked it. But in that case, he would surely have placed a key in a position incriminating someone else and not himself. A possible explanation is that he intended to do this later,

but either had no easy opportunity or forgot. Then just as he was going out, he remembered and came back to make the omission good, well he to find me turning away from the telephone, having complete my conversation, and his coat with a key in it, hanging up straight in front of me. He certainly must have come up behind me very quietly. What would he do in those circumstances? Would he tell me that the door was unlocked and then go calmly away to his patient, leaving the key in his own pocket?

would he take that enormous risk? A man of his undoubted ability could surely have found some excuse to get me out of the way, have made some opportunity of getting at the key? Or might he not decide on a double bluff as it may? He told Alport that the glass was at the side of the bed, the dregs smelling of the poison. He told me that he had left the door unlocked.

The door is found to be locked, and when it is broken open, the glass is gone. someone else the murderer has been up and thrown the glass away and locked the door where would such one put the key if he wanted to throw suspicion another why in the doctor's pocket of course the man who made up the medicine and so he would decide to leave it where it was

if Margaret and I really heard anyone creeping on the stairs could it have been the doctor the time that elapsed between what she heard and what I did is not known accurately enough to be certain but probably it might have been he motive, obvious, and for a potential murder, sufficient. Notes.

A. Would I report have left any man with such evidence against him at liberty for even an hour, unless there are points in his favour that I have either overlooked or have had no opportunity to learn about? B. Why did he call Margaret and me into the dispensary when he made Ethel's medicine this evening? C. Why did he tell Ethel to lock a door and warn me about mine? D. What did Cook's I know what I know as potent? E. What is the truth about his quarrel with Stella's father? F. The practical jokes with the bets were quite out of keeping with his character.

It not really struck me forcibly at the time, but he anticipated my surprise and gave an explanation of his action before I had said a word to him about it. G. Had he killed Stella? Could he have spoken to us, as he did, when we were collected together at the breakfast table? could he have brazened it out most emphatically yes conclusion every real established fact that has come to light incriminates the doctor opportunity motive knowledge of the poison and ability to face the rest of us with undisturbed indifference all indicate the doctor in the same way and under the same headings i went through each member of the household including miss somerson annie and cook definite knowledge as to the exact varieg and action of the poison could only be ascribed to Ethel, Miss Somerson, and myself, in addition to the Tundish, but Annie or Kenneth, or indeed any of us might either have been told about it or have overheard some conversation. As to the key of the poison cabot, Miss Somerson had her own. She might have taken the poison out of the cabot before she lost it, and any of the rest of us might have found it when she had. Probably Ethel alone of the party, however, would know it for what it was. I had real difficulty in my effort. to find reasonably plausible motives for the crime, that is, apart from the doctor.

He was easy enough. I see that I made Ralph killer because she had refused to marry him. Hot work for even those hot days to fall in love, propose marriage, be rejected, grow mad with jealousy and sleigh, all in the space of some 50 hours. But that was the best I could do for the quiet Ralph. I made Ethel Killer because she was jealous of the tundish. Margaret, because she was jealous of Ralph. Kenneth, because he wanted to fasten the blame on the placid, aggravating doctor, whom he hated so much. But for one reason or another, each more fantastic than the last, they each in turn, according to my notes, slew Stella, thoroughly absorbed in my writing, the moths which blundered with blind persistence against a solitary shaded lamp above my head,

and the cathedral chimes with their in-systemed repetitions, had alike been insufficient to disturb or distract. My list at last completed, I heaved a sigh of relief, and straightened out my back. How still and quiet the big room was. Still and quiet as death itself. The table at which I was seated stood against the inner wall and toward the end of the room nearest the front of the house. The piano jutted out immediately before me and over the top of it I could see the large French window that looked on to the garden from the other end, paneled in silver-gray by the moonlit sky, while between it and my own little circle of warmer light there lay a belt of the belt of shadows and dim uncertainties. The faint tick-tick of the dining-clock was the

only sound to reach my ears. The curtains hung in the open windows, limp and still. I felt myself on the brink of fear. Fear. Afraid of what? A grown man afraid of a quiet room at night? Ridicless. Absurd, do you say? Then you know nothing of fear. To you a soft step and a shadow that knows me not. Children terror has never held you in its grip. Fear, the anticipation of something unknown, an inexplicable, intangible, shadowy and unreal cannot be argued and defined. Give it a name, know it well enough to name it, define and analyze it, meet it face to face, and fear, true plut-curdling fear evaporates at once. But leave it vague and shadowy,

unexplained and undefined, then as still room at the dead of night, the quiet tick-tick of a distant clock, the creek of a board in an old, old house, and an ever-increasing desire to look furtively behind may be enough to make the bravest pulses raise, when nerves are on edge, and imagination place its part. Must I name myself a coward, then, because I sat with quick and breath, listening for, I know not what, when bravery itself is nothing but a knowledge, and a crushing down of fear, for what agonies of bravery may not be endured in the making of a coward's reputation? What lack of sensibility and imagination may not go to the winning of a hero's fame?

But covered and know when I saw the door, which was just ajar, swing slowly open to a wider angle, my flesh crept. My heart skipped a beat. It was a big, tabby tom. As he rounded the corner of the piano and saw me, he gave a little squawk of pleasure and jumped up to my knee, purring with satisfaction, and expressing his appreciation of my caresses by the digging in of his curving claws. He had broken the spell. I leaped to my feet and, pulling down the other switches, flooded the room with a rosy glow from the shaded lamps. I related my pipe, and perching the cat on my shoulder,

I began to pace the room again. I had set out to come to some recent understanding with myself as to the doctor's innocence of guilt, and my fit of nerves concurred I would finish my self-appointed task. When with him, how steady and kind he seemed to be, his unalterable calm, the natural outcome of his hidden strength, but away from him, and here alone in the quiet of the night, how damning the evidence against him, and how easy to re-value that self-same, unalterable, calm, and label it afresh, cynical, cold-blooded, sinister, or callous.

I had to confess that I had not succeeded in my return to play the role of an impartial critic logging up a list of facts. I knew it even as I wrote my notes. Horrible as it may sound, I had found myself longing and searching for some further possible evidence against Miss Somerson, that might incriminate Annie or cook, anything, however trivial and absurd that might in some small measure relieve the doctor of the burden of suspicion that weighed him down and helped to take the guilt of murder further away from the members of a little party. Impartial? No, I had not been impartial. While I had endeavoured to disperse and lighten the dark shadows that were gathering ever more closely round the figure of the impassive doctor,

I had eagerly sought out every evil and distorted possibility to place among my scandalous notes about the rest. And my list of motives, God save the mark, how absurd they all of them sounded. I had turned dear old Dale House with its honest, square red face into a veritable abode of love, honeycomb with unacknowledged love affairs, unrequited passions, and murder-urging jealousies.

I returned once more to my little table. I would complete my analysis of the situation. I took a fresh sheet of paper and proceeded to add to the notes I had already made the following list of points which I felt had some real bearing on the problem and yet which could not very well be allocated to any particular member of the household. A. What were the two small fragments of glass that Alport found in Stella's room? Minute fragments that he had pressured so carefully and that had given him foot for such furious thinking? B. What could I have given rise to Inspector Brown's speculative?

when he had asked me if my initials were F. H. And why on earth should he have asked me that question so suddenly then at that time? C. Once again, why did Alport pretend that he had found the key in Kennet's room? As he was aware that I knew of its correct hiding place in the doctor's pocket, did it imply that, as far as he was concerned, at any rate, I was considered free from suspicion? T.

Who is it, who had laughed so disturbingly in the waiting room on the morning of my arrival? Miss Somerson had told a lie then. Was there any connection between that and the murder? E. Why had Alport shown such a sudden interest in the photograph on the piano? I felt that if only I had the answer to some of these questions, I should at any rate have some sort of insight into the little detective's extraordinary behaviour, some explanation of his reasons for leaving us to our own devices so suddenly,

while he followed up a clue which he admitted held out little or no hope of leading him to the murderer. Surely one of us assistants could have chased his shadow, leaving him free to deal with the obviously more urgent problem that still remained unsolved here in Delouse. I got up and carefully examined the photograph that had roused his sudden attention, but I could find nothing either suspicious or illuminating. It was a cabinet photograph of Ralph taken, I should imagine, a couple or so years before. I took it out of its frame as Alport had done. My guess had been correct. It was signed across the back in a rather boyish hand. and dated. I replaced it, wondering. It was an absolute mystery. She had been walking toward me

after his little tiff with Inspector Brown. The photograph had suddenly caught his eye, and some bright idea dawned on him. She had been unable to hide his satisfaction, inexplicable. My notes were now complete, and I read them through, determined to come to some sort of conclusion based on what I had written down. At length, after many trials and much crossing out, I drew up the following table. Myself. The poison, 10, poison key 2, medicine 5, bedroom key 10, motive, 0. Total, 27. Ralph, the poison

2, poison key 3, medicine 4, bedroom key 2, motive 3, total 14. Kenneth, the poison 2, poison 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, total 14. Poison key 3 medicine 4 key 0 Motive 3 total 12 Doctor the poison 10 poison key 10 medicine 10 Bedroom key 8 motive 10 total 48 Ethel the poison 10 Poison key 5 medicine 5 bedroom key 8 10, notive 6, total 36, Margaret The Poison 2, Poison key 3, medicine 5, bedroom key 0, motive 5, total 15

Miss Somerson, the Poison 10, Poison key 10, medicine 5, bedroom key 0, motive 0, total 25 I. Annie. The poison 3. Poison key 4. Medicine. 10. Bedroom key 10. Motive 0. Total 27. Cook. The poison 2. Poison key 3. Medicine 5. Bedroom key 10. Motive 0. Total 20. I had to make several attempts before I got the various numbers to my liking. For instance, if the Chances that Annie had information about the Chinese poison were to be represented by the figure three, was it just that the figure two should be set down against the cook? Or should they not be five and four respectively? Then I had to go back through my notes again to see what I had written down against the others

and perhaps alter all the figures in the column before I reached what I considered was an estimator that was fair and just to all of us. I, of course, appreciated at once that it was only a very rough measure of possibilities, that it might give me the wildest of ristles, and that it was entirely unjust to count up the totals in the way I had done. But it did compel me to make detailed comparisons. It did give me some sort of an index figure against each member of the party. It showed me immediately that the Tundrish and Ethel stood in a category apart from the rest of us,

in that they had a score of five over under every head in the table. I was again surprised to notice how heavily Ethel was involved. No wonder Alport had been so persistent. assistant in his questions. Of the rest of us, Miss Somerson, Annie, Cook and myself were all roughly alike with the score lying between 20 and 30, and we were alike too in that we had no score at all under the important heading motive. Margaret, Kenneth and Ralph were all three, practically equal at the bottom, but for each of them there was a conceivable motive. I must have sat pondering over my notes for more than an hour, and it amused me to wonder what the clever little Alport

would have said of my efforts. Time at Pondon. almost unheeded, and when the cathedral clock registered a deep-noted one, I was surprised to find that it was the half-hour after midnight instead of half-past eleven as I had expected. The cat had been seated blissfully happy on my knee while I wrote, and perching him on my shoulder again I got up with a sigh, my mind quite made up that the tundish must be guilty. No other explanation seemed capable of being twisted and moulded to fit the whole of the facts. The windows were still open, and I went round the room shutting them one by one. At the big French window I stood for a time looking out on the moonlit garden.

Then I decided to go out and see if I could find any ladder near the salgely wing that might have been used for getting on to the flat rooftop. I would finish my job. I opened the window and stood for a time on the narrow asphalt path that ran round the back of the house. It was almost painfully beautiful. And I remember that as I stood looking at the quiet garden scene, I fell to wondering what quality it held that filled me with such unutterable sadness. Not a leaf was moving. A motorcycle passed along the road at the front of the house with a sudden roar,

a splash and the pool of silence. Then the ripples died away and all was glassy, calm once more. From the high cathedral tower, water view there must be on a night like this. First, the houses of the city huddled round the base of the hill. A study in shady blacks and steely blues as a moon's pure light picked out this old house in light and shade and played on the sloping roof of that. then for miles around the undulating countryside below we see of misty grey and blue

and all the scene I thought city and countryside alike there could be no roof that sheltered such unhappiness as a roof of the old red Georgian house underneath whose shadow I stood the cat still cuddling comfortably up against my neck I walked across the lawn toward the surgery wing the end away from the house lay deep in the shade

but there plain enough slung across two stout iron hooks was a short wooden ladder. It was short, but I calculated long enough to allow of any fairly active person reaching the roof and gaining access to Stella's bedroom window. I looked up at the house. I could just make out the white-framed windows from the surrounding shadows. The moon rode clear between the chimneys and over the old red roof. Then as I watched I saw a light shine in the window that lights the stairs between the first and the second floors.

Just a faint but steady glow. It came and went again as I stood wondering, earth it could be. The light might have come, I decided, from either the first or the second landing, but it was not the light I should have seen had anyone switched on either of the landing lights. It was not nearly bright enough for that. Had someone struck a match? No. For that, it was too equal and steady. Or someone perhaps had opened the door of a lighted room, and the reflected light had given the momentary, steady glow to the staircase window? No, and that didn't quite meet the case either, I thought. Had it been the light from an open door, surely it would have faded away more

gradually as the door was closed. Quickly, perhaps, but not with a sudden jerk like the light I had seen at the window. That had gone out with a click. A click. Yes, that was it. Someone had been using an electric flashlight on one of the landings. I returned to the warm light of the drawing room and quietly relocked the door, then out into the hall where I stood for a minute listening. Not a single sound could I hear from the landing about. My childish fears began to crowd round me again, and the cat, which was still on my shoulder, must have caught the feeling from me,

for I felt his neck suddenly stiffened as we gazed together up the darkened stairs. Then he jumped from my shoulder and disappeared. I switched on the landing light, and reading as quietly as I could, I crept upstairs. The end of chapter 10. Chapter 11 of the Dale House Murder by Francis Everton.

This Libbywalk's recording is in the public domain. Read by Yoganand. The Dale House Murder Chapter 11 On the landing at midnight. With quiet stealthy thread on the heavy carpet, I attained a position halfway up the flight of stairs. Not a sound had I made, not a bird had creaked.

No movement or noise was anywhere in all the quiet house. Then, with a quick catch and my breath, I halted, suddenly motionless, my fears redoubled. They, just above me, stuck up above the switch, and shining white in the light from the landing, was a square piece of paper similar to the one I had found in the same position only the night before I came upstairs to bed. I fancied that somehow or other my own stealthy movements had engendered in me a condition keyed up and ready-tuned to vibrate in response to any sudden nervous shock,

for uncontrolled my heart went pounding and a sickening chill when shuddering down my back. To steady myself again, I had to be able to be able to. to grasp the handrail. Last night, just such another piece of paper to which I had made my unfortunate and imbecile addition, but still are dead when the morning came. No possible connection between the two. How could there be when innocent I myself had committed the more pertinent part of the folly? And now again, tonight another piece of paper standing out clear and white against a landing wall. What did it all mean? What could it mean? Was some fresh disaster lying hidden, undiscovered just ahead? Or was it nothing but another stupid joke? But in God's name I asked

myself who either sane or sober would perpetrate such a joke or any joke so soon after Stella's death and the day's evens? And if not a joke, then? Full of apprehension, I mounted the remaining stairs. It was a plain postcard I found with the address Dale House, Manchester, printed neatly in the top right-hand corner. I had observed similar card standing in a case on the top of the doctor's desk. Across the middle of it had been pasted with the words, dark deeds are done in Dale House at night. Just for a brief moment, I did not quite grasp the reason for the irregular appearance of the message, but I soon tumbled to it that the sentence had been built up by cutting out odd words and letters from a newspaper and then pasting them onto the card. A faint pencil line had

been ruled to keep the wording level. A neat and careful hand had been at work. I suppose that in even the most sheltered and unevenful lives, there are some little scenes that, for one reason, another, stand out with illogical precision from among the million of tiny impressions that are daily transferred from retina to brain. Childish memories, perhaps, that stand out clear and unfaded by the passage of time, while the settings of life's most important crisis become fogged and indeterminate. For me, however, there will always remain an unfaded mental picture of that quiet, timely-lighted landing, the tracery of the pattern on the carpet, the shadow of the handrail on the stairs, the highlights and shadows on the metal of the double switch, and the

plain white card with its ominous little message. I have but to close my eyes to recall each minute detail at will, and see myself standing hesitant at the centre of the picture, miserable and incapable of action. Since breakfast time, a century ago it seemed, each long hot hour had been fraught with some fresh horror, a distress, and now factored out my brain refused to work. My faculties failed to function. I gazed at the card in stupid amazement. I felt my eyes grow round and goggle.

What should I do? What ought I to do? Should I obey my first impulse and arouse the decisive doctor, in spite of the fact that a space of minutes only had passed since I had labelled him the logical answer to a riddle in the dark? Should I knock up Kenneth and Ralph and precipitate yet another repetition? of the earlier angry scenes. Should I ring up the police?

Or should I allow myself to drift, come to no decision at all, go to bed, and lock my door? Each alternative in turn I pawned out 20 times and then reject it. To go calmly to bed, leaving the others ignorant and unwarned of such an open threat

against their safety was unthinkable indeed. Yet, try as I might, make up my mind I could not, to any other courts of action. There I stood, yes, and might have stood till dawn of day, turning the wretched card ever over and over in my hand, hot with self-shame and fuming at my incapacity.

Then I heard a gentle muffled sound of movement on the landing up above and brought me back to life once more and quickened me to action. I pushed up the switch as gently as I might, and stood in the dark, alert at last, and listening. Yes, someone was moving cautiously about, faint but unmistakable, testing each board as I trod it against a sudden creek, step by step, soft and slow, I crept along the stairs that led to the upper landing, and poor muddard Stella's bedroom. The door of the fatal room was standing wide, and as my eyes reached the level of the topmost step,

they met a beam of white electric light. Low and level, it made a track of light that cut the darkened room in two, and crouching down against it, there was somebody kneeling. It was a tundish. I recognized him at once in spite of the dim light, the big white tassels at the end of his dressing-gown cord, and those thin but steady hands of his gave him away. I negotiated the remaining steps and gained the head of the flight without a sound,

unless my thudding heart was really audible. Then I stood absorbed. To his right on the floor there lay a small electric torch. That was the light I had seen as I mounted the stairs. In the narrow part that it slashed across the shadows, the doctor's sensitive hands were moving methodically over the carpet. He was stroking the pile this way and that his white taper fingers ever probing and searching. Then he pushed the light of pace farther on and repeated the process.

I watched as he moved his position half a dozen times or so, then from the landing below there came the unmistakable distinctive click of a closing door. The Tundish heard it too. I saw him jerk up his head to listen. His hands seized their restless searching and lay quiet and still in the band of light. What would he do, I wondered if he thought that there was someone awake and moving about on the landing beneath? What would he do if he knew that I stood there in the dark just behind him watching him at work? He switched off the electric torch. I flattened myself against the wall.

What is it, Jeffcock? He whispered. Did you hear a door shut down below? I jumped like a frightened horse. So sudden and unexpected came the whispered question from out of the quiet, darkened room. not once had he turned his head or glanced in my direction. The landing was inky black. I could have sworn that I had not made a vestige of noise as he crept up the stairs to find him. Yet not only did he know that he was being watched, but he knew that it was I.

Had we both been seated comfortably at the breakfast table, he might have questioned me as to a second helping of bacon in just such a casual tone of voice. Astonishing and imperturbable, could nothing shake him? Did he see nothing in Congress or business? and my standing there on the darkened landing at Dead of Night while he made his secret search on the floor by Stella's

bed? What on earth are you doing? And how did you know I was there? I asked in a shaking voice that I failed to control. Shh! Speak more quietly, man. Did you think you heard a door shut? Come along in, and close a door. Since, I have often thought, and I must

confess with not a little shame, that there could have been no better illustration of a strong man's personality dominating of a man less strong. There was I, with my suspicions all arose, suspicion backed by evidence and based on solid reasoning. Suspations, which in spite of my instinctive liking for the doctor, would not lie dormant and disregarded. Yet, he only had to whisper, come along in and close a door, and I got to him in a darkened room without thought of harm or danger. One minute I write him down a murderer. The next, unhesitating, I place my life on his hands. I find him creepy,

fertively about the house at night with an electric torch, and it is he who quietly asked me what I am doing, and what it is that I want. In the dark we stood with straining ears for a little time, and then he opened the door and listened again at the top of the stairs. I remained alone in the room, still troubled as to what line of action I ought to take. Should I show him what I had found, and tax him with having put it where I found it? All it matters run their courts and see what happened next? I could just make out the outline of Stella's pet. dark deeds are done in Dalehouse at night. I still held the card in my hand.

He came back to me, shutting the door carefully behind him. He switched on his flashlight again, taking care to keep the beam directed away from the window in which the blind was undrawn. What is it, Jeffcock? Is anything the matter? What made you come up here? He whispered quickly. I heard you moving about. What are you looking for?

He hesitated. Look here, Jeffcock. I really am most awfully sorry, but I can't tell you. I was merely following up a little idea of my own, doing a little private detective work. I believed him implicitly and at once. So much for my labours in the drawing room. I showed him the revised edition of the notice.

So much for my voluminous notes and my absurd little table of final reckoning. What do you think of that? I asked, watching his face as closely as I could in the light of the electric torch. Where did you find it? I told him. He whistled softly. He held the light up close to the printed words, black shadows and a small bright circle of light, a strong white hand holding a small white card. As I looked, I felt my suspicions revive again. But directly he spoke, I was reassured. I don't like it, he said after a pause. I don't like the look of it at all. It means the devil of a disturbance and a fuss, but we must wake the others up and make sure that all of them are safe. This little message cannot be ignored.

We will leave Annie and cook until the last. Come along downstairs. Side by side we made a way downstairs again, and while he just behind us there came the quiet pat, pat, pad of another pair of feet. I put my hand on the doctor's arm to stay him, and we stood together holding a breath and straining to hear. Our follower also stopped immediately. He or she must be standing a little way above us on the darkened stairs.

The Tandesh flashed on his torch and sent its white. beam searching up and down. Not a soul was to be seen. All was empty and quiet and still. To say that I was badly scared would be an understatement, an unhealthy heat of the interminable day, the shock of the morning's discovery, the ordeal of Little Alport's inquisition, kenneth's violent oddbursts, these and all the other events that had followed one another with such sinister irregularity, each in turn had sapped my strength until now I stood a bundle of tortured nerves. I could have turned and fled. "'Well, that beats the band,' the Tandish whispered.

"'You did hear a step? Yes, I could have sworn to it.' He sent his light flashing to every corner again, then, keeping it alight, he continued an interrupted descent. It came again at once, the gentle following tread of slippered feet. My hair fairly bristled. Then, to my astonishment, I heard the doctor chuckle. He twisted round and pointed his light at the steps immediately above him. "'There's the ghost,' he said.

pointing to the tassels of the end of his dressing-gown cord, which was undone and dragging down the stairs behind him. He shook with silent mirth. What a priceless pair of fools we are, he gasped, but I had been too much upset to enjoy the humor of the situation. Arrived on the bottom landing again, he switched on the light. It was an old lamp retired from one of the rooms to do more humble service, and it gave but a dim and feeble light.

It was very quiet. Well, here's for it, he said. You go on rout out, Ken. and I'll attend to Ralph. I turned the handle of Kenneth's door and was not surprised to find it locked. Soon we both of us were knocking loudly with our fists.

There was no longer need to be quiet and the noise that we made went echoing like a challenge through the silent house. Dark deeds are done in Dalehouse at night. I thumped it out on Tenet's door. He was very sound asleep

and I heard the doctor talking to Ralph before I could wake him up. When at length he did unlock his door I told him to slip on his dressing ground and soon the four of us were gathered in a group under the landing light. The two boys were full of questions, but the Tandish asked them to wait with what

patience they could while he roused the girls and made sure that they both were safe. Ethel's door swung slowly open on its hinges, even as he moved toward it and clad in a pretty smoke-plug dressing-gown she stood in the doorway before us, swaying slightly, while he half-awake, a hand against each pose to give herself support.

She had switched on a bedroom light and its brighter glow shone through a ruffled curly hair. Sense is quickening gradually, seeing his group together, her sleepy, long-lashed eyes grew wide, and her poor, bruised face and swollen lips blanched and twitched as awakening fears increased. She tried to speak and failed. The Tandish hurried to other.

What at us? Oh, what is it, Tandish dear? She whispered. He reassured her with a quiet, There's nothing to fear. He held himself well in charge. but I could see how he longed to take her in his strong, safe arms and kiss her fears away. It was pitiful to see them standing there together, their love for each other so evident to us all.

To Kenneth, it would have been warmward and gall. Ralph fetched her chair from his room, and we showed her what I had found. Margaret was the last to be roused, and we had to knock on her door repeatedly before we could wake her up, and then she was some minutes again before she joined us. eyes too seemed heavy with sleep, but in contrast to Ethel, she stood alert and awake. A pink dressing-gown, opened wide at her full white throat, showed the creamy texture of a curving breast. She put up a hand to the pretty gap, as with a giggle, she said, What a sight I must look. However unsuitable the occasion, I thought, she must always have

a femininity on parade. We none of us made the sort for reply, and she went and knelt by Ethel's chair, holding and patting her hands. While we were waiting for Margaret, the doctor had gone upstairs again to find out about Annie and Cook. Annie evidently was already awakened by the noise we had made and I soon heard him talking to her. Cook, however, he could not rouse, though we heard him pounding and banging away on a door. There was something altogether ghastly in the noise he made while we wait whispering below. Thut, thud, thud, and then a pause, and before the ecos had died away a fierce thud-thud-thud again. Thut, tut, thud. Death for surely the dead and only the dead could sleep through such a thudding. He rejoined his

placid and unconcern. I can't wake her, but I'm sure that I can hear her breathing, he told us. If she has been rinking, though, it might take more than mere noise to Rosa. She has locked her door, and left the key and it turned so that I can't push it out. He was the only one of us, I noticed to speak above a whisper and in his usual voice. But what on earth is it all about, Kenneth asked. You were pretty sarcastic, I remember this afternoon, when I suggested waking. ethel. He overpitched his voice in an attempt to copy the doctor's equanimity. Poor Kenneth. Yes. Yes, but then you see, I knew that she was safe, and this little Satan's

love note had not been found. I don't understand it. What were you both doing about the house at this time of night? Kenneth asked, turning to me. If you found it, why you do wake up the doctor of all people before the rest of us? I looked at the tundish. Not a word had I said as to where I had found him, and I wondered what he would tell them, but he never hesitated for a fraction of a second. Oh, I imagine that Jeffcock would have told you all that is to tell while I have been upstairs, he replied. And then he proceeded to tell them everything. How I had sat up late, and going to the garden for a straw had seen a light shine from the landing window, how I had found the notice behind the switch and him, with his flashlight searching the floor of Stella's room.

The only thing he omitted to mention was the door we both heard shut with a click on the landing below. When he had finished, he turned to me to corroborate his statement. I could not understand him. Why should he confess so readily to being abroad at night, in circumstances so suspicious, and then ignore the one salient point that stood out so clearly in his favour? I nodded my assent. It was his business after all, and I would not interfere. His explanation was received in silence.

A silence tends with incredulity and disbelief. Ralph asked him what he was doing in Stella's room, and he gave the same explanation. that he had given to me a little time before. His voice held not a trace of emotion or concern. We were all of us looking at him. Ethel, with friendly trust and approval, the two boys and Margaret, with suspicions they either could not,

or did not bother to conceal. For myself, I hardly knew what to think. He faced his all unmoved. He smiled reassuringly at Ethel. Either of you two then could have put this up behind the switch? Kenneth asked. You could have put it there quite as easily yourself, I answered him angrily.

he shrugged his shoulders. It just happens that I didn't, he said very stiffly. The man was insufferable, a fool. We might any of us say that, Ethel joined, up in arms at once directly, the Tundish was attacked. Besides, she added, if either Francis or the Tundish had done it, wouldn't they have printed this one like they did the last? No, of course they wouldn't.

It would have given them away at once. I, or any of the rest of us, might have tried to copy the doctor's printing, just as you did last night Jeffcock, but either of you two would obviously have to adopt, well, something like this. He finished rather lamely pointing to the card. The Tandish looked amused. All very pretty up to a point, Kenneth.

But don't you see that what you say applies quite equally to all of us? It was an easy matter for Jeffcock to copy my printing in the first place, and he did it well enough for the purpose. But you don't really suppose for one moment that his attempt would have Hoodwinked an expert? if this means anything at all, the author would never dare to write it out by hand. No, you may be certain of this, that whoever put this card where Jeff Cork says he found it, put the poison into Stella's glass and Kilda. And in my opinion, once again, the opportunity has been equally open to us all.

No one will admit having done it. We all, including the doctor, deny having had anything to do with it, I suppose, Kenneth queried. The Tundish thanked him for the special mention, and we each denied it in turn. Ethel sat limp in a chair, Margaret kneeling beside her. We four men stood round them, the dim light overhead casting a distorted shadows

across the floor and up the landing wall. The tundish, unruffled and pleasant, his hands and his dressing-gown pockets, rocking himself gently backward and forward and heel and toe. The boy's glum and dull, myself nearly dead with fatigue. A long silence closed down on us again. Liar, madra, poisoner,

when whispering through the silence. Six denials and one of them a lie. Who of the six was lying? The doctor has ever broke the pause. Well, we can do no more now, and in the morning we must tell the police of this new development. You two girls, hop back to bed while we make sure about the cook. Hush it up as long as we can.

All go to bed, good friends. I'll take damn good care that the police know all about in the morning. But before I go to bed, I should like to know where the paper is from, which the words have been cut. You won't object to our searching your room? It was Kenneth, of course, who spoke. And Ralph nodded his agreement. We ought to search all the rooms, he said.

Almost beyond hearing any more, I burst out with, for God's sake, do let us go to bed and leave Alport to do his own dirty work. I spoke querulously, and with no feeling than I really intended. My voice was out of control. I felt the others looking at me in surprise. The Tundish hesitated. well it's just a chance but I don't think we gain very much

if the paper is found I know that if I were guilty it wouldn't be in my room that anyone would find it they were persistent however and while Ethel was too tired to take any interest Margaret seemed inclined to agree with the boys

the doctor assented good-naturedly and I gave away with the best grace I could we dealt first with the rooms belonging to the girls so that they could complete their broken rest Kenneth proposed that they might be allowed to deal with each others

but the doctor would have none of it Moreover, he insisted on all keeping together as the rooms were searched and turned. One of us is a liar, and verged in a liar and not to be trusted alone. We unmade the beds. We pulled up all the carpets and turned out all the drawers, scattering the clothing on the floor. Nothing was neglected, saving modesty and nothing incriminating found. Heathel went back to bed. We heard the key turn in the door of her room, and then we moved across a landing into mine.

I stood on the doorway, watching the others at work, with Margaret, who said, she was sure she would never get to sleep again at my side. Isn't it all too fearfully thrilling? She whispered confidentially, clutching a dressing-gown together with exaggerated modesty. I could cheerfully have slain her on the spot. Before a bare couple of minutes had passed, Kenneth, who was emptying my few belongings out of the chest of drawers, held up a new seat above his head in triumph. I knew we should find it.

I knew I was right, he cried triumphantly. What have you all of you to say to that? He might have spotted a derby winner. We crud around him. He held the paper up to the light, and we could see at once where here and there odd words and letters had been cut away. That this was the paper that had been used, there could be no shadow of a doubt. They turned to me with questioning glances.

Margaret whispered inaudible, Oh, you! I had nothing to say, no explanation to give, and stood stupidly tongue-tight before them all. I was too astounded to speak a protest, but I remembered that the doctor had been awake and abroad in the conclusion. quiet house while I was downstairs, and the rest were locked in their rooms and asleep. His and mine were the only too unoccupied. To make up the notice, place it over the switch, and then step into my room and deposit the paper where it had been found. What, I thought,

could have been easier for him to do than that? Had he not just stated that, if he were guilty, that was what he would do? But afterward, would he have gone upstairs to Stella's room and have allowed me to find him there? Or was his search, and his private detective work, and he all a pretense, and was he really on some murderous errand of which I had interrupted? I knows what I knows. Cook had said, besought a drunken cook, what did she know? I wondered. Was she really upstairs snoring? Or had she, too, like Stella, made her last adventure and opened the door at the end of the passage? These were the thoughts that flashed across my mind as I stood stupidly turning the paper this way and that.

When I did look up, I found Margaret gazing at me with ill-conceasing, sealed horror. The tundish, half amused and wholly sympathetic. Kenneth was making a further search, and he soon produced another card like the one that had been completed, a tube of paste, and then a pair of scissors. The paste came from the doctor's test. The scissors, Margaret, claimed as hurts. They were the ones she had missed when she cleared up her work to go to bed, and she did not fail to remind me how we had looked for them together. Well, it certainly smells a bit fishy. And did you smell fish, when the key was found? under your own pillow, Kenneth? The Tandrish asked him quietly. Yes, I did. And as you have asked me the

question, I believe it was the same piece of fish, meaning, why you, you damned liar, of course. The doctor laughed. You will win yet, Kenneth, for you'll certainly be the death of me. Anyhow, you take charge of the treasure-trow. Margaret, off to bed with you. We can do no more here and now. He was in command of the situation once more, and to me, at least, it seemed quite natural that he should be. Kenneth insisted, however, that we should go upstairs and verify the doctor's statement that Cook's snorts could be heard through the door, and though I could hear her distinctly and could confirm his opinion,

Kenneth pretended that he was not sure, and Ralph, of course, followed Kenneth's lead and was not certain either. The Tundish was willing to convince them, and fetched a stout screwdriver with which, after some little delay, the lock of the door was spried open. She was lying fully dressed on the top of her bed, her head rolling about, Trotusquely in time with a heavy breathing.

The windows were tight shut, and the room reeked of spirits. The doctor, steadying her head with one hand, raised an eyelid with the other. She never stirred. Ted rung. But not Ted, he pronounced. He opened the window, and we filed away downstairs.

The boys disappeared to their rooms. The Tundish and I were alone. It's uncanny the way the evidence against me grows, he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. against you Surely I am the more implicated over this? He smiled broadly. No, indeed.

All the other doors, except yours and mine, were locked. You would never have left such a clue at large, and unprotected. It would have been your first care and concern. On the other hand, how exactly it fits with what I might have done myself? You must believe me, though, when I assure you that I did not. I believed him. Ridicless, as it may sound, I believed him implicitly, and he told him so.

We stood alone on the dimly lighted landing. The great cathedral clock was chiming too. We could hear Kenneth barricading his door. And you believe in me? I asked. He nodded. Have you any suspicions at all? Why should anyone go to such trouble over such a mad joke? Mad?

Yes, but diabolically clever too. Don't you realize how it has emphasized last night's notice and helped to link it all up with Stella's murder? Yes. but mine was a vital part of that. It meant nothing, surely, until I printed my asinine edition. Surely it did. Think how I called attention to the fact that each of us might have been alone upstairs last night.

Think how or and out of keeping the whole silly practical joke must appear to Alport. Why, you thought so yourself. You know you did. And now the second notice, me caught prowling about the house at night and the newspaper found in the only vacant bedroom. whether any further crime was intended to night or not nothing could have told more heavily against me remember to how at Alport's inquiry

Kenneth stressed his sentence trailed away to nothing and he stood gazing into vacant space a puzzle frown on his clear-cut pleasant face well off you go to bed he said breaking through his debris I may yet get my call to that young citizen's ravally I staggered to my room and tumbled out of my clothes and into bed

my brain refused to tackle further problems but my last conscious thoughts were of Kenneth. Could I imagine him guilty? Kenneth, a murderer? Yes, just possible, perhaps. But Kenneth diabolically clever? No. Most emphatically, no. The end of chapter 11.

Chapter 12 of the Dale House murder by Francis Everton. This Libri-Wox recording is in the public domain. I read by Yoga. The Dale House Murder Chapter 12 Janet arrives on the scene A beauty gases with a smile of pleasurable anticipation into some distorted mirror

To start back in horror from the grinning image that greets her so unexpectedly But by little Alport to gaze into a distorted mirror, what then? What unthinkable monstrosity might he not see depicted? And so it was with my dreams and the way they reflected my elderly gruesome waking thoughts as I dreamed and woke intermittently through what reminded of that hot, airless night. If the day had seemed long, those few hours of dream disturbed sleep were like a slice of eternity itself. An eternity which I occupied in playing tennis at the club, serving through an interminable game, first with a baby flagon of Chinese poison, and then with my own severed hand, which Margaret

handed to me on a racket like a ball. Embracing frantically from room to room to find Ethel, then the Tundish, then each of the others in turn, lying dead on their backs with tearing bloodshot eyes. All dead, and myself alone with the dead, alone and tearing desperately from one room to the next to find a sign of life. Thumping madly and resounding doubts, crouching, shrinking down outside them, opening them in fear, and banging them to again in terror when I saw what there was within. Looking furtively behind me to see little Alport standing there, grinning sardonically, leering at me, dangling a pair of blood-stained handcuffs before my starting eyes, and asking me in a way that left me gasping for breath if my initials were F-H,

an eternity which I occupied in overhearing, Ethel and the doctor callously plotting together to poison Kenneth, and in creeping on hands and knees down mile-long dimly-lighted corridors to and from a succession of scenes of horror. Finally I woke to see the sun shining in at my window, and to the dull realization that some of my dreams at any rate, uncomfortably near to the truth. Downstairs I found the tundish, unshaved and unabashed, at one end of the breakfast table with a medical journal propped up in front of him, and Kenneth and Ralph at the other, each with the morning paper. I saw the doctor's eyes twinkled with amusement

as I took my seat next to him, and he told me that he had been called out of bed again at four, and had only just returned. And what about the escort? Did he accompany you? No. I rang up the police station yesterday evening telling them that I expected the call. and they trustfully allowed me to go on parole. This fresh negligence on the part of the authorities seemed to rouse Kenneth's ire for he jumped up from his breakfast and rang up Inspector Brown reporting the finding of the notice and the doings of the night in aggressive, carrying tones

that we could none of us fail to hear. Apparently his news did not meet with quite the expected reception for, will you please repeat what I've told you to Mr. Alport as soon as you can? And ask him to let me know when this abominable farce is going to end were his final words, and he returned to his interrupted breakfast, glaring offensively at the doctor as much as to say, Damn you, now you know what I think about it. Then Margaret came in, and after a moment's obvious hesitation, which seemed to underline and emphasize her choice, she moved to the end of the table away from the doctor and took a chair next to Kenneth and Ralph.

Thus we started out on the second day after the murder, already divided into opposing camps. The Tundish and I at one end of the table, Margaret and the two boys with the other, an uncomfortable accusing gap between us. And in a different ways we each of us, except the doctor, showed the embarrassment we felt. He conversed with me very much at his ease, tapping the open journal in front of him with his ex-poon

to emphasize his forcible remarks, decrying the sins of the anti-vaccinationists, and glibly labelling them as nothing but a gang of murderers, as though the word murder held no terrors, and was a most natural word in the world for him to use. When the chances were that a murderer sat at the table and I, alone of the four, believed him anything else. I saw the three exchange glances, and Margaret murmured.

Murder were loud. Though what she meant by it exactly was not quite clear, but words held a fascination from Margaret, apart from any meaning they might convey. Had a pretty head been equipped with brains, she would surely have been a poet. Folding up his paper, the doctor rose from the table asking, Has anyone seen anything of Ethel?

Is she coming down for breakfast? I haven't heard a sound from her room, Margaret replied. still sleeping, I expect, after a broken night which is not surprising. I'll run up and find out how she is. We heard her knock twice and again. Then she came back and stood in the doorway. I can't make her hear, she told us with a queer little catch in her voice. Now, Ethel had been safe when we woke her in the middle of the night,

and we had all heard it lock a door when she returned to her room. But when Margaret made that simple statement, it sent her thoughts back to yesterday's breakfast, when Ethel herself had come tumbling into the room with a white face to tell us that she couldn't waken Stella. We looked at one another in dismay. Kenneth pushed back his chair and rose slowly to his feet. The doctor sprang to the door and raised up the stairs two at a time,

and like an echo from the night before, we heard him hammering on a door. Then, to our infinite relief, we heard him asking, Are you all right, Ethel? Would you like your breakfast sent upstairs? I saw Margaret's eyes brighten unnaturally and a tear rolled down her cheek. Oh, how absurd of me, she said, and hurried away to her. her emotion. Kenneth and Ralph went out into the garden. The doctor returned and rang the bell for Annie, giving her instructions about Ethel's breakfast. Then he turned to me. So you've had a

fright, have you? He asked quietly, and I felt myself redden under his penetrating gaze. I did too, he added mopping his forehead. What a ruffian I must look, Jeffcock. I must bathe and shave and get to work. Thank God I have a busy day I had. Yes, I agreed. You certainly have the advantage of us there, for we have nothing to do but sit about and jag one another's nerves. How on earth are we going to get through another day of this, possibly two or three? It may all end sooner than you expect, he answered enigmatically, and with that he left me and ran upstairs. How I say to get through the day, I wondered. Sleep, smoke, write letters, slink about the garden, avoiding ethel, so that she should not learn of my ever-increasing doubts about the doctor.

but there were twelve weary hours to while away. I would have gone into the garden and adopted Kipling's cure for the hump. Tick, dig till you gently perspire, but I was doing that already. My thoughts travelled with longing to the tingling crystal air of Yorkshire's moose. That was where I would like to be on such a day as this, off for a twenty-mile tramp with my pipe for company. But that was not to be.

And with a sigh of distaste, I collected writing materials and proceeded to the shade of the cedar to write some letters. Presently, Ethel joined me. Her face was still swollen. The brew is beginning to blacken. She looked tired to, and I imagine had been crying, but her eyes lit up with something of her old smile

as she came toward me, a letter in a hand. Do listen to this, she cried. Isn't it just like mother? She's sending us a visitor, a visitor now of all times, and someone we have never seen before at that. Mrs. Hanson's incoherent hospitality was a family joke. Visitors, she must have. She had no discrimination in the matter of individuals and occasions,

and the way they might char or mix. She would think nothing of bringing home a perfect stranger, August or otherwise, and feeding him on kindliness and cold mutton. And I will give her her credit for this. The visitor, August ordinary, the cold mutton, the kindness, and the occasion would generally mix to a pleasantly affable blend. My own friendship with the Hansen stated from one of these app-hazard invitations, so I smiled at Ethel reminiscently as she stood by my side with a letter in her hand. A good thing too, perhaps, I said. We shall have to sit up, mind a man and behave. Tell me more about it. What is it to be? Rich man, poor man, beggar man or thief? Ethel began to read me bits of the letter. You remember we were expecting to see my cousin,

Bill Kenley, when he got home from Rhodesia. We were to look out for him next week on the channel boat. Well, rather to a surprise, he arrived this week, yesterday, in fact, and he surprised her still more by bringing with him a wife. They are on their honeymoon. Such a jolly girl. We both of us like her immensely. But poor things, while we were having lunch, a cable arrived for Bill, ordering his immediate return. Some native unrest that their fear may delve into

serious trouble, and he must be on the spot. So he sails back again tomorrow. Meanwhile, what is his wife to do? She has no relatives here. I should have liked her to stay on here with us, but dad takes all my time, and he doesn't want to be bothered with anyone else. So it occurred to me, why not send it down to you? You need a chaperon, you know? It's all very well while the whole lot of you are there together, but after the tournament, you can't go on keeping house for the tundish without the much of the pussies getting their cloth into you. So you may expect Janet, that's a name, soon after this letter. You'll be nice to

I know. My family are really very good to me about backing up my wild invitations. but she's really very nice, and you'll enjoy having her on her own account. Dad is steadily getting more like his old self. He tells me to say how sorry he is to Miss Francis. I hope you're having a good... Oh, well, that's all that matters. Ethel finished sitting down and finding herself with a letter. How am I to explain the situation to her, Frances, when she arrives?

Just imagine coming to a strange house and finding yourself in the thick of all this? It certainly was rather a facer for Ethel. but it could not help seeing that the situation had its points. She sounds better than your aunt, Emmeline, anyhow, and that's what you would have had to come to. As your mother says, you can't go on indefinitely without some older woman, and your aunt is the obvious elder. Now, they said Aunt Emmeline was a sister of Hansen,

10 years as a senior, a spinster devoted to good works, and most uncomfortably and uptrusively high church. When Aunt Emmeline fasted, the recording angel and the cook were not the only ones to know it, and she managed to cast a gloom like a London fog over even the cheerful Dalehouse family. In short, she was one of those good women whose menfolk make friends with the devil. Ethel began to smile. Yes, Francis, as you say, there may be something to be said for the idea,

but I don't relish the job of explaining the explanations. Oh, well, if she's a good sort, she'll see you need help. If she isn't, she'll help herself off, so it really doesn't matter. We left it at that, and after sitting with me for a while, while Ethel went into the house to make ready for her guest. Apparently Margaret stayed indoors to help Ethel, for I hardly saw all the morning. Kenneth and Ralph pace slowly up and down in the shade at the side of the house.

They paid very little attention to me, and I gathered from their manner that they were going over the facts of the case, much as I had done the night before. They would stand talking earnestly together and then resume their walking, only to stop and talk again a minute later. Once or twice they glanced in my direction. then Ralph pulled a notebook out of his pocket and they disappeared behind the garage. Kenneth was shaking his head emphatically as they went and I could guess that he was deriding any suggestion of Ralph's that did not involve the doctor.

I wonder if the two girls were carrying on a similar conversation and thought how much happier we should be if the boys would behave more as Margaret did. She suspected the tundish and to a less extent I think she suspected me. But like an ordinary reasonable mortal she kept a suspicion to herself until they were confirmed. Rather shamefacedly I got out my own notes and went over them again. Everything that had taken place since their compilation went to confirm the conclusion I had come to, and yet I was still unwilling. There was something fine about thee. I put my papers hurriedly away.

The boys were coming from the garage. They stopped in front of my chair, and I told them of the unexpected addition to a party. Oh, Lord, said Ralph, and a bride, too. She'll smirk and say my husband in every sentence. You needn't worry, Ralph, was Kenneth's comment. The bride will remove herself at once when she realizes the awful company she is in. Meanwhile, well, it's a diversion anyway. And talking of diversion, Jeffcock, would it outrage the proprieties, do you think?

If we rigged up a badminton court over there and had a knock or two, we could telephone for shuttlecocks. Best thing you can do, I told them. We can't sit about all day like this. We must do something. Yes, Margaret, said Ralph. Come along, Margaret, and help us to make a bit. badminton net. You've got some old strawberry netting. Can a gentlewoman's hand accomplish the

rest with the help of a bit of clothesline and a needle and thread? Right, said Margaret, brief for once, and she retired to fetch the tackle. But just then, the front door bell rang loudly. Through the open door and windows, we heard plainly enough an authoritative voice alternating with a faintly protesting one. Evidently there was an argument between Annie and the owner of the commanding voice, the latter prevailing, for we heard it paring down on us, and we looked at one another in dismay. Good Lord, it's a wheeler-cartwright woman, Ralph said aghast, coming to be

a mother to Ethel, and incidentally to lap up all this scandal she came. The voice was upon us now, and we rose to greet the owner, whom I had recognized as a mother of a meek and depressed little girl I had met at the tennis club. I had seen the mother on previous occasions too. Never once

had I seen her silent. The irreverent called a Mrs. Jaggernaut outright behind her back. This is terrible. Terrible, she breathed heavily. I only heard the news last night, and I felt I must come round as soon as I possibly could do

to express my sympathy with Ethel. Poor dear girl, how she must be longing for a mother! And tell me, is it really true that there is to be an inquest? I'm afraid it is, I murmured. But Mr. Jeffcock, what really has happened? The wildest and most disturbing rumors are flying about, did the poor girl take an overdose of something?

Surely, surely it wasn't, it couldn't be suicide, The police are inquiring closely into the whole matter, and honestly I can't tell you much about it, I patted. Mr. Jeffcock, she whispered hostily impressive, and standing so close that I could feel the glow from a purple face. Is there any reason to suspect? Anything worse still? Really, I cannot tell you, I replied in mimicking her pauses. The police are very reticent, and they have asked us to be equally so. And with that, I stared her straight in the face.

Mrs. Vela Cartwright took a deep breath and slowly her face acquired a yet more fiery tinge For obvious reasons she had not adopted the modern fashions She grew and spread There was an ominous silence I see she boomed majestically I see then it is as I feared And now where is Ethel? Where is a poor child

This is no place for a young and unproach She is resting ablyve Kenneth interrupted And she wants to sleep I think He added hastily as Mrs. Jugger and not turned and made for the back door with the obvious intention of proceeding forthwith to Ethel's room. She waddled and puffed like a tug on the thames, and in a couple of strides, Kenneth was ahead, barring the way. I'll tell her you've called.

Mrs. Wheeler Cartwright was defeated, but she retired in good order. Good morning, then, gentlemen. I'd intended to ask Ethel to come and stay with me for a few days. A young girl alone. People will talk, you know? Whisper indecently is what you mean. I said my manners succumbing to my anger. But Ethel has a married cousin coming to stay with her today.

So that's a little pleasure they'll have to do without. I thought she was going to burst. Ralph escorted her to the door into Dalehouse Lane. Ethel came through the drawing room door and joined us. Heroes, she laughed. If she had caught me alone, I should have had about the chance of a sickly sardine doing battle with the whale. She'd have packed my things and carried me off to a purer spheres.

And now she's going to round to Manchester? The old girl, Kenneth, I noticed, had nothing to say to Ethel. She kept a face, turned from him, and ignored him completely. I felt intensely sorry for them both. A broken engagement. A building bird's nest wantonly destroyed. In all conscience, an unhappy enough event. But in their case, what added distresses?

And they were deprived of the solace of work and other grief-killing outside interests. Margaret appeared with her work bag and retired with the two boys to the proposed badminton court. Ethel and I took refuge from the sun under the kindly Cedar She with the times on her lap I pretending to write Bissy Francis she inquired presently And I knew she was going to ask me the question I wished to avoid Now while a killing time

I answered grudgingly But she did not take the hint She threw down the paper and sat forward So that I could not see her face Her hands clasped around her knees Francis what do you think of it really honestly you don't you can't believe the tundish capable of such a thing i can't answer you it's no and yes at once i replied reluctantly a dark head bent lower you against him too she whispered no that i'm not i find it desperately difficult to associate him with murder an association however that i find equally improbable when i think of you or any of the rest of us who were in the house that night that's a trouble he tell

The evidence against the Tandrish is so very much the strongest. I try not to believe that he did it. I know that I didn't, and that leaves, and I can't make out a case against one. So, like a circle train on his dismal round of repetitions, I come back ever to the doctor. The circumstantial evidence is pretty deadly. A prosecuting counsel would make a good deal of his previous acquaintance with Stella and his reticence on the subject. We know that he quarrel with the father. The prosecution would suggest that she had the knowledge of some disgrace

secret in his past knowledge which have published might ruin his career in this country, and that he took instant measures to silence her. Ethel said, a picture of limp dejection, with a dark head bowed, her hair falling forward, a screen to hide a face. My suggestions roused no sign of quickening interest, and in spite of the conversation I had overheard at the club, I came to the conclusion that she knew no more of the doctor's quarrel with Stella's father, then I did myself. and yet that conversation, what was it she had said?

I certainly would not have offered to put her up if you hadn't suggested it to me. A statement that surely must be pertinent to a pernish his tangle, and if so, what tragic thoughts were filling that dark brown head? But surely, Francis, no one could suppose him to have done it so clumsily. A doctor could so easily, if he wished, find a way that would not point so obviously to willful murder. His own counsel would make the most of that point, of course, But anyhow, unless a real marl respond, he will be under a cloud for the rest of his life. It's horrible, simply horrible.

Ethel shuddered, burying a face in a hands, to think that a man who is never willingly wronged a soul can be put in the position he is in, by nothing but chance and ill luck. I'm sorry if what I've said has made you feel still more unhappy, Ethel. Quite half the time I'm convinced that he had nothing whatever to do with it, and then at times my convictions failed me. There's just one thing, however, that strikes me as being in his favour. As it ever occurred to you, I wonder, as it has to me,

that he has just a tiny suspicion himself as to who did it? He till turned in a chair and stared at me. Do you mean that he suspects one of us in this house, you or me, or any of the others? What makes you think, sir? I can't tell you, my answer. It's just an idea at the back of my head, perhaps so vague that I should not have mentioned it.

I have the impression, though, sometimes very strongly, that he could throw suspicion on someone else if he chose. Somehow, I don't quite know why I feel that he's waiting for something, biting his time. We sat a while in silence. A light breeze had sprung up. A breeze laden with heat and the sweet, overpowering scent of syringa. A moaning mission drowned, a garden or two away. The air was saturated with summer sense and sounds, and we sat nursing our unhappy thoughts. thoughts more in keeping with the rotting leaves and sodden undergrowth of some November wood.

What time does Mrs. Kenley arrive? I asked after a prolonged pause. Mother doesn't say, but I've been looking up at the trains, and there's one getting in just before lunch. The next good one is not till after four, and I should think she will travel early to avoid the worst of the heat. Anyhow, we can't go and meet her. Annie crossed the lawn to us, salver in a hand. A telegram for you, Miss Ethel? Arriving 110, Manchester, J.K., she read. Then looking up at Annie, tell Cook that Mrs. Kenley will be here in time for lunch. Annie departed.

What are you going to do about telling her the state of affairs, Ethel? Are you going to tell her? Yes, I must. Oh, surely I must. I shall wait until the afternoon, though. I think it might look as though I wanted to drive her away if I told her at once. But how I'm going? Oh, how I hate it all. before Ethel was on the verge of another breaktone, I could see by the way she leaned back in a chair and turned her face away.

I had wanted to ask her if she too had heard someone laughing in the waiting room before she came into the dispensary on the Monday morning when she came down from the club to get some tape for the handle of a racket, and to question her regarding that intriguing conversation of hers with the Tundish, which had come to my ears so clearly across the courts as I sat in the umpire's chair. I came to the conclusion, however, that she had enough to bear, and if she had answered me, I had, by this time, argued myself into such a condition of disbelief that any reply she might have made would only have given rise to additional skepticism and doubt. And so the unemployed and interminable morning wore on.

I dozed in my chair and pretended to write. Ethel hardly stared in a chair at my side. The two boys played badminton, but after a time their voices ceased, and I concluded that they were too overcome by the heed to continue their game. Margaret flitted past her several times, but she never once stayed to prattle in a usual way. She seemed preoccupied and worried. Shortly before one o'clock, the Tandish returned from his drowns.

He joined us in the garden immediately and took a seat beside us. Ethel handed him the telegram she had received without comment. And who, may I ask, is J.K.? There's to be another prison inmate, Eithel replied rather bitterly, and explained in a few sentences what Mrs. Hansen had done. And what am I to say to her? She concluded.

And what will she do when she finds out all this? The doctor considered for a few moments. When was the wire sent off? He asked at length. 10.30 from London. Then she had had plenty of time to see the morning papers. If not before she left the hotel at Folkstone, at any rate, before she reached London.

The papers? Ethel cried. Is it in the papers, elderly? The doctor pulled a folded sheet out of his pocket. not in the Times, he said, but the penny papers have lost no time in getting hold of it. Look at this, he pointed out a paragraph to her. I read it over her shoulder. It was in the front page and was headed, sudden death of young tennis player.

A sad event occurred yesterday in the old cathedral city of Merchester, where the annual lawn tennis tournament is in progress. Mestella Palfreyman, a promising young player, died suddenly during the night of the 16th. There's reason to suppose that her death was due to an overdose of some narcotic medicine Miss Paul Freeman retired to bed in her usual health at night and was sworn dead by a hostess in the morning We understand that the police are inquiring into the matter

Ethel threw down the paper and shivered Her eyes filling with tears And tomorrow it'll be shouted and built all over the place I shall never be able to hold up my head in Manchester again Oh, I can't bear it I simply can't bear it anymore The Tundits took a hand in his and held it while he spoke

His other hand affectionately on a shoulder Ethel You must not You must not give way like that It's ridiculous Hold up your head indeed What have you to be ashamed of Come now

I know how brave you can be And we are all going to need all the grit We have got in the next few days Now about Mrs. Kenley She may be with us any minute Here she is, I said as a doorbell peeled. Ethel dabbed her eyes hastily and ran indoors, and I heard I greet the guest in a usual pretty way. She took her upstairs to her room, and I remember even then noticing the tones of

Mrs. Kenley's voice and thinking of myself that they promised well. A few moments later, Ethel was bringing her to us across the lawn. I looked with interest to see what manner of person was that fate had added to her unhappy household. Would she be capable of rising to the situation? Or would she add yet another wrong note to our strident discots. Mrs. Hanson had spoken well of her in a letter. But Mrs. Hanson, I knew, and I don't say it unkindly,

would have found some traits to praise in the devil himself. True, he did put the best silver sugar tongs in his pocket, but with what an air he had passed the sugar. I was reassured, however, as Ethel brought a guest toward us. I liked her at once. In a couple of hours, I was definitely

impressed and but I'm going too fast. Now I don't mind admitting that as a general role and quite apart from any question of sexual attraction I greatly prefer girls to men and there is a certain section of the sex, a stratum lying somewhere in between the fussy and the fast that to me seems to contain the salt of the earth. How clean they can be. These gay, good girls clean in the mind and body. Their dainty cloths barely hiding the intriguing beauty in a way that causes my 40-year-old heart to thump and its cage to see, and why, I ask, should the good and the beautiful be hidden away? God bless their shapely pink legs, how brave and bright they can be.

Look at them in the tram or the train, on their way to work. Look at them, I say, and then look at a crowd of unshaved, sheep-faced men with their fusty, dust-locked, hideous and idiotic plots. Mrs. Kenley, I could see at a glance, was neither fussy nor fast. She was younger than I expected. Whether she had bought a cloths from Pac-Win, or through the weekend advertisement columns of the daily mail, I do not know. But to my male inexperience, she seemed to be beautifully, fittingly dressed.

I had an impression of a short skirt and slim grey legs. Then a pair of grey and extraordinarily wide-awake eyes held me mesmerized, and I found myself being introduced. Was she beautiful? At the time I'm sure I could not have answered that question, but I knew at once that she was brave and true. The gong sounded before we had time for conversation, and we went into lunch.

Margaret and the boys followed and were introduced. I sensed at once that the presence of a stranger went far to lessen the feeling of awkward restraint that seemed to engulf us when we were all together. No reference was made to the tragedy during the meal, and we had as yet no idea whether Mrs. Kenley knew of it or not. I was dreading that she would ask some

question about the tournament. She must have been rather surprised, I thought, to find us all at home for lunch and not on a tennis kit. The Tundish, however, seemed to have anticipated the difficulty and guided the conversation with subtle skill to her life in Rhodesia and the voyage to England. She told

us that she was not South African born and had spent most of her life in England. So the meal passed pleasantly enough. When it was over, the doctor announced his intention of taking if possible a couple of our sleep, and he advised us all to do the same. Ethel and Margaret retired to their rooms.

Kenneth and Ralph to the drawing room to play chess, and it fell to my lord to entertain Mrs. Kenley, a fate which I welcomed with secret enthusiasm. I took her to my favourite spot, the shade of the cedar, and Annie brought us a coffee there. We smoked cigarettes and for a time talked of nothing in particular. She was entirely at her ease,

but I still felt the disturbance of that first look that had passed between her eyes and mine, as Ethel had brought her to us across the lawn, and while I regarded her as closely as he could without appearing to be rude, I added little to the conversation. She smoked a cigarette and pensive contentment, and I felt to wondering why one look from a pair of clear grey eyes, should have set my blood attingling, and made me wish were all manner of unpleasant happenings to overtake the unoffending Cousin' Bob. Certainly Mrs. Kenley was charming, but I had met plenty of charming girls before. Margaret and Ethel were both that,

and they both looked you straight in the eye without these disturbing bristles. Disturbing, but very refreshingly disturbing. And I think that for the first time since the murder, my thoughts wandered contentedly in pleasant places. Mrs. Kenley put down a coffee cup on the grass by a chair, and hitching it round to face me more squirely, asked me in a low-pitched voice, now, Mr. Jeffcock, will you please tell me all about this terrible affair?

Of course, I saw it in the papers on my way here this morning, and one paper mentioned that Miss Paul Freeman was staying with the Dr. Hansen. I can see that things are in a bad way here. You would naturally all have gone home by now if you could. So I suppose it means that you are being detained by the police? Is that so? I nodded and she continued. I wondered if I ought to change my plans and go elsewhere, but I remembered that Mrs. Hansen

really seemed to want me to come and chaper on Ethel. and so I thought I would come on for one night at any rate to see how things are. Tell me now, honestly, what do you think I ought to do? I hope you'll stop Mrs. Kenley, I answered promptly. It would be a real kindness to Ethel, if you will. I'm sure she will ask you to stay when she gets a chance to have a talk with you. With that, I told her about the whole miserable affair from beginning to end. Stella's tragic death, Ethel's rupture with Kenneth, the ugly suspicion that had fastened on the tundish,

and more or less shadowed us all, of the feeling of subtle distress that seemed to fill the air, and all the wretched series of events of the past two days. True, little Alport had instructed us to be reticent, but Inspector Brown had surprisingly agreed to a visitor, and if she were going to stay in the house, they seemed nothing to lose by telling her the facts and little possibility of keeping them secret. I was glad to have somebody to talk to someone who by no possible juggling with keys and time and facts could have had anything to do with Stella's death. I was amazed at the ease with which she grasped the whole situation and at the pertinent questions she asked. At the end of an hour's talk, she knew all

that I could tell her of the murder, of other matters, of how charming I thought her, of how beautiful I thought the curved arch of a pencil brows over those white grey eyes, of the adorable little trick she had of pushing out a dainty but did to my chin when she wished to emphasize a point I could not tell her in so many words, and whether she guessed anything of my feelings, I do not know. But I think that even then we both of us realized that the foundations of friendship had been well and truly laid. We sat talking together until nearly four o'clock

when Ralph and Kenneth, the former arrayed in a very grubby tennis shirt, an ancient flannel trousers, dusters, and a tin of polish in his hands, interrupted a tete-a-tete. Going to polish up the bus, Ralph explained. And there are one or two little matters, want to look into as well. Are you interested in motoring Mrs. Kenley? Yes, I am. I used to drive for the

Women's Legion during the war. Really? And by you in France at all? Kenneth asked. Not for very long. I drove an ambulance for a few months, and then I was drafted to London and drove for the war office. I could see that Mrs. Kenley was not over-anxious to talk about herself, and she made move toward the garage as though to close the conversation. But the boys were interested, and pressed for details, asking whom she had driven and whether she had had any interesting experiences. No, nothing exciting at all, except just once. And then, she paused and smiled reminiscently.

And then I hit a certain well-known general in the face. Did you really there? And why were you to shot at dawn? Ralph laughed. Please tell us about it. What did happen? Oh, there's really nothing to tell. I wish I hadn't mentioned it.

He was a little drunk. and, well, I suppose he took me for someone else. I was in an awful fright next morning, because I couldn't have lost my job. But nothing happened all day. And at night when I took the car home, I found a big bunch of roses tucked away inside with a note of apology.

He was his sportsman, after all. What was his name? Ralph asked. But Mrs. Kenley merely laughed and shook her head. That, Mr. Bennett, I'm keeping for my grandchildren. Now, please show me the car. I love to look at new ones with old. the latest tricks. We went to the garage and soon she and Ralph were deep in technicalities. The unventilated garage was stifling and not being interested in young Bennett's opulent car,

I soon left them to it. As I strolled back to the house, I heard a ruckous voice proceeding apparently from one of the upper bedroom windows. It was cook and cook in no amiable mode. At first I could clearly hear every word she said. Then just as I was getting really interested in what I heard, she moved and I missed the rest. So I says to myself, it may be all right, and maybe not, and there ain't no reason as how it should be wrong. But seeing what happened afterward, the police might like to know what I saw if I was to tell them. But then I think to myself, it may be better worth your wild cook, I think, to keep it to yourself. And the police, there are no friends of yours, cook, I says to myself. Now then, what do you think about it?

Cook gossiping with Annie was my first conclusion. But Annie appeared with a tea tray before I reached the house. I heard no more, excepting a few slurred in indistinct half-sentences. I felt certain she was, if not drunk, not sober. But not drunk or not, it was evident. She had seen something of which she had not told Alport, intending to go round the corner of the house and go to the door in the front garden wall to see if there was a newsboy inside

from whom I could purchase an evening paper, I approached the house pondering, a pastime at which I was fast becoming adept, pondering the question which of a party could cook have been addressing with such drunken garrulity? It certainly had not been any,

and I had heard no answering voice. A word had been spoken with a half-drunken, lurching in consequence. Was it just possible that she might have been talking to herself? Ethel, I'm sure it's dangerous. There can't be any real difficulty in getting rid of her. I'm sure we ought to take the risk.

It was the doctor's voice, and I walked full tilt into him and Ethel round the corner of the house. My shoes were fitted with rubbers, which made no sound on the hot plastic asphalt path, and though I had heard every word the doctor said, it was obvious that they had not heard me. He was standing with his back to the wall. She was facing him, and very close. his hands on her shoulders affectionately, hers holding on the lapels of his court, her dark, bobbed head tilted back,

and looking up adoringly to meet his downward gaze. I felt myself go hot with shame. Yes, and anger, too. The hussy, the inconsiderates. Had they no sense at all of fitness or time? Surely heath might have waited until Kenneth was out of the house, even if her engagement to him had been a fundamental error. The Tundish, a real mate, and if a conduct struck me irreprehensible,

words will not describe the sudden surge of indignation that I felt against the well-balanced, placid doctor. Ethel sprang from his embrace, flushed scarlet, then paled to a sickly white. My own embarrassment almost equal hers. The Tundish never moved a muscle or turned a hair. He greeted me at once, pleased to see me. Hello, Jeff Cork. You have just come in time to help us decide about the dismissal. of cook. I am for prompt measures. Ithel for tomorrow and delay. But why should she go tonight,

Dundish? Itel stammered, slowly recovering from the shock of my sudden arrival. Dear gods, Jeffcock, what won't these women stand for the sake of having a thing label cook in the house? Why should she go tonight? Why? And you can ask me that, after all, you have just been telling me. She's near enough to being drunk, isn't she? And as I was saying, I'm sure there's no risk of any row. Ethel said nothing. A color had returned, but I thought she looked bivaldard and confused. The doctor turned to me, explanatory.

She's afraid that she might not consent to go without a fuss. That we might get a crowd round the house if we had to turn her out. Yes. Oh, yes, I'm sure we should. And I couldn't stand it. I can't stand any more. I can't stand any more. Ethel cried hysterically and slipped past me round the corner of the house.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. The sooner all this is over, the better it will be for Ethel. About at the end of a tether, he took me by the arm. I wished him anywhere else except with me. Never had I liked him less or distrusted him more. I was still feeling the awkwardness of my unfortunate intrusion, uncomfortable, half apologetic, wholly angry and disturbed, but he not only had hidden his feelings.

I began to wonder whether he had any feelings to hide. a rock, Ethel had called him, an iceberg rather. And like an iceberg, God alone knew what lay hidden away below. God, and perhaps some poor devil of esteemer that strikes the cruel projections unawess. He went on talking to me. What did I think of Mrs. Kenley? He would feel happier about Ethel now that she was here. I barely heard him.

But I did hear him say again, we must get rid of her. There isn't any risk. and then poured drunken cook, standing at the bottom of the stairs, nodding ahead, grotesquely, her greasy wisp of hair waving to and fro. I know what I knows, Dr. Wallace. The gong sounded for tea. We had it on the lawn under the cedar. Ethel poured.

Ralph never spoke a word, throw at the meal, and for once Margaret was quiet. Mrs. Kenley and the doctor did the talking and made the conversation. They played catch with it, and Janet, Mrs. Kenley, was as good at, at the game as he was. Lightning work they made of it. Vivid. And Kenneth represented the thunder. He glowered. And I felt like an invalid does when some friendly, mean well stays too long. I wish them both, forgive me, Janet, but it really did in, well, say anywhere. It was a ghastly meal. A meal to choke on. The tundish relived us of his presence as soon as tea was over. The rest of us sat on, but the ethel Kenneth ruptured. still cast its gloom.

And I think we all felt that Mrs. Kenley had been a got scent. She was telling us of some of the golf courses she had played on in South Africa, idly prodding the turf with the point of a parasol, when she suddenly bent forward, peered closely at the grass, then straightened herself, holding a tiny glittering fragment between finger and thumb.

She examined it carefully. Anyone lost a diamond? Margaret, who had sat so listlessly inert, that I had glanced at her curiously more than once sprang to her feet. It's mine, she cried. It's mine. I lost it sometime this morning and I've been searching for it everywhere. But what an extraordinary piece of luck to find it out here like that, Ralph remarked. You might have gone over the lawn with a tooth comb hundred times and not have found it. Yes, but remember where I come from, Mrs. Kenley laughed.

Ethel, who had been into the house, rejoined us at the moment, and Margaret ran to show the diamond to her and tell her of its recovery. Why? I didn't know even you had lost it. Why ever didn't you let us know? We would have organized a search party at once. I shouldn't have been so quiet about it if I had lost a stone that size. I should have done that at any time, my dear, Margaret answered. But it seems so petty to make a fuss over the loss of a paltry diamond

when things were so... You know what I mean? Well, I'm awfully glad you have found it, Hethel said, handing it back to her. And now, Janet, if you're not. can spare me a few minutes, I want to consult you about something. They went indoors arm in arm, and the four of us were left. Kenneth suggested Bridge, and so we whiled away the time until dinner. That meal was so abominably cooked that we left most of the dishes untouched, and satisfied a hunger on bread and cheese, which Ethel, in high annoyance, told Annie to fetch. What do you think of,

Miss Janet? And on your first night, too. Oh, please don't distress yourself on my account. I prefer bread and cheese to roast beef on a night like this. It's quite all right, Ethel, dear, Margaret searched. They say you don't want so much meat in hot weather, don't they, Dr. Valis? A dinner of bread and cheese completed, the doctor bitook himself to the consulting room again, and after a little maneuvering, I found myself alone with Mrs. Kenley in the garden. As my doubts about the Tundish grew, I felt an increasing disinclination for a conversation with Ethel, and on the other hand, I had no wish to ally myself in any way with Kenley,

and his open hostility. Margaret, I shrewdly suspected, was more than half inclined to think that I might be the criminal myself, and it seemed that to Mrs. Kenley alone could I look for ordinary unhampered conversation. But I had no sooner succeeded in my object, then Annie came to inform her that she was wanted on the telephone, and she hurried away indoors.

I waited with what patience I could, but she did not return, and after a quarter of an hour or so I followed in search. She was in none of the downstairs rooms And I concluded that she must have gone to her bedroom The boys were playing chess in the drawing room Neither the girls nor the doctors were to be seen And after glancing through the evening papers I went back to the garden and it's rapidly lengthening shadows

I was nearing the garage when I heard voices Ethel and Margaret I thought at first Then I recognised Mrs. Kenley's pleasant low control to Then that the other voice belonged to a man a deep mellow voice, a voice belonging neither to Kenneth nor Ralph, nor the doctor, but still half familiar. Surely not Alport, I thought, but it was. As they rounded the end of the garage, there they were seated close together on the little bench at the far side of it in intimate and earnest conversation. She was persuasive, leaning toward him.

Very well, then, Janet, I'll agree, but I'm not at all happy about it. I heard him reply. Then they looked up and saw me. Mrs. Kenley blushed and withdrew a little along the seat. Then they whispered to each other, and little Alport rose, said good night, made a funny little grimace at me, and hurried off through the garage gates and into a Dalehouse lane. I was staggered. Mrs. Kenley stood up, troubled, a grey eyes full of concern, meeting mine unflinchingly.

Has he been bothering you two, then? I thundered. Don't make such a noise. I have something to tell you, Mr. Jeffcock, she said, ignoring my question. Come and sit down here, where we shan't be overheard. I went and sat by her side on the bench where only a moment before the ridiculous little man had sat and I perceived that while she had sat close to him, she kept a distance from me. All my original animosity against the conceited little detective returned.

Mrs. Kenley continued to look at me oddly. I suppose you have guessed something about it? She queried. I stared at her. An idea was beginning to form at the back of my head, but it seemed altogether too fantastic. You know, Alport, I ventured at length. He sent me here. He sent you? No, I don't quite, Mrs. Hansen. Mrs. Hansen has never seen me. Listen, it's like this. Mr. Alport wanted further evidence which could only be obtained by someone staying in the house, someone whom none of the rest of you could possibly suspect of having any connection with police. Then you're not the wife of Ethel's cousin, Bob Kenley at all? You're a... Yes, I am,

she said, quietly amused. But Mrs. Hanson's letter, did he forge it? Oh no, she wrote it right enough, but at his request. He went down to Forkestone last night and sent me a wire before he started, telling me to hold myself in readiness. We came to Merchester together this morning, and he gave me full details on the way. But he couldn't have got to Forkestone last night, in time for Mrs. Hansen to write. Oh, yes, he did, though. He went by aeroplane from here, explained the whole affair to Mrs. Hanson,

and persuaded her to write the letter. That was why he made you all promise that you wouldn't write to anyone mentioning the murder. He was afraid Ethel and the doctor might think it peculiar of Mrs. Hansen didn't come back from Folkstone, and he wanted you all to remain here just by yourselves, and no further additions made to the household.

I had to admit that Mrs. Kenley had played a part to perfection, But somehow I didn't quite like the idea of all being bottled up in Dalehouse for her to play the spy on, and I think she understood my feelings, for she turned to me with a deprecating little gesture. I'm sorry, you do see that it was the only thing to do, and as for me, well, I had to obey my instructions. And now why does Mr. Alport want me to know? He didn't. If you hadn't caught us together, we shouldn't have told you anything, though I'm not at all sure that it hasn't turned out for the best.

I may as well tell you that we are all in some danger. Mr. Alport wanted me to leave the house tonight and to break up the house party right away, but I persuaded him to let me stay until tomorrow. Why does he think the danger greater tonight than it has been hitherto? You know he took away the bottle of poison? Well, the analyst has wanted to be nothing but water. Water? But Stella? Yes, it was poison then.

but the trouble is, where is the poison now? Was it thrown away? And if not, well, I could only stare at us stupefied, and the doctor's words to eat hell about there being no risk in getting rid of cooks seemed more sinister than ever. Alport had no right to take such a responsibility, I said at last. It isn't quite so bad as you might think at first. The poison has a bitter taste and a strong smell.

Miss Paul Freeman, of course, took it unsuspectingly, and would naturally think nothing of it. if a medicine had an unfortunate taste. Besides, there's no real reason so far as we know why the person who gave it to her should harbour murderous to signs against anyone else. I don't understand it at all. It's a complete mystery.

I never could see why anyone should have murdered her. Apart from the doctor, perhaps, I added remembering my own growing suspicions on his quarrel with her father. Well, I don't think I'm justified in telling you any more. I wish to tell you just as little as possible. But I'm very glad to have to have. someone at hand to help me at a moment's notice if an emergency should arise. I sat for a time and thought.

To say that I was surprised at the revolution would be to put it too mildly. I'd been pleased to imagine this gray slip of a girl that my side is clean and free, a breath of sweet outside air refreshing the exhausted atmosphere of some hot, unventilated room, a ray of light piercing the shades of deceit and hypocrisy that seemed to have engulfed us, and here she was with one unknown exception more involved in the wretched affair than any of us. Never had I seen anyone less like imagination's picture of a woman detective, neither hard-eyed, brazen and tight-lipped, nor of the vampire-siren-type familiar to frequenters of the cinema.

Well, I think that you must be very brave, and I'll do my best to help you if I can. But tell me, is this sort of thing your regular work? No, I've done a good deal of it from time to time, but I'm not officially attached to Scotland Yard. Mr. Alport lived next to us when we were children and we grew up together. I can see that he's not exactly popular with any of you here, but in many ways he's very fine. I've seen a side of him that you have not.

When my husband was killed, just before the armistice, he was the best friend imaginable, and has helped me ever since. When I was demobbed, I went on the stage for a time. I wasn't much good. Had a pretty hard time. Mr. Alport used to find me odd jobs in connection with his detective work, not very often at first. but lately I've helped him quite a lot. We sat behind the garage talking together for some little time

and I learned that her real name was Janet Player. She told me many things of Alport, always to his credit. She was loud in the ugly little man's praises. And when I learned that he was married and the father of a family, I trust they took after the mother, I disguised my dislike. And apart from actually admitting him and Adonis, agreed to most of what she said. The light was fading when we rose to go indoors.

The sun had scorched its way across the sky and set, and now behind the house and over the northwest garden wall, the air was aglow with its last refracted golden brace. In the east, the cathedral seemed to have advanced by half its distance, so clear did it stand with the paling green light behind it. Roaks were coying the pleasant, rocus lullaby among the neighbouring trees. The thrushers were at even song. The cedar stood out in dark but shadowless,

enhanced relief against a dimming light. Did the quiet beauty of the scene make your heart beat a little faster too, Janet? I wondered, as we stood side by side at the top of the garden slope, looking down at the old Georgian house with its wicked bodgin secret, this twilight half-hour, how even the ten thousand repetitions of experience failed to rob it of its mystery and subtle sense of calm bereavement. Day are dying, night engulfed.

And were you wondering what the knight might bring, Janet? as you stood like some slim grey wraith at my side? And did you vaguely guess that the man at your side champion sobsed of sentimentalist that he is? Was all astor, quickened by the garden's evening beauty, by your calm, brave spirit, by the pity he felt for you fighting alone in this dangerous house, and that Cupid was fitting arrow to bow and preparing to shoot?

We were halfway down the slope when she put her hand on my arm and stood intent. I thought I heard some. one, she whispered. Someone in the lane, most likely. No, no, it was quite near, a rustling of leaves, like someone brushing along against the hedge. We stood for a moment, a hand still on my arm, but not a sound disturbed the still air. There was no breath of wind to stir a leaf. Janet shrugged the shoulders when I suggested that it might have been a cat, and that we had spoken so low that we could not have been overheard, and we walked across the lawn and went back into the house together. We found Margaret, Kenneth and Ralph sitting in the drawing room.

Ha, here you are at last, Margaret greeted us. Isn't the garden lovely in this light, Mrs. Kenley? Isn't Ethel a lucky girl to have such a beautiful home? Ralph urged a game of bridge. There were five of us, and Janet stood out, a letter to write her excuse. At a little table near the open doorway we settled down to a game, Ralph partnering Margaret against Kenneth and myself. Margaret had the most astounding luck and backed it with good play. Twice they made Grand Slam, rarely less than three tricks. They registered rubber after rubber. Never mind. Unlucky at carts, lucky in love, Margaret giggled. Kenneth scald, but she seemed to be blissfully unconscious of having dropped a brick and added

sentimentally, I sometimes wish that I wasn't so lucky at carts. I murmured something inane about there being plenty of time for luck to change. Kenneth yawned openly and suggested bed. Where can it'll be all this time, Margaret asked as we gathered up the carts. The naughty girl hasn't been near us all the evening. I should not have been surprised had she come out with, best to be off for the old love, before you are on with the new. But that we were spared, and having collected her knitting, she went off to the consulting room, saying, I shall scold Dr. Wallace were keeping her so much to himself. Janet came downstairs as we were going up to bed, and I took time to caution her to lock a room door. She nodded emphatically.

I will, and more than that, Mr. Alport has given me a bolt, a set of screws, and the wherewithal to fix them. The end of chapter 12. Chapter 13 of the Dale House murder by Francis Everton. This Libri-Vox recording is in the public domain. Read by Yorg Anand The Dale House Murder, Chapter 13 Accident or I unrest and pulled aside the curtains to admit the moon's pale,

haunting light. My bed had been moved close up to the window and again there was little fall from the daytime temperature. The condition of heat and drought seemed stable and set forever. I propped myself up in the pillows and lighted a cigarette. Outside I could just see the top of the garden wall at the front of the house, a ridge of steel blue where the moonlight caught the tiles aslant, a barrier of black beneath. Moonlight. Sunlight speeding through the years, flung wide of the earth and caught by a dead world and killed. Sunlight with the life sucked out of it. Flowers and bees, sparkling waves, ruddy, basking babies,

hot desert sands, and the light and the glow of the sun. Graveyards, tombstones, rotten creaking doors, deserted, derelict old houses, and sad lovers sighs in the pale, cold light of the moon. How it has always disturbed me, this shadow light, even its beauty filling my heart with an ache and a pain. It came slanting in obliquely through the window, picking out the crockery on the washstand in gaustly white,

making long-distorted shadows on the floor and up the walls. Only two nights ago, just such another band of light had pierced the dark of Stella's room to find a dead and kiss a kinky, coppery hair. And tonight, Mrs. Ken Leapabbs was listening for the gentle turning of the handle to a door, and for someone moving stealthily outside it. I hated to think of her alone in the night, perhaps depending for her safety on a single bolt. I hated to think of her, a woman, little more than a girl, alone in this dreadful house,

her wits pitted against those of one careless enough to murder and face it out and threaten dark to-doings again. I wished she had taken me further into her confidence. Who and what did she fear? Last night, in spite of the doctor's injunction to lock my door, I had felt little sense of reality. little sense of any immediate danger. But tonight it came upon me that somewhere in this old house death might still be lurking,

that someone who had stolen soft-footed into Stella's room and out again, the cowardly deed accomplished, was still at large, and perhaps even now hatching further devilry. That there was a real concrete danger, I had no doubt, or why had Alport brought her a bowl to fix to a door? She had told me that he was married,

but how closely, almost intimately they had sat together on the bench behind the garage, partly to enable them to whisper, no doubt. But was it only that? Or was there something more? I thought of a clear grey eyes and brave straight carriage, and there welled up in my feelings, half pity, half jealousy, that should have told me plainly enough whither I was heading. Oh, yes, I was greatly interested in Mrs. Kenley, Janet Player,

gray-eyed, fearless Janet planted in the middle of this tragedy by that ugly little gargoyle of a man to do his dirty work. Janet, alone and fighting against Tela's murderer, perhaps the placid doctor, and if it were he after all, then, God, how I hated him!

A hundred little scenes and gestures flashed across my vision, scenes of cold deceit and gestures of hypocrisy, scenes and gestures void of truth, killed and sucked dry of sincerity by his placid impassivity, like those ghost beams of reflected sunlight that had been rifled off colour and warmed by the equally placid moon. The tundish in the dining room,

begging us to bury our suspicions, at Alport's inquiry, flicking the ash from the end of a cigarette, Alport's insinuations, having as little effect as water on a greasy slope, baiting Kenneth, talking of the murderous activities of the anti-vaccinationness, with a cool effrontery,

before us all making love to Ethel. The tundish, impassive and careless and cruel, with his mask of a face and twinkling, unbetraying eyes, these and other little pictures rose before my sleepless eyes. And if it were he, what chance had a girl against him? I recalled the rustling in the hedge as Janet and I came from a secret talk behind the garage. Had someone overheard us then?

Was some of the member of a household, aware of her true identity and purpose? stella poisoned one night dark deeds had done in dale house at night stuck up against the landing wall the next a cool hand and a careless must have been the one that cut those words from the daily paper which of us besides the doctor would have the nerve for the venture fool fool i was of course it was he no wonder janet was afraid for i saw a look of fear when she heard the rustle in the hedge and realized that we might have been overheard and now she was all alone in her room protected perhaps by nothing but a flimsy bolt. I jumped out of bed and opened my door. The landing was quiet, no sound reached my ears. I crept along to her room and listened outside the door. Should I knock and make sure that she was safe? And if the others heard me and were roused, cut away any ultimate chance I might have of being of service to her? As I hesitated, I saw another picture of the doctor, the doctor at this time, not the man. Could that be hypocrisy, too? God, what a vacillating, doddering, fool I was! Doddering, doddering grass fluttering here and there in the fickle wind of my own imaginations making.

I went miserably back to my room and tried to compose myself for such sleep as my whirling thoughts might allow me. I endeavour to think of ordinary, homely things, of my everyday work of Brenda, but Brenda's brown eyes turned to grey, those clear grey eyes of Janet's which had held me with their look and shed my heart to flutter. No doubt both my brain and nervous system were overstrained for hardly once in a twelve month

is my sleep disturbed by dreams but again as on the two previous nights my subconscious mental activities were pronounced enough to be registered among my waking thoughts. This time I was down on the Romney floods that lie between the rye and the sea. I had once spent a holiday there

I was on a bicycle an antiquated heavy piece of ironmongry pushing warily along a winding road making every yard with effort, though neither wind nor hill barred progress. I was both urgent and belated. Rye must be reached before dark, and alder these swelling reeds of mist like slim, transparent shrouds were rising from the marshes to meet the falling dusk. But rye must be reached before dark, and my paddles clanked,

Rye must be reached before dark as they turn the rusty chain. Now, when I look down at the road, I only saw it dimly through the thickening mist. now I saw it not at all, nothing but undulating fleecy sheets of opaque cloud. Their legs completely hidden, the cattle of the marshlands appeared to float on the top of the mist like huge, grotesquely shaped ducks that floated on the pond. Now they loom suddenly large, now they disappeared,

as they pushed my way along the road. Rye must be reached, the clock struck again the church on the hill, and always the mist was rising. Now it was up to my chin. now I was completely engulfed. Now my head was clear once more. I missed the road and dithered frightfully on the edge of the ditch.

I regained my balance with a thrill of exquisite relief, but I could hear the preliminary whirring of the wheels. The clock was about to strike. Too late! Too late! I had failed. I ran full tilt into a gate across the road. There was a crash, and I woke with a start. The moon had moved round and shone full on my bedroom door. Too late, too late, too late, went throbbing through my head like a dirge.

I gazed stupidly at the door, still half asleep, and wondering why the mist had so quickly lifted. By God, how I loath to moonlight. Too late, too late! Janet, brave, lonely Janet, was she safe? Too late, what could these unaided repetitions potent? I sprang to the door. The landing was black and the moonlight through my open doorway. lit it like a spotlight playing on a darkened stage.

I sniffed the air. A sweet sickly smell greeted my nostrils. Half amelia, then I recognized it for what it was. The unhealthy, innovating smell of escaping gas. Cook, in a fuddled, drunken state must have made some blunder when she turned it off down below stairs. There was no gas in the house above the basement, so it must be coming from there.

I slipped on my dressing gown and hurried down. When I opened the door that tops the basement stairs, it made me in a pungent wave. I closed the door with a bang. No one can go down there in safety. That was obvious. There were movements on the stare above, and I switched on the light in the hall.

It was Janet. God bless her, how dainty she looked. The Tundish was falling close at her heels, and I nearly cried out my alarm when I saw him just above her. How strange I thought that just those two in all the house should have been wakeful enough to hear. Hello, Jeffcock. We seem to take it in turn to prowl the house at night,

and get caught in the act. What's our mess? Gas. Can't you smell it? The basement's full. We shall have to open a door from the outside before we can turn it off. The doctor ran toward the dispensary and I unbolted the front door and ran out into the night, followed by Janet. We descended the area steps and peered in through the kitchen window.

We could see nothing. It was impossible to see. Here goes, I said, kicking in a pain of glass. Slipping in my hand, I unlashed the window and threw it wide open. The reek poured out into our faces And we had to step back to let it disperse The Tundish ran down the area steps A bundle of wet towel in his arms

Smash on the other window He said Cook may be still in there for all we know I hasten to obey By this time a policeman had entered the gate And stood behind us Anything wrong here? He quared it I heard a window smash I thought

Oh gas is it Anybody in there We don't know yet The constable produced an elephant electric torch and turned its beams into the dark kitchen, sweeping it from side to side. Peir, we gasped together. By the table was seated a motionless figure, arms extended on the table, and head fallen forward on them. Alderty the doctor was wrapping a wet towel over his nose and mouth, and the constable and I hastened to follow his example. Two of us will be enough, he said.

You stay here, Jifcock, to give us a hand when we get her to the window. The policeman turned on his torch again, and we watched them run across the kitchen to the still figure and the arm. chair. The Tundish darted first to the gastrow, then back to the woman. He and the policeman picked her up between them and staggered to the window. They set her down for a minute on the broad sill while they drew long breaths, then we lifted her out and later on the ground. The constable played the light on her face. A head and shoulders, set in the bright circle of light, made a ghastly, black-framed picture. White face, blue lips, eyes half open, showing glints of yellow whiteness. She looked like some giant jellyfish, washed her show, and

falling the beach, a mass of boneless flabiness. The doctor knelt beside a loosening a dress and placing his hand on her heart. There's another flashlight on my dressing table. Would one of you mind fetching it? He said, looking up quickly, his question of command, and some ammonia from the dispensary term. Janet and I sprang to obey. I ran to the dispensary, she upstairs for the torch. We were both back in a few minutes. She held the torch with a steady hand. Just a lie, the doctor said, looking up. But a few minutes, more. A few minutes more, the policeman accord. That had been another

inquest. There may be yet, said the Tundish, in his pleasant conversational tones. He had unfastened a cloutes and was slapping a bare chest with the wet towels, but there was no change in the livid, upturned face. He poured ammonia on one of the towels and held it under a nose. There was

no response to the treatment. We'll have to try artificial respiration, he said at length. And Mrs. Kenley, can you get me a hot bottle? The bottles are in the cupboard in the bathroom. And you'll find a spirit lamb standing on the sideboard in the dining room. Better not light the gas down here just yet. Janet handed a torch to me and ran indoors.

I can take turns with you, sir, the policeman offered helpfully. I've had this job before. He cast off his tunic and helmet as he spoke and rolled up his sleeves. So the grim struggle went on in the moonlight. I watched and held the torch while they fought in turns for the drunken creature's life. The half-hour stuck and still they worked on. Was she going to slip away? I wondered, and take with her into the great unknown whatever it was that she knew of Stella's death.

But at last I heard a gasping breath. The doctor stopped and wiped his brow. Close call. Now, what about that hot bottle? Even as he spoke, Janet ran down the steps, her arms filled with blankets. We wrapped up the ungainly figure warmly. She was breathing now, but still unconscious. The doctor still knelt by her side, holding a wrist.

Better ring up the hospital constable and ask for the ambulance. She'll want no care than we can give her here. Drunkenness has not improved a chance of pulling through. The sooner she is there, the better. The policeman hurried indoors, and soon I heard him at the telephone. I was surprised that none of the rest of a party had been roused by the banging of the basement door, the smashing of glass, the voices outside, and the gentle running to and fro. But they were all of them young and healthy, I reflected,

and the previous night had been a broken one. The ambulance drew up at the gate, the two attendants came in with a stretch. They lifted her gently and bore her away. We all drew a breath of relief as a car slid smoothly down the road. The constable resumed his tunic. Trunken old beast, he said. She'll pull through. You see, if she don't, and if she had been a good woman with a loving husband and three or four nice little kids, she'd have conked out.

That's the way it is. Her sort takes a lot of killing. Well, sir, I'd better take a look round. Then I must write up my report and be off. Janet ran down the steps as he spoke. come in and have some tea before you go. I've just made some of the dining room. We went in and sat at the big table.

Janet had made the tea with ethyl spirit lamp and had hunted up a tin of biscuits. Never was a midnight snack more welcome. But what a strangely assorted little group it was. The policeman, solid and comfortable in appearance, but amusingly elat-ease, fingering a notebook which he had extracted from his inner recesses of his tunic. What were the thoughts, I wondered, slowly penetrating the brain behind his good-tempered face as he thanked Janet awkwardly for his biscuits and his tea. Janet!

Ha! Janet, how piquant and dainty you looked, and what a contrast to that horrible figure on which my gaze had been concentrated for the last half-hour more. Janet might have been a lifelong inmate of the house, and a tea an afternoon affair of gossip, maid attended and cake-stand be flanked so easily and pleasantly she chatted. But what were your thoughts, Janet, as you asked the doctor with a smile if his tea was as he liked it? The Tundish.

If his thoughts could have been bred, how eagerly I should have scanned the page, expecting to read of devil-driven treachery or heroic, unselfish optimism, I know not which, and myself distrusting the doctor and liking him at once, tolerant of the blue-coated limb of the law, wishing them both in hates, Dale House and its record and gruesome happenings, a thing of the past, and Janet and I, alone together in some sheltered, peach-scented nook on the moose, where I might hope to stir in her, an answering thrill to my own. The constable sat down his cup and rose. Thank you, miss, he said, that's done me a power of good. And now,

I must have a look round and get back to my beat. We went down to the basement with him. Janet had set all the doors wide open while we had been working over the cook, and the atmosphere was breathable once more. Was the kitchen door shut, miss? Yes, and the door into the scullery toe. We entered the kitchen. There was a kettle on the gas stove, on the table, an empty glass, and beside it, an overturned whiskey bottle. It was empty, except for a few drops, and the tablecloth was stained and wet where whiskey had been upset. That was a tap that was turned on, said the doctor, pointing out the one leading to the ring under the kettle. Good thing you had electric light down here, the policeman remarked. If she had had a gaslight, there had been a fine bust-up.

He wrote up his notes laboriously, took my name and Janitz, and went to the open window where he paused his hand on the sill to say, no need to bother about all those windows and doors being open. The place can do with a bit more air. Me and my mate will see as it's all right. I hope you won't be having no more disturbances, sir. Good night. The policeman, having departed to complete this night's vigil, the doctor picked up the wet towels, whiskey bottle and glass, and we went upstairs to the hall. There we paused to look at one another. Well, Mrs. Kenley, the tunders shied quietly. What do you think of the household you have come to? Pretty lot, aren't we? Seriously, though, I'm very sorry that you have been letting for this. It was bad enough before.

Janet smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Oh, never mind me. I'm used to a staring life. She glanced at a wristwatch. Not how. half past three yet. There's time for sleep still. And look, it's getting light already. We went to the open door, another day was spreading fast. Already the east was growing pale and putting out the last pale stars, a little breeze blowing ruffling our hair, and the birds were sleepily tuning the first shy notes of their morning song. Whatever this newborn day might have in store for us, the black hours of another night had passed, and for the moment at least it was good to enjoy the pregnant morning stillness with its promise of brighter things to come.

Well, said the Tandush at last, we had better turn and get what sleep we can. I'll just scribble a note for Annie explaining matters, or else poor girl, she'll get a shock in the morning. He went back to the consulting room, taking the towels and the bottle and glass along with him. For a few brief moments, Janet and I were alone. Are you all right? I asked anxiously. Quiet. Why soon did I be? She smiled at my look of concern. Oh, I don't know, but I felt worried about you before I went off to sleep last night.

I didn't like to think of you alone. I wish my room were next to yours. It's just as well that I had a bolt, Mr. Jeffcock, for when I went to lock the door, I found that the key had disappeared. I'm quite certain it was there this afternoon. Look here, I shan't go to bed. I'll pretend to, and then come back and lie down in the drawing room. room with a door open. No, please, Mr. Jeffcock, I don't want you to do anything that might call

for comment. I shall be perfectly safe. No one will very easily get past that bolt, and I will revolver with me as well. Yes, Dr. Val is coming back. Please don't fuss. The doctor came back, holding a note addressed to Annie, which he placed on the whole table. Now for bed, he said. We went upstairs side by side. The doctor disappeared into his room, Janet, into hers. I lingered outside my door until I heard a bold shot home Then I turned the key in my own door, unrest and tumbled into bed The end of chapter 13 Chapter 14 of the Dale House murder

By Francis Everton This Liberty Box recording is in the public domain Read by Yoganand The Dale House Murder Chapter 14 A bird bath and an inquest In spite of my succession of broken nights I woke shortly after seven

And I got up as soon as Annie knocked at my door No one was about when I made my way to the bathroom The cans of hot water were still doing sentry duty Outside the bedroom doubts I bathed and shaved at leisure And sauntered downstairs to find the breakfast table being set Annie hurrying to and fro She spoke to me at once about the accident to cook

Have you heard what's been happening happening in the night, sir? The doctor left a note on the table to say as how Cook's been taken ill and has had to be sent to the hospital. Such goings on there must have been. The kitchen window smashed and the door standing wide open when it come down this morning. I don't know what we are all coming to, I'm sure. Do you know what it is all about, sir? Ah, you must sleep very soundly, Annie, I answered. Tell me now. What was Cook doing when you went upstairs to bed last night? Me, sir? I'm sure I couldn't tell you, sir. I kept away from the kitchen I did. There's all my washing up to do yet. But I wasn't going near cook as she was last night if I could

help it. And when I had cleared away, I went and sat by myself in the workroom. And where was cooked then, Annie? She was in the kitchen, sir. I locked the back door and fasten all the windows except the kitchen window before I went to bed. But I never heard her come upstairs at all. What was it broke the window, sir? She never went to bed at all, Annie. She must have been too far gone to get upstairs, and apparently she turned on the gas at the stove, and then forgot to light it, and nearly paid the penalty.

I told her exactly what had taken place during the early hours of the morning, but I could get no useful information in return. Annie had not gone into the kitchen, and could not tell me anything of Cook's condition when she went upstairs to bed. My goodness, sir, we might all have been explored up and upbreds. I told Miss Ethel wasn't safe to have her both the house. was Annie's comment and she added rather maliciously she won't get none of her whiskey in the hospital no Annie you may be quite certain of that and my kitchen isn't half in a mess with broken glass all over the floor you don't know what became of the tablecloth to you sir the tablecloth annie yes sir i can't find it nowhere this morning now i remembered quite definitely that the cloth a red one was on the table when janet and i had left the kitchen in the early hours of the morning i remember the large wet patch where

the whiskey had been upset. The tundish had taken away the bottle and the glass, and had left us two talking alone together. The clot was there then, and now, only a few hours later, it had disappeared. Clearly, either the doctor must have come back and annexed it, or the police had taken advantage with the open windows to return after we had gone to bed. It occurred to me that it had been a rather strange suggestion to make that we should leave the window open. In either case, it was interesting, and made me begin to wonder whether the accident to cook had been an accident at all. Poor besorted cook, sitting drinking alone in the dark basement kitchen, slowly drinking herself to death while all the time that more rapid certain death

was swirling round her in the poison air. I pictured her pitching forward in the dark. In the dark? It suddenly struck me how strange it was that she should have been sitting there alone without any light, and my doubt about it being an accident became a certainty that it was not. you're sure that it isn't there annie you have looked everywhere i suppose it isn't in either the kitchen or the scullery sir i was puzzled and decided to tell janet about it at the first opportunity breakfast was not yet ready and no one was down so i sauntered out into the garden i was just in time to see janet coming through the little door that leads into dale house lane i was standing on the far side of the lawn level with the end of the doctor's wing and somehow from the way she looked about her perhaps I could guess that she had been out on some errand in connection with our mystery.

To every pair of lovers, I suppose, there must come some time when they quite suddenly realize that the word friendship can no longer express their growing interest in each other, and I know that it was as Janet knew the few short places across the end of the surgery wing that I realized that I was head over heels in love. She looked so solemn and reliable as she came in through the dough, so utterly dependable and brave. She scanned the garden toward the garage, apparently to make sure that her return had been unobserved, a little smile flickering across a serious face as though half amused at her own precaution. It was not until she reached the corner of the wing that she saw me, and it was then at that instant that I knew with an absolute assurance that she was the one and only woman in the world for me. Had an angel which wings sailed down from the cathedral tower and led her to me, saying,

Mr. Jeffcock, allow me to introduce you to your wife. I could not have been more sure about the matter. Laughing that she had not seen me before, she came forward to greet me, and my uneasy thoughts of whiskey-stained, a red table-cloths that mysteriously vanished in the night, vanished till, and I could have cried out aloud. Oh, you darling, you darling, what have you done?

But instead, I stood awkward and silent, thrilled with the realization of a nearness and a morning beauty. "'You've caught me,' she laughed. "'Have I?' I whispered back, and I think that she must have felt that my words might hold some double meaning, for we stood looking at each other, her eyes meeting mine, unflinching, appracing, a level brows, a little arched, puzzled, and wholly adorable. "'Please don't tell anyone.' "'It shall be our special secret,' I replied. She turned and ran to the house, and I lounged up the sunny garden, my pulses pleasantly a throbbed,

drinking in the morning freshness that seemed to reflect and emphasize the joy of my uplifting discovery. At the far end and in the corner away from the garage, there is a little rose garden, enclosed on two sides by sturdy hedge of wild white rose, and on two by the mellow red brick walls, a diminutive but formal square of lawn with a rose bed in each corner, a little place of peace and sanctuary to which I naturally turned. An archway gives entry through the white rose hedge, and I pass through it musing happily. yes, happily in spite of all the horrors of the week, for it seemed that, for me, the darkness might live to a golden dawn. In one of the corner-bets grew a lovely, large white rose,

and I stoop to examine one of the buds, a thing of perfect beauty, the outer petals curling back to show the heart, layer-on-layer of closely folded purity. Then just behind me I heard a tiny splash, and I turned quickly to learn the course. I'd been looking at beauty and thinking of love, while behind me the lawn was a place of broken hopes and death. Ted birds lay scattered over the little square, sparrows mostly, but a robin with its

vivid breast, and a cork blackbird with its gay, orange beak were there as well, and they all lay stiffly on their bags, with their little claws pathetically extended, for all the world as though they had been taken from some taxidermist showcase and scattered both grass. Under the hedge lay Ethel's tabby tom, dark and stiff, a half-eaten sparrow between his outstretched paws. In the center of the square there stood an old painted iron table on which Ethel kept a shallow dish of red pottery filled with water for the birds in times of drought. A thrush was in the middle of it, lying on its back, and it made one last dying flutter as I stood taking in the tragic little scene. A second thrush, its mate, a guest, flew down from the garden wall as I watched and perched

on the edge of the dish, then catching sight of me, it gave one long, sorrowful, flute-like note, and flew away. I crossed over to the care. and turned him over with my foot. His eyes were wide, and when I saw them, I felt the hair go creeping across my scalp, for there was a yellow slit of iris, and the rest was an angry red.

I started back in horror, and ran to the house with Janet. She was coming down the stairs as I entered the hall, and I beckoned to her to come into the garden with me. What is it? she queried. Is anything the matter? Yes, come and see what I've found. We hurried back to the rose garden.

Oh, the poor dear, the poor tears. Oh, how horrible, she cried when I pointed to the birds, her sweet low voice vibrating with a tenderness that it made my heart ache to hear. Yes, it's a poison, she agreed when I showed her Aethel's cat. How horribly! Oh, how wantonly cruel! Run him quickly, please, and telephone to Inspector Brown

before the others get downstairs, ask him to come in by the side door, and stray to me here at once, not to go to the house. I know he is at the station If Annie is about Send her to me here Out of the way before you speak If any of the others are about Come back to me at once

And we must hide them away Without showing the inspector The number is 47 I'll be thinking for some excuse for wanting Annie There was no one about but Annie And when I had sent her to Janet I got my message through to the inspector Without any interruption

For once the telephone working according to plan He promised to be with us in a few minutes And I hurried back to find Janet walking up and down the path behind the garage. What excuse she made for a talk with Annie, I forgot to ask, but it was satisfactory, for Annie met me smiling broadly. Janet was angry. Now that I know so well, I can better estimate how angry and disturbed she was.

It's so stupidly cruel, she almost sobbed. To put it there, where the birds come to drink, it seems an unsympathetic thing to say, but somehow riles me more than the murder itself. Don't you think we had better tell the doctor? I asked her. He'll be able to say more definitely if it's the poison. The Chinese poison am I mean.

She shook her head emphatically and looked at me rather queerly I almost fancied too. No, no, she said. There's nothing to begin by telling anyone else. Never tell anyone anything. That's Johnny Alport's colon rule for Detective Buck. Utter suggestion, we went back to the Rose Garden to await the inspector and to prevent any more birds from drinking the poison water. He'll have to take them away with him.

she said. Did you tell him anything? No, I replied. For once I obeyed the golden rule. Well, we ought to be looking for something to put them in. Do you think you can get a cloths basket or something without any seeing you in a bottle or can for the water? I returned to the house once more to try my luck. But Annie was in the hall, and though I racked my brains, I could think of no reasonable excuse for getting her out of the way. Then my eyes happened to light on the garage key that hung on a hook in the hall, and I remember having seen an old wooden box that I thought might serve a purpose. It was there, but I could find nothing for the water. So I took what I had found across to Janet, hoping that she might be able to make some other

suggestion. But she had already solved the problem by finding the watering can, and to my dismay, I returned to find her tipping the contents of the bird bath into it. I hated to see her handle the deadly stuff, remembering the doctor's alarm when I had only touched the outside of the baby flagon. It's all right, she replied cheerfully to my protest. I haven't touched a drop, and I promised to disinfect. Then very gingerly she picked up the birds one by one and put them in the box, leaving one bird and the cat so that the inspector might see exactly how they had lain when he arrived. He was with us before we had completed our task, more gigantic and phlegmatic than ever, I thought he looked in the little formal garden. Janet quickly explained the situation

and bustled him away, with the competence that only went to increase my admiration for her, but we were not to be left alone as a half-hoped we might. She would have none of it, but insisted that we ought to get back to the house at once, that breakfast must be ready, and that we should be missed, and that the less we were seen together the better, though I did my best to persuade her to stay. Idiotic of me, perhaps, but it was—no, I can't explain it. if you who read need explanations then you are beyond me i was in love i had never been in love before and here was my darling alone among the roses i wanted to stay with her and keep her to myself not share her with the rest but it was not to be for up the garden path came the tundish whistling the masier his chin stuck out in a way that he had when he whistled and fell jolly or rather i should say when he was willing that others should know he was feeling jolly, for only once had I seen him really depressed, and that was the time when

I had caught him frowning over Hansen's case-book. He was amazing, the Tundish, and the more I saw of him, the more my amazement grow. Here we were at the morning of the inquest, and he could whistle away light-heartedly, just like any boy at home from school on the first day of the holidays. If I was amazed, Janet was alert. knife quickly, Mr. Jeffcock, and she was cutting grocers and asking me about their names, of which I knew exactly nothing, even as the doctor stood smiling happily under the arch. Hello, breakfast ready? She greeted him. Yes. He was looking at the little table on which

the bird bath had stood. Where's the bird bath gone to? Janet looked at him hard, and I looked at Janet. It has gone to be clean, Dr. Wallace, she replied. Cleaned? Oh, Ethel's taken it, has she? I came to see if it wanted filling. Come along and to breakfast. The others were seated at the table when we got back to the house, and although Janet said very little, and I could see that her thoughts were busy with her discovery,

her presence again seemed to break down the restraint of some of her former meals. Neither Ethel, Margaret, nor the boys, had heard of Cook's experience, and their natural curiosity kept the conversation going and helped us to avoid those appalling periods of silence that it was beginning to associate not only with our meals, but even with dear old Dalehouse itself. Silences they were that seemed beyond a control. Silences that seemed to close down on us from outside, while we sat with averted eyes, each busy with his own suspicious thoughts.

What a night you must have had, was Ethel's comment. I see now that I ought to have given way and have allowed you to turn her out last night as you want to do tundish, then you would have all been spared. "'No, it was my fault, and I blame myself entirely for what happened,' he replied. "'I ought to have looked round myself before I went to bed, knowing the state she was in. I'm only glad that the rest of you were not disturbed, especially you two girls. It was no pretty sight, I can assure you.' "'I'm thankful I didn't wake,' Margaret joined in.

"'I shouldn't have slipped another wink all night. It makes me feel quite faint even to think of it now. The doctor smiled broadly, rather unkindly, too, I fancied. Well, if that's what you look like when you feel faint, we all of us laughed, for never had she looked more pink and white and golden, more full of vitality and less like a fainting lady. Both Ethel, whose spruy's was still in evidence,

and Janet looked pallid and worn by comparison. As we were finishing breakfast, a note came by hand for the doctor. Ralph had just said, apropos of the accident to cook, that the house seemed fated, and that, without meaning to be rude, he would be very glad to be back at work, The Tundish looked up from his note with a smile, as happy a smile as he could wish to see.

Well, you'll be able to gratify your wish. This is from the Inspector. The inquest is fixed for 11 o'clock, and we are all to be there. He's sending cars to fetch us. Moreover, our little pocket Hercules will be with us at four. And so, you see, Ralph, you'll be able to leave this evening. But whether I shall be here to see you office, I imagine more uncertain. He got up to leave the room as he spoke, but turned with his hand on the door-knob.

By the way, Ethel, what have you done with the bird bath from the rose garden? I'll fill it up before I go. The bird-path? Yes. Haven't you had it? It's missing from the table. No, I filled it up yesterday morning, and I'm afraid I haven't touched it since. Ethel looked round the table to see if we could give her information, but we none of us spoke and the tundish left the room.

when he had gone Margaret offered to take out another bowl of water saying the poor little things would be parched and there was a discussion as to the household duties during which the two boys went off to the garden and I out into the hall where I pretended to be brushing my clothes I wanted to veilay Janet she came out at last and I persuaded her to join me in the garden as soon as she could get away and after an interminable half-hour she came to me there "'Just for two minutes,' she said uncompromisingly, "'but with a smile I had grown to look for and to love so much. "'What do you want?'

"'I want to know what you make of it all,' I asked her. "'Wasn't it just a little odd that the doctor should have come to look for the bird-bath then?' "'I don't know, and I can't tell you what I make of it. "'You mean you won't? You don't want to tell me?' "'No, it's not that. "'I do want to tell you, but I can't. "'Where did you go before breakfast?' to the police station.

What for? I can't tell you. I'm rather a poor sort of confederate then, I'm afraid. If you won't let me know what you're doing, you're not a confederate. You're a protector. Should they need rise? Honestly, I can't help it, Mr. Jeffcock. It isn't my doing.

Johnny Alport is my superior officer, and I was to tell you nothing except who I was, and that I might possibly require your help. And that was only because you caught us together. I see, I sort of sob to keep me good. I was feeling childishly hurt. We had been walking up and down the strip of lawn that lay between the house and the boundary wall,

and at the end of one of her sentry girls, she turned and faced me, the sun lighting up her dear face so that I could see the tiny, cold-brown hairs that straggled across a bridge of a delectable little nurse. I wanted to help her, and felt absurdly that I had the right to do. I wanted endless consultations.

Here we were within an hour of the inquest, with the mystery that had bedevil the Dalehouse atmosphere from Selah to Attic, as far from solution as ever, and while yesterday my head had been full of such thoughts as, if he did this, then why did he go and do that? Now this morning I could think of nothing but Janet, and how I might keep her near me. Too please be sensible, she smiled.

But how can I help you if I am all in the dark? It helps me just to know you are there at hand. Now, I must really go. She turned to go back to the house. The two boys were sitting out of year short under the Cedar tree. I said, do sit next to me at the inquest. I called after her gently. She laughed outright.

Certainly, sir, she said. Wally, I'm not going. She was gone, leaving me uncertain as to whether I was annoyed or pleased about what she had said. And I only remembered afterward that I had told her nothing of Annie's missing tablecloth. Two police cars came for us at a quarter before the hour, backing into Dale House Lane, where we got into them without attracting the attention I had rather feared. Two men only observed us, and I heard one say to the other in passing, Aye, that's sin, curse about the town as bold as brass, a remark which made me appreciate

the doctor's bravery or affrontry in continuing to attend his patients. I had never seen an inquest before, and the only thing that really impressed me was the gravity of the whole proceeding. A room behind the mortuary was used for the purpose. A long room it was, with a plain deal table running nearly the length of it, and with the whitewashed walls that made the most of the rather inadequate light. The jurors were all assembled when we arrived, a solemn, uninteresting dozen, with, so far as I could judge, not one man of any personality among them. They were seated round the table. We were given seats against the wall, and the corona, a very much younger man than I had expected, came in as we took our places.

He was business itself. He asked the inspector to take the jury to view the body, filling up an official-looking form pending their return. And he then asked Ethel to explain to the jury exactly how she had found Miss Paul Freeman on the Wednesday morning. There was no witness box and she was sworn and made a statement standing in front of a chair at the side of the room. She spoke clearly and well. The doctor made a similarly brief statement and was continuing to describe how he had prepared a draft for Stella the evening before when the coroner pulled him up. Just at the moment I'm only asking you to tell the jury how you phone Miss Paul Freeman when you went upstairs at Ms. Hanson's request. I have nothing more to add then, the doctor replied.

You were of the opinion that her death was not from any natural cause and decided that the police should be informed? Yes. Inspector Brown next described how he had been called and went to Dale House, along with Detective Inspector Alport, and the police surgeon, and he concluded his few short sentences by asking that the inquest might be immediately adjourned while the police secured further evidence. How long do you want, Inspector? I suggest Tuesday of next week, sir? At the same time? Yes. Very well then, gentlemen. The inquest is adjourned, and I'm sorry to have to ask you to attend here again next Tuesday at the same time.

A formal reminder will be posted to you. I understand that there have been rumors in the city with regard to this unfortunate affair. and they have been one or two most improper references in the press it's your plain duty to shut both your ears and your eyes until we meet again and to take care that you come to the adjourn inquest with your

minds are blank there has been talk of full play we shall know nothing of that the unfortunate girl met a death in circumstances that require further investigation that's the sum of knowledge at present we shall meet again on Tuesday to consider the full evidence that will be put before us

and under my guidance you will then decide together what was the cause of a death. Thank you. A tall, grey-haired, full-faced man whom I hadn't noticed before came and stood at the end of the table facing the corona. I have a statement, sir, that I think it's my duty to make. Excuse me, the corona interrupted. But whoever you are, I can allow no statement whatever to be made. My name is Crawford, and I am uncle to the deceased. and what I have to say may, I think,

I'm sorry, Mr. Crawford, but I really cannot allow any statement whatever to be made. The jury must hear all the evidence in proper order, and at the proper time. If you have any information you feel you ought to impart immediately, then it's your duty to report it to the police. Can't I? No, really, you can't.

The florid-faced uncle retired. I like the look of the men, jolly, I thought, and I wondered what it was that he wanted to say. Then, to my surprise, just as the coroner was gathering up his papers and the jurors were pushing back their chairs, Kenneth jumped to his feet. May I ask, sir, how much longer are we to be detained? The coroner looked up in some surprise. We, detained? I don't think I understand you.

Who are you? And to whom do you refer? My name is Dane, sir. And I refer to my friends and myself and a detention at Dailhouse. The inspector stepped forward and whispered in the coroner's year. The coroner nodded his head emphatically, and then he turned to Kenneth. No warrant has been issued for anyone's detention. I understand that you and your friends made a perfectly voluntary arrangement with Inspector Alport,

and if that is so, I think that your application is in very bad taste indeed. Neither I nor the police have any right to detain anyone at present, and you are at liberty to go when and where you like. But you will be warned at the inquest on Tuesday and a proper notice will be served. Kenneth reddened and sat down. Inspector Brown came forward and told us that the cars were available for our return, and we filed out into the dazzling sun. The dreaded inquest was over, but I realized that the next would be a far more trying affair.

At the door stood Mr. Crawford, talking to the police surgeon, and he came forward and spoke a few words to Ethel in the kindest possible way, and then, to my surprise, he buttoned old the doctor, drawing him a few paces apart. They held a brief, earnest little conversation At the close of which Mr. Crawford handed the tundish a letter which he put carefully away in his pocketbook. They shook hands amicably

And the doctor rejoined us. I could not help my curiosity And I wondered what Stella's uncle could have to say And to give to the doctor And whether he had lived in China too And they had met before There was nothing to be gleaned from the doctor's face However, he was neither pleased nor perturbed

But just the same equable and placidavable and placid Tundish, as inscrutable as ever. We were back at Dalehouse before 12 o'clock, and my first concern was to look for Janet. She was not in the downstairs rooms, and I went up to change my coat for a blazer prior to making a search in the garden. The Tundish and I happened to go up the stairs together,

he to his room, and I to mine. They were next door to each other, and as he opened his door, out came Janet. Obviously, a little astonished, he stood to one side to allow her to pass. sorry doctor I was finishing off some dusting for ethel and didn't expect you back so soon she apologised he made some conventional remark

and she went on downstairs but I noticed and I wondered whether the doctor noticed it too that she had no duster she had been searching his room I felt convinced and I hated the whole business and Janet's part in it in particular as I had never hated it before lunch passed without incident

Janet did not look at me once but afterward as we were leaving the dining room with a whispered, take this. She added me a folded note. I went upstairs to my bedroom at once to read it. Dear Mr. Jeffcock, it ran. I'm going out this afternoon and she'll not be back until four o'clock. If an opportunity occurs, will you please tell Miss Hunter that you saw me coming out of the doctor's bedroom before lunch, that you heard me tell him that I had been dusting, and that you noticed that I hadn't any duster. Just tell her that you thought it rather curious. I don't want to tell her myself, but I do want her to guess that I've been searching

the doctor's room. Please burn this. There was no signature, and I folded it up and put it carefully away in my pocketbook in spite of her request. It was my first ever letter from Janet, and whatever its contents, it should be preserved. As for its contents, I could not understand them at all. Think as I would, and I sat on the edge of my bed for a full quarter of an hour thinking as hard as a sweltering heat would let me, I could read neither sense nor reason into a request. If, for some reason or other, she wanted Margaret to know that she was working with Alport, why could she not tell her write-out instead of adopting this roundabout device? If, on the other hand, she still decided to keep a true identity hidden from the rest,

why should she tell even Margaret that she had been searching the doctor's rule? After a time, I gave up my attempt to follow the reasoning that led to the writing of the letter and concentrated my attention on trying to carry out the instructions it contained. The two boys had been reduced to their chess again and were playing in the drawing room. In neither the house nor the garden could I find Margaret, and I concluded that she had gone to a room to lie down, so I had perfosed to amuse myself as best I might by reading the paper and by watching the two at their funeral game. Three o'clock came, and then half-past three, and I was beginning to think that I should be

unable to do as Janet wished when Margaret joined us and surprisingly asked me to go into the garden with her. Come up behind the garage, she said. I want to show you something. Full of curiosity and wondering whether what she had got to show might not have some bearing on Janet's strange request, I followed her up the garden and we sat down on the bench behind the garage where I had caught Alport talking to Janet. You remember that newspaper that was found in the chest of drawers in a bedroom? Margaret began.

Yes. Well, you know, I always feel somehow that you might have put it there yourself after all. Forgive me for saying, sir, and that it might have been you who put up the second notice over the switch. You see, you found it, and had such a chance to put... You have no business to make any suggestions. I interrupted angrily as soon as I could conquer my first astonishment. Oh, please don't be cross. You know what a way I have of blurting out whatever comes into my head.

And after all, it must be one of us. we must each of us be guessing and thinking these awful things about the rest. It is all very well and natural, too, perhaps, of the doctor to warn us against it, but it really isn't human nature not to. However, it doesn't matter now, for just look here what I've stumbled across. She put her hand down inside the top of a jumper and pulled out a sheet of newspaper, handing it over for my inspection. Like the one that had been found in my chest of drawers,

odd words and letters had been cut out here and there, and I gazed at it astonished. And look at this, she added, passing me a smaller piece of paper. I recognized it for what it was at once. It was a sheet torn from the memo tablet that stood on the doctor's desk. On it, there were some almost eligible pencil notes about a prescription I gathered in the Tundish's characteristic writing. And right across the middle of it,

and pasted partly over the pencil words, had been stuck letters cut from a newspaper, performing the first portion of the identical message that I had found in the card above the landing switch. Dark teeth are done in tea. Where on earth did you find this? I asked her. In the box room, up among the attics. I went up just now to look for a cardboard box to send some things away in. And he told me there were a lot stored away up there. And the first one I came to had a lot of rubbish and odd bits of papers in it. And when I emptied them out, this, they pointed to the memo slip.

Phil face upward on the floor. Then I found the sheet of newspaper when I searched among the rest. I can't make it out, can you? Who could I put it there? It looks fishy to me, she said. Can it spit a fish? She added pensively after a pause. You mean you think that Dr. Valis is responsible for this?

Well, it does point that way to say the least of it. I'm sure that's his writing on the pad's lip. And listen, I went to Annie with the box to ask her if she she thought I might take it, and this is what she told me. Oh, yes, miss. It was a waste paper basket in the dispensary this morning, where the doctor always puts anything that he wants us to throw away. But it seems such a nice box, and I took it upstairs instead. Now, what do you make of that?

I argue that he must have been trying what it would look like, when he was interrupted or something, and that he might have thrown them into the basket or onto the floor by mistake. The basket may have been full, perhaps, and then when Annie went to clean out, she would naturally sweep them up into the box. Yes, Annie would think that they had been burnt and wouldn't like to make any inquiries

when he missed them later on. Yes, I suppose that's a possibility, I replied meditatively. But it doesn't sound very characteristic of the doctor, does it? No, it doesn't, but I can't think of anything more likely. We sat on the bench and thought for a little time, and then I gave out the information, had asked me to in a little note.

I could have had no better opportunity. How very strange was Margaret's comment. She sat frowning and thought, and then she turned to me. Her eyebrows arched. And so you suspect the doctor after all, do you? Or else, why do you think that Mrs. Kenley, of all unlikely people, might have been searching his room? Come now, isn't it more natural to suppose that she left the duster in the room?

I think you were almost asked, as I am, Mr. Jeffcock? Well, one can't help one ring, I excuse myself, lamely enough. But what are you going to do with these? Give them to the police, I suppose. It's no use showing them to Kenneth Ralph combination, and it will be unkind to say anything to Ethel. I think I should just keep them to myself until Mr. Alport comes.

I think we ought to ring up the inspector at once. Oh, show them to Mrs. Kenley, I venture. She, at any rate, is impartial, and has no bias. you think are tremendously clever, don't you? Perhaps I will. We got up to return to the house. My brain avowal with fresh conjecture, but as we drew level with the end of the garage

and we're approaching the little rose garden, I could have sworn that I heard movements in the hedge. Did you hear that? I asked holding Margaret back. No, what? I'm certain I heard someone moving in the rose garden. We went forward through the archway piercing the hedges as I spoke. At first we could see nothing.

and we were just coming away when Margaret grabbed me by the shoulder and pointed to the end of the hedge. Right at the end of it, where it met the garden wall, someone was standing, pressed well back between the hedge and the wall itself, apparently trying to hide. We went to see who it could be. It was Miss Somersen. What's the matter? What over are you doing? She came a little forward out of the hedge and stood before us,

her face scarlet, her breast heaving like a woman in a crisis in a picture play, obviously on the edge of tears a pitiable object. There we stood, the three of us, Margaret and I, exchanging glances of surprise, Miss Somerson looking first at one of us and then at the other and then at the ground, I study and furtive indecision. At length she stammered. I was trying to reach a rose in the hedge. I stepped forward to get it for her, pressing into the hedge where it grew thickly against the wall

and where we had seen her standing. But no rose at all could I see. whereabouts was the one you were after? I asked, looking back over my shoulder to where she and Margaret stood. Oh, I'm not so sure that there was one really, she stammered, looking at me beseechingly out of a timid, tear-filled eyes. I must really go now. And before we could say another word, she ran away through the arch, leaving us alone with her astonishment. Well, and what are we expected to make of that, I queried. You know, I wonder whether she really did lose the poison-cabot key, was Margaret's rather irrelevant reply. But what is, I don't see the connection.

Oh, none, no connection exactly, but the behaviour was square, wasn't it? And I always thought she looked a little underhand. You see, if she did really poison tell her that it would be quite a good plan to lose the key a little before the event, say on the afternoon before, and in time for someone else to have possibly found it, oh, I say how could she do? She wasn't even in the house. She could have gotten through the bedroom window while we were at supper. She may easily have known of the medicine there ready for Stella and handy for the poison.

In spite of what he said, the doctor may have made it up before she left. Or he may have told her about it. Or he may have written himself a reminder on his pad. Oh, I can think of several ways in which she might have got to know about the draft. But why should she have done? it. Oh, you men, how blind you are. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you haven't noticed that she worships the ground he treats on? Why, she can't keep her eyes away from him when they are in the room together? But even so, that surely no reason why she should murder one of Ethel's guests?

Block it, she loved. She was jealous, and I'm not so sure that she had a good reason to be, too. Oh, why did Mr. Alport ask Ethel about it in the way he did? But my dear Miss Hunter, the girl is well as just engaged another man. You heard it tell us so yourself. And my dear Mr. Jeff Cork, she mocked. It's quite, quite possible to be engaged to one man and in love with another all the time. Even quite, quite nice girls may find themselves in that position. If you doubt it, I can give you a case near at hand. Can't I now? I have to admit to myself that she could, but our conversation was interrupted by the cathedral clock which boomed out the hour of four. Margaret seemed absurdly, I was going to say put out,

but I think alarmed is more the word that it should be so late. Why, that's four o'clock, she whispered. Mr. Alport expected to be here by then, Tinty. I must kill. I must really go. I had no idea it was so late. We hurried off down the garden together. A subtle change seemed to have come over Margaret. In the Rose Garden and behind the garage,

friendly and anxious to exchange ideas and confidences with mine, now suddenly reticent and disturbed. I could hear her whispering to herself as we hurried along the path. How late it is! How late it is! I had no idea it was so late. It somehow brought a picture of the white rabbit hurrying off to the Duchess's tea party before my mind. I say, they're going to have tea in the garden, and it's ready now. Mr. Alport may be here before we finish, she said aloud in an agitated voice. Well, and why not? I voiced my surprise.

But I wanted to see Mrs. Kenley before he came, to show her the paper I found in the attic you know, and now I shall have to wait until after tea, and he may be here before we finish. The doctor was still away on his afternoon round, but Janet, who had returned, and the others were seated under the cedar having tea. It was a hurried, agitated, unhappy little meal. Ethel, obviously nervous and on edge. Margaret, anxious to finish and buttonhole my Janet, hardly ate anything at all. Janet absorbed, and I fancied a little worried. Kenneth Maross, with Ralph, as usual, a sort of sympathetic shadow, myself, thinking, thinking, thinking of Margaret's latest find and Miss Somersen's odd behaviour. And all the time, as we sat under the cedar shade

with the sun-splashed lawn before us, and the rooks, calling dreamily overhead, we each had an ear, alert, and listening for the front door bell, and Alport, and the breaking of the storm. No wonder that we finished rather quickly, and that Annie, for once, had overestimated the requirements in the matter of bread and butter. The two boys went off to the garage to make Ralph's beloved an expensive car, ready for the anticipated journey back to Sheffield, as soon as Alport would arrive and release them from their parole. Ethel went indoors to aid the overworked Annie,

and I think to escape from the rest of us. I saw Margaret turn and whispered to Janet as soon as Ethel had gone. They were seated next to each other. Janet, next to me, Margaret and the chair beyond, and it just happened that I was looking at Janet's hand as it rested on the arm of a wicker chair when Margaret began to whisper. I was thinking how characteristic those hands of hers were. Rather large were a woman, strong and gentle at once,

with fingers that tapered away like a dream, hands that were both manly and womanly at once. And then, to my astonishment, I noticed that the wicker of the chair arm was bending beneath a grip. She rose to her feet as I glanced at her in surprise. Surprise which increased when I felt her tap my foot with hers, as she said, I don't suppose that I should be gone for more than five minutes, Mr. Jeffcock. About five minutes, Mr. Jeffcock, for all the world, as though we had had some definite arrangement together,

and she were making some excuse. But she took Margaret by the arm and walked away before I could question her about it. They went into the house together. The end of Chapter 14. Chapter 15 of the Dale House Murder by Francis Everton. this library box recording is in the public domain read by yoganand the dale house murder chapter fifteen a close call and now i come to the one part of my story that it gives me real pleasure to write and that is the full admission of my precipitate and headlong falling in love with janet and how in a single day my liking for a broadened out and deepened into adoration she had arrived at dale house on thursday morning and by midday on friday i knew that if i failed to hold and keeper, I should have missed the one important signpost on the highway of my life. True, I had already passed by this lane end, and that, and carelessly forgetting to examine the

signs, I may have wandered down one here and there for an aimless mile or so, until, puzzled and disappointed, I retraced my steps. And other crossroads and branch roads doubtless lay ahead, some of them broad and safe and running in my direction. But this great road ahead of me here to the right, how clear it ran straight to the hilltops and the rising sun. What a road to trade with a friend at your side. What a clean, straight climb to make with Janet. What was it that Margaret had said, that a pretty face, a shapely figure and love were one and the same to men? A lie. What a damnable lie. Was that really then an accepted valuation? I thought of some of the married couples I knew. Could they ever have been in love? Could this bright, clear

light so soon died on to a guttering smoky flame? Or had they missed their way and turned down some by-road before their proper time? And that other reason for marriage written down so inappropriately in the prayer book service, an attribute of married love perhaps, but surely nothing to do with spiritual love and the plighting of troth in the church before God? What had such animal stuff to do with this hallowed uplifting ecstasy that filled my soul when Janet's wide grey eyes met mine? A sentimental fool Do you call me for writing thus? Then, if I already married,

you, my friend, have married a friend, or a mistress. Perhaps fortune has smiled on you, and the mistress you have married is also your friend, but friend or mistress or both, you know nothing whatever of love. Love at first side then? Yes, of course it was,

but doesn't all true love come quick and sharp like that? perhaps to friends whose friendship has stood stolid and unromantic through the years there comes this sudden uplift and the grey old tree has bloomed at last or perhaps the warm sun of a single day has rushed to grow through bud to flower however it may have been whether i had somehow skipped a stage or whether the peculiarly harrowing circumstances in which we had met had quickened my perceptions i knew with an exhilarating certainty that i was in love with janet time stood still when i looked at to Janet. The sunny garden became a drab, uninteresting dessert when Janet was away. Cut the rose from the tree, and what an ungainly plant is left! Raised the great cathedral to the ground, and what a mean little town of twisted narrow streets. Yes, I was in love with Janet. She was my rose and my shining tower. Five o'clock came floating down as I sat there dreaming. She must have been gone for far more than five minutes, she had mentioned, for nearly half an hour. I would go and try to find her.

Oh, was she coming to me now? Would she look at me? Could I hold her eyes and mine again? My pulse is quick under the thought. But it was only Margaret who came hurrying toward me across the lawn. Mrs. Kenley wants you, she said. Oh, Mr. Jeffcock, please do come at once. We have found out something, something absolutely thrilling.

It's the end. Where? How do you mean? I asked her. I can't tell you now. But Mrs. Kenley wants you up to the box room where I found the paper. for this afternoon. She told me to come and find you. She said that you were to help her and would come. So Janet had taken her into her partnership. I don't know what line of argument I took or why I arrived at

such a conclusion, but I remember having an instinctive feeling that the curtain had been rung up for the final scene. What I wondered would be the setting, and who the villain of the piece? Ralph, Kenneth, Ethel, or the Tundish? I visualized my table and the numbers I had set down against each. Margaret, at any rate, seemed to have been correctly assessed, or Janet would never have given away the fact that she and Alport were working together. No single thought of suspicion disturbed my dull and stupid brain. As we made her way back to the house, she told me that I was to join her on the upper landing in a minute. If I met any of the others, I was to pretend that I was going to my room. She was breathing quickly, and looking at her sideways, I could see how

wildly excited and hot she was. She mopped her face as we walked along and I could feel my own excitement welling up in sympathy with hers. There was no one about when we reached the house and I succeeded in joining her on the upper landing a minute later without having attracted attention to my movements. I was aglow with the thought that I was to help and work with my Janet. Margaret was waiting for me at the foot of the little stairway that leads to the disused attics. She was smiling and held her fingers to her lips enjoining silence. Yet again I was impressed with her utter lack of feeling and her unconquerable desire to attract. Even at such a time she was looking arch, enjoying the situation.

No, we must be very quiet. You mustn't speak a word. At first you won't be able to understand what has happened, but Mrs. Kenley will explain it when she comes. Remember that it's her instruction which you are obeying. We went up the creaking disuse stairs to the narrow attic passage under the roof, and I followed her as quietly as I could. The passage runs the length of the house

And rises sheer to the tiles at the apex It is lighted by an odd glass tile or toe Motor droppings covered the floor And the hot, unventilated atmosphere Was heavy with the dry, musty smell of accumulated dust The attic stemsels open out of the passage to left and right But the doors were shut and we passed them all I was falling close behind her

And she turned ahead and giggled at me as we made a way along Francis you'll be simply thrilled she whispered She had never called me Francis before, and she lingered on the word, somehow drawing it out and canressing it as she spoke. Francis, she said, and it made me feel uncomfortable. There's a low door at the end of the passage, and she stopped in front of it, her hand on the knob. This is the box room, she whispered. It's pitch dark inside, and you'll have to let me guide you. Mrs. Kenley will join us in a minute.

You mustn't say a word, though, for if you do, you'll spoil the whole of the scheme she has made. She was aquava with excitement, and I could feel a trembling like a leaf as she put her hand in mind when we got inside the stuffy darkened room. What fresh mystery was lurking here, I wondered. God, had I only known in time. She closed and shut the door behind us. You'll have to stoop, she whispered again, for the roof slopes down in places, but you must follow me for Mrs. Kenley's. For clever Mrs. Kenley's sake.

I could feel a hot breath on my face so close to me she stood. not understanding what was her foot but full of a vague uneasiness i followed her where she led what else i asked was there that i could have done she still held me by the hand and we moved slowly across the room first we went straight forward a little way and then we seemed to turn but the blackness was so dense and i so busy with conjecture that soon i had lost my bearings she told me when to stoop and finally we drew up against what felt like a wooden partition there she turned me round and told me to wait. I heard a go back across the room again, and to my amazement, she was laughing gently to herself. A low-control-to-throat laugh,

a laugh that so long as I live I shall never forget. A laugh that somehow filled me with dismay and foreboding as it came gurgling to my ears across the darkened air. Suddenly she switched on an electric torch, and I could see her tim outline some fifteen paces or so away from where I stood. What I had thought was a wooden partition, was a chest of tross, and I found myself veged in a corner between it and a pile of trunks and the sloping roof. As my eyes became accustomed to the light, I could make out a broken-down old bedstead

on the floor between us. The bottom end was missing, and it sloped from head to foot, the top end canting forward at an angle to the floor. A dirty dust sheet covered it, and an upturned box at the side of it, away from where I stood, I saw a large glass beaker. Margaret was playing a light on it. It was three parts full of liquid. Now, Francis, remember that you are not a stir.

And soon you'll understand how clever Mrs. Kenley trapped the wicked doctor. She began to laugh again, cruel and low, and then she continued in a sing-song sort of drone. You can see the beaker, Francis? Yes, of course I can. Francis, do you know what's in it? Can you guess?

"'No, of course I can't. "'But where is Mrs. Kenley? "'And what's it all about?' "'I felt a growing anger. "'Every time she spoke my name, she fondled it. "'I can't explain it, "'but it seemed almost that she knew "'how I long to hear Janet call me so,

"'and that she was cheering at me for it. "'It angered me and hurt. "'Vitriol, Francis. "'Beautiful, burning, biting vitriol! "'I wonder if you know exactly how it blinds and corots. In God's name, I cried, thoroughly disturbed at last. What is it all this foolery about?

Shh, not so loud. And remember that you're not to move any nearer. See, what a nice lot of it there is. If I threw it all over anyone, wouldn't it blind them quickly? I emptied it out of the bottle into the glass so that I could throw it quickly all at once. Wasn't that thoughtful of me, Francis?

And Francis, if you call out, a move a single step. I will, Francis. Over your Janet, Francis. Just look at her. Isn't she a picture? You and your woman, detective, you blundering fool?

She stooped and jerked the dust sheet from the iron bed. Don't stir, she laughed. Oil spill it right away over a bloody face. Her laughter held her again as she stood holding the beaker over Janet. It was so big that she could barely span it, and a hand shook as she hurstled. was shaken by a demoniac mirth. I stood helplessly looking at her

from a dark corner in an agony of apprehension. And Janet, she was unconscious and lay, gagged and strapped and bound to the bed. Her arms had been pulled back cruelly, her wrist tight behind her to the iron top. Her legs had been bound to the sides, a strap from one of the trunks passed over her waist and under the bed, and even in the dim light of the torch I could see from where I stood how cruelly tight it has been pulled.

racks which had been stuffed into her mouth were held in position by a piece of cord wound round her head and cutting across her mouth pulling down her lower jaw do you know what she said francis when a chloroformed her what do you like to know she said francis where's francis and here you are to see her isn't it shameless of her to let you look at her lying there like that you she devil i cried tortured beyond discretion ah you would would you fool see what you've made me do i've spilled some of it and missed her by her hair talk like that i move again and then she laughed and blasphemed in turns while i stood horrified peering out of my dark corner over the chest of drawers perspiration gathering in beads on my forehead and streaming down my face how short was the time since i had sat in the garden breathing god's free air at the foot of god's great church the pleasant garden noises streamed striking my listless ears as I dreamed and pondered of my love. And now I stood trapped and tortured in this dark little chamber of hell, free, yet afraid to mow, while the dear one I loved lay helpless before me on the brink of blindness and death.

On the sloping roof just over my head I could hear the sparrows chirping in the sun, while the dark, stagnant attic air was filled with the jeers and obscenities of Satan, heaven and hell with a layer of tiles between them. She tortured me. My God, how she tortured me. She tilted the beaker till the liquid quivered on the lip. I don't know what I could have done. I thought of pushing over the chest of drawers and making a dash for it around the end of the bed,

but nothing could prevent her if she really intended to carry out a fiendish threat. I tried remonstrance and persuasion, but my efforts were met with nothing but laughter and jeers. That's better Francis, darling. Now you begin to understand how clever stupid Margaret is. why not try to enjoy the fun with me? Just think how it will burn her, death and decay all at once. With her face turned up like that, little pools of it will gather in the corners of her eyes.

When the lids burn away, how weird and funny they look. And Francis, think of the rags in her mouth. But the really priceless part of it all is, Francis darling, that you haven't yet seen the point of the joke. My one hope was for delay. And I thought that, if only I could keep her in conversation, we might perhaps be missed and discovered by the others. Little Alport was to have arrived at four,

and he would be sure to inquire for Janet. Yes, of course it's only a joke, Margaret. Now, do stop joking, and tell me what it is all about. You poor silly fool, Gigi I. They'll think it was you. That's a joke. I've arranged it all beautifully. What a joy it will be when I see you being handcuffed and taken away.

Now it's time we stop this pleasant chatter. Janet wouldn't like you being alone in the dark with me like this, you know? So here goes. One to be ready. Two to be st. I could bear no more. Whether I did the right thing or not, I have never been able to decide. But I had a heavy bunch of keys in my pocket, and before she could pour, I hurled them as hard as I could at her face.

And I miss my aim. May God forgive me. And how like me it was, but I missed her by an inch. She gave a little chuckle, tip the vitriol. a full quart of it or more there must have been. I was Janet's face and breast and was out of the room almost before I had time to stir.

I gave one agonious cry and dashed round the end of the chest of the drawers only to collide full tilt with one of the beams in the roof. It caught me straight across the forehead and I fell like a log with a crash to the floor. How long I lay there, I don't know. Perhaps were only a matter of seconds. But when I did come round, I was dazed and confused.

Neither dough nor bed could I find. I crawled dazed and helpless about the floor, colliding first with the sloping tiles, and then with a pile of boxes. Almost as though it were some other person in distress, I could hear myself whimpering and muttering a mixture of imprecation and prayer. How damnably dark it was! Christ, if I could but see!

After what seemed like an eternity of futile searching, I found the dough at last, and it was locked. I banged on it weakly and tried to shout, but my head was singing so that I could hardly stand or raise my voice above a whisper. Then I crawled to the broken bed on which my poor tortured darling lay. With hands that shook, I found the sheet and mopped a poor disfigured face and body. She was covered with the kind of filthy slime, Death and decay.

Death and decay. I believe that I must have fainted, and the room seemed to fill with the crowd of angry men. The tundish, angry and fears were shaking me to and fro. You, Jeffcock, you! You infernal lying Judas! He cried and hurled me from him right across the floor. I fell against the wall and lay there weakly, repeating again and again.

It was Margaret, vitriol. She smared and threw vitriol. It was Margaret. At last I attracted the attention, and Ralph came and stood beside me. He stooped to hear what it was that I said. Then Kenneth and Margaret stood above me too. She did it. She chloroformed her, and then threw vitriol over her.

I gasped, half sitting up on the floor. Oh, you liar! You wicked liar! How can you say such a wicked thing? Why, you were caught in here with the door locked! Even to me she sounded quite convincing. Then she bent down over me suddenly, and putting her hand into the side pocket of my coat, she pulled out a key.

Why, here's the key of the door in his pocket. Now what have you to say for yourself? She cried. Ralph stooped and picked something up from the floor. And this, I think, is your knife, Mr. Jeff Cock. he said very coldly. Margaret shrugged the shoulders and turned away toward the doctor who was kneeling by the bed. Numb with grief I sat dropped against the wall.

My head had throbbed. My soul sick with the horror of what I had felt and heard. Through the broken door the light from the passage showed up the dusty floor with its scattered papers and doxes and its derelict household lumber. Our movements had filled the air with dust at which the pallid passage light turned to a ghostly beam and through it like some distorted figure in a dream, the doctor loomed gigantic as he knelt by Janet's side.

This then was to be the final scene to the drama of this devil's week, with myself the villain, blood-jurned and broken, a murderer and a Judas, spurned by my friends and accepted by all as the hell-feant, who had defiled beauty and truth in the person of my darling. This was the hill-top to which my broad, straight road of love and life had led me. in this dismaletic was I to part from the woman I loved with my love barely born and wholly unconfessed

the doctor looked up at last and without hope I waited for the verdict there were death and decay in the dust-laden air what's all this nonsense about vitriol he cried with amazement on his face his words came cool and clear like a breeze from the northern snows Margaret answered him Mr. Jeffcock said that I threw vitriol

of course that's absurd and so I thought that it must have been vitriol and that he had thrown it himself. The door was locked and we have just found the key in his pocket. Oh, it's all too dreadful. Well, we shall hear what Mrs. Kenley has to say about it in a minute when she comes round. Comes round? Why? She can't recover? Can she? After all that? She must be burned to death. There was a catch in her voice and from where I said I could see her clasping and unclasping hands nervously behind her back. The doctor got up from his niece. He said, a word, but stood towering above her, looking sternly down. It is in vitriol, he said at length in a slow, measured voice.

As far as I can tell, it was medicinal paraffin, or something of the kind, and has done on no harm whatever. I dropped forward on my knees gazing at the doctor. A judas, he had called me, but I could have blessed him where he stood. Like some diver who has typed too deep and fills his bursting lungs with painful breath, my relief was almost more than I could bear. There was a little time of silence, and then, like some echo from the lost, came Margaret's gentle laugh. Low at first, it grew in volume to an uncontrolled and piercing shriek that went reverberating through the empty attics, through the roof, and into the sunlit air.

I tell you, it was vitriol, she cried between a shouts of laughter. Then quite suddenly she seized while the doctor and the other stood looking at a gust. Or else that harlot, Hilda Summersen, has tricked me after all. She burst out again and before the doctor and the two boys could recover from their surprise, she darted through the door and went racing down the narrow passage, her arms waving wildly as she shouted and shrieked, Hilda, you hollet, you hollet, I'm coming for you now. She ran like one demented and in a madness overlooked the stair top when she reached it.

But the stairs would not be ignored. We saw her disappear. There was a loud shriek and then a crash, a moan and then silence. The Tundish, with Kenneth and Ralph close behind, hurried after her. I dragged myself to where Janet lay. The Tundish had released her bones and had covered her once more with the sheet. She turned and opened her dear grey eyes to find me kneeling by her side. My hour of torture was over, but as I knelt, that other great doubt that only lovers unconfessed can know came surging round me.

the end of chapter 15 chapter 16 of the Dale house murder by Francis Everton This library box recording is in the public domain Read by Yoganan The Dale House murder Chapter 16 Explanations and a Challenge A few hours later the sad remainder of our little tennis party

was gathered in the drawing room Around one of the open windows Janet and Ethel comfortably on the settee, the Tandish and Mysel perched each in a corner of the broad window-sill, little Alport lolling back at his ease in one of the large wicker chairs. It was both wide and deep and entirely unconcerned as to his lack of inches. He sat well back, his legs stuck out straight in front of him, his diminutive feet barely projecting beyond the edge of the seat. During the evening hours, a heavy haze had gathered to thicken later into definite cloud

and now a steady rain was falling. The air was heavy with sweet, rain-washed scents, released from thirsty soil and reviving plants. The smoke from a pipes floated over our heads in swirls and snake-like twists that showed up grey and blue in the fading light. Through the open window, there came the welcome patter of the rain. A thrush was singing his evening song.

On Janet's lap lay the surviving tabby cat, lazily indolent under a gentle carousing hands, a sense of tranquillity and bruning peace, seemed to enfold us like some quieting bliss. Peace on earth sang the thrush in the tree, and courage and hope throbbed my heart and reply whenever I looked at Janet. She was facing the light, her eyes like two clear stars that now and again would shine into mind

when the room and its occupants would fade away leaving us alone together for a blessed brief eternity. She had not been really hurt by Margaret's ill-treatment, and apart from the effects of the chloroform and a brew is here and there, she was none the worse for her experience. cold bandages, a little brandy and a couple of hours rest had enabled me to recover from my own collapse which the doctor attributed as much to shock as to the blow on my head.

Margaret's headlong fall had broken a leg and had stunned her. She regained consciousness but never her reason and she had been taken to a neighbouring asylum babbling incoherently of paraffin and vitriot. Kenneth and Ralph had returned to Sheffield together in the Daimler. I was lying down in my room when they left and can tell you nothing of the manner of their going, or of how Kenneth and Ethel parted from each other.

The Tandish had forbidden any reference to the day's events until after dinner, and now Solomon said, but with feelings of unutterable relief, we sat waiting to hear what little Alport had to tell us. He finished his coffee at last, put the cup on a table beside him, relighted his pipe, and with some hesitation at first, as he paused here and there for a word or a phrase,

began to give us the explanations. we were each for our own special reasons so curious to hear. First of all, Doctor, he said, I think I'd better tell you what I'm able to about your dispenser, Miss Somerson, for in a sense she has been the root cause, both of Miss Paul Freeman's death and of all your later troubles. At you only been more robust in character, this week might have come and gone for all of you, like any other among the annual 52. As you will know, Miss Hansen, the Somersons used to live in the row of little house just beyond the end of the Hunter's Garden,

and unfortunately for miss somersen the two girls struck up i was going to say a friendship but what a word for it the old fable of the wolf and the lamb is a sweet little springtime idol compared with the tale of this comrade ship of the ass it began by miss hunter tricking the young girl into some petty dishonourable act i won't specify it and then persevering her to commit another to save herself from the fest the little man paused as though one bringing how much he should tell and i saw a picture of a garden-boarder with a tall frail flower and the clinging bindweed's de-whitelising grip. Miss Somerson has made a clean breast of everything to me, but I can only tell you that for the last two years she has been absolutely and completely in Miss Hunter's power, and Mr. Jeffcock here, at any rate, may be able to appreciate what that might ultimately mean for a nervous girl.

She was terrified out of all sense of safety and proportion. It was a tyranny complete. I remember the cruel laugh that I had heard in the waiting room on the morning of my arrival at Dale House, and how poor Miss Somerson had lied to the doctor about it. How many similar lies had she told, I wondered, during the past two years. How many unhappy hours spent in self-recrimination? Ethel moved restlessly in a corner of the city.

We were silent for a little while. Then Alport, clearing his throat, proceeded. The key of the poison cabot was never lost at all. It was handed over to Miss Hunter, under threat of exposure to the man to whom Miss Somerson hoped to become engaged. She has told me, and I am inclined to believe. her that she thought that Miss Hunter wanted to help herself to some of the drugs, and that she had no idea that the poisons were to be tampered with or used, and very possibly there was no such intention when the key was first secured.

But why didn't she demand what she wanted, instead of getting all of the key and running the risk of being caught at the cupboard? If she had Miss Somerson in a par in the way you've suggested, surely she could have asked for the drugs or anything else at any time she liked. Alport shook his head. No, doctor, if you think that then you'd have. don't understand Miss Hunter. I do not myself entirely. There are still certain points that I can't set down even a mad woman's reasons against, but I do understand her better than that. You see,

above everything else, she was cruel. She knew well enough that Ms. Somerson would be in agony of apprehension until the key was returned, and it was that which gave her pleasure. It was typical of a hundred other cruelties that Miss Somerson had suffered, some of them merely pity, many of them worse. The Tundish seemed to be content with the explanation. I too had questions I wanted to ask, but I was too eager to hear the rest of his story to frame them, and the little man continued without further interruption. Well, that's how Miss Hunter secured the key. There was nothing actually criminal in the giving of it,

but later Miss Somersen's reticence was, of course, a punishable offence. She had begged me to tell you, Doctor, that in spite of everything, she would have come forward had you been arrested, I have told you, as I promised I would, and you must take it for what it is worth. However, if she endangered you all by the one act, she certainly saved your life, Janet, over the matter of the vitriol. When she asked for the key, which according to promise was already overdue, it was not forthcoming, and a bottle of vitriol was demanded against its return. Fortunately, and we all know now, how very fortunate it was, they were interrupted before the exchange could be made, and it gave Ms. Somersen an opportunity to decant the contents of an old sulfuric acid bottle and substitute medicinal paraffin for it.

And now, I want you to try to understand the difficulty of my position. on the morning after the murder. There was ample evidence to have warranted the arrest of the doctor here. He made it the fatal raft. He knew all about and had access to the poison, and both he and Miss Paul Freeman had lived in Shanghai and had almost certainly been acquainted there. There was a possible motive. After the inquiry, an obvious one. The key of the locked bedroom door was found in his pocket. What? The Tundish exclaimed with unusual excitement. Yes, in the pocket of your indoor court doctor, I had my reasons for saying it was found elsewhere.

One thing I wanted to observe Miss Hunter when I made the statement, to see how she would take it. I wished now that I had thought of some other place in which to have said I had hidden it, but I could not have foreseen the consequences of my deception. But China, how could you have possibly known at your round-table inquiry that I had lived in China and had met Miss Paul Freeman there? My dear doctor, the little bit of my dear doctor, little man laughed complacently. We live on civilized times, times of telephones and medical

directories, for instance. Within five minutes of Mr. Jeff Cox called to the police station on Wednesday morning, I was asking Scotland Yard to look up your record in the directory, and to find out if you were known by repute to any of the medical staff. Inspector Brown's superintendent knew exactly which players in the tournament were staying with Dr. Hansen, and before we came to Deal's inquiries with regard to Mr. Jeff Cox's antecedents and the rest of the party were elderly on foot. We did not know Miss Paul Freeman's address, but you kindly furnished us with that before we even had to ask you for it. It was not a difficult matter for Scotland Yard to ascertain that Miss Paul Freeman's uncle had been for a time in Shanghai, that a father, who was the government

official, had committed suicide there, and that you had lived there too, and were almost certainly acquainted with all three of them. Yes, of course. How perfectly simple. But the quarrel, what about that? Neither the medical directory nor the girl at the telephone exchange could help you there. Now, that was merely an instance of the nasty, suspicious turn a detective's mind instinctively takes. I didn't know that there had been any quarrel, but I did assume for the time that you had murdered Miss Paul Freeman, and if you had done so, then surely it was only logical to make the assumption of a quarrel, too? You did really suspect me then, and leave me at large? Surely that was a risk to take. Now, as you will later see, I did not altogether suspect to you. But I did when I was

questioning you at my inquiry. When you treat a patient doctor, you diagnose the disease, and then you treat him for it, and you work consistently on the assumption that your diagnosis has been correct until you find out definitely that you have made a mistake. You don't make up your medicine to suit two or three possible ailments on the off chance that one of them may be correct? Well, my own experience has taught me that, at an inquiry like the one we had round the dining table on the Wednesday morning, the only possible way to obtain exact information is to assume that the questione is guilty. It's no good making up your mind beforehand that X is guilty and allowing that to colour all the questions you put to Y. I believe that my

success as a detective is due to the fact that for a time I can force myself into believing what I don't really believe more than to anything else. I question each of you as Paul Freeman's murderer. As I questioned you, I was convinced of your guilt. Then, when it was over, I was able to stop play acting and sift out the information I had secured. The conceited little fellow looked round brightly for a probation, after the manner of some small boy who knows, he has said something rather smart, self-satisfied little beggar, just when I was wiggling rather to like him, too. The Tundish murmured something about a doctor's diagnosis not always being quite the pig-headed business he had described, and Alport, filling up his pipe again, continued.

As I was explaining, it was inevitable that my first suspicions should turn to the doctor, but there were several points that led me to think it might be a mistake to make an immediate arrest without further investigation. On the floor near the Bitside table in Miss Paul Freeman's room, I picked up a tiny fragment of splintered glass and a good-sized diamond. The diamond had evidently fallen out of the sitting of a ring or a brooch. It might have belonged to anyone. most likely to Miss Paul Freeman herself, but when we came to search the bedrooms, we found no piece of jewelry from which a stone was missing.

It struck me as being rather strange that its loss had not been advertised. Annie had heard nothing of it, and none of you had questioned about its loss. It was possible, of course, that the owner might not have noticed that it was missing, but then I should have expected to find a damage ring either among Miss Paul Freeman's belongings or in one of the other bedrooms. Not very much to go on, perhaps, but I would have expected to find a damage ring either among Miss Paul Freeman's belongings, or in one of the other bedrooms. perhaps, but I felt it to be unnatural that a diamond of such considerable value should be lost and nothing said. It was my turn to interrupt. And unlike his previous attitude, the little man seemed now almost to welcome the interruption. I could see that he was in the throes of an exquisite,

and I must admit a thoroughly deserved enjoyment. He was like a child, I thought, sucking its favourite sweet and making it last. I told him how I had caught Margaret searching the stairs for a six-pence that Annie phoned for her later on, and how my half-awakened suspicions had been allayed by the find. Then the Tundish informed us that he too had seen her searching, but in his case on the floor of poor Stella's room. He had been mounting the stairs to the upper landing. The door of the room was half closed, and he had seen movements within, or had fancied that he had. But when he had pushed the door open to see what it was, he had found Margaret kneeling devoutly in prayer at the side of the bed. Once again he was amazed at the placid doctor's powers of description.

He was uncanny. He described little incident in the few as possible simple words, but like the bold strokes of a master they made the picture live. Margaret, on hands and knees, half-frantic, searching the floor for an incriminating diamond. Then a sudden creak on the stairs, and the doctor gently pushing open the door to find a kneeling and prayerful attitude at the side of Stella's pet. An attitude, surely, to make angels sweep and sapphire are jealous.

The little man smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes, rearranged the cushions at the back of his chair and continued. Yes, it was very fortunate, very that finding of the diamond on the bedroom floor. It might so easily have been trodden into the carpet. Luck was on the side of Justice Dan. And again luck was with us when, quite by accident, I found that the little splinter of glass came from the stop of the bottle of Chinese poison. Have you ever examined it carefully, doctor?

The Tandes shook his head. It is really a wonderful piece of work. The glass is very thin and fragile, and is doubled back underneath the curving irregular top, curling in word again close to the projection that fits the neck of the bottle itself. It was from this point that the tiny splinter was missing. By the merest chance, I happened to hold the bottle up to the light and look up underneath the stopper when we were in the dispensary together. Later, I found that my little fragment fitted it exactly. I argued that, had the doctor added the poison to the draft, the addition would have been made when it was prepared. Again, that bedroom key required explanation.

You might just conceivably have returned upstairs, and have thrown the glass among the ivy on the roof, and having locked the door lied to Mr. Jeffcock about it, it was possible that you might have done that in order to throw suspicion onto someone else. But I could think of no satisfactory explanation that would account for your leaving that key in your own coat pocket. An oversight, it might have been.

But even at that early stage of her acquaintance, dropped bottle-stoppers and glaring oversights did not seem to fit you, doctor? Anyhow, I decided that in all the circumstances I ought to give you the benefit of the doubt. But that was about all I had to go on, where I secured a promise that you would submit to a voluntary confinement if I held my hand. It never occurred to me that I might be putting you all in danger. True, the key of the poison cupboard was still missing, but I had no reason to anticipate any gentle attempt at slaughter. before the joint conference in the dining room at which I succeeded in achieving such universal unpopularity, I became more than ever satisfied that my decision had been the right one,

and the inquiry itself only added to my satisfaction, and if I had known what Miss Paul Freeman's uncle has since told me, the inquiry would hardly have been necessary at all. The tundish, who had been sitting quietly in his corner of the window-seat, with his hands clasped round one knee, became suddenly alert, and it was hardly necessary for Mr. Tundersh, who had been sitting quietly, Mr. Crawford to discuss my affairs, I very much wished that he had not. Oh, come now, doctor, a detective's mind is chock full of curiosity, and it was only natural for

anyone seated at that inquiry to wonder what it was that had caused Miss Paul Freeman's father to commit suicide, and what part he imagined you had played in his disaster. All that Mr. Crawford told me when I pressed him for information was that now that his niece was dead there was no longer any need for secrecy, that in his opinion it had been absent, in the circumstances to keep its secret at all, and that if matters went against you, he could, and would give certain information that would throw a very different light on the affair. The Tundish hesitated, for once he looked disturbed and at a loss. Yes, it's quite true that everyone who could have been damaged by the story is dead,

but even so I did not like giving explanations of my own conduct at their expense. However, as briefly as I can, and in the strictest confidence, I'll give you the outline of the unhappy story. Miss Paul Freeman's mother was a very beautiful and charming woman, and like all beautiful and charming women were stationed at the world's outposts, she was subject to more than a share of temptation. She was soon the center of the English-speaking colony in Shanghai. She got badly into debt, and stole and sold some of her husband's official papers in order to save herself from catastrophe.

But she might have saved herself the trouble, and have taken her debts to a maker for only a few days after the papers were missed her, she was taken seriously ill of the complaint from which she died. My friend, her husband, loved her. The papers were lost beyond recovery. Circumstances were such that, though he suspected me of the theft, he could not make any open accusation, or hope to substantiate it if he did. The doctor paused for a few minutes, obviously pondering what further details he should give us. The light had nearly gone, and I could just make out the strong outline of his clear-cut face from where I sat at the end of the window sill opposite to him. The wind was rising and the rain was beating against the window now,

the drops collecting in little rivulets and streams that wriggled down the paints. Then he added, in his quiet, unemotional voice, I attended her in her last arts, and at death's door she confessed what she had done. For the sake of her peace of mind and for the sake of my friend, I promised that her secret should be kept. I did not know until yesterday that she had previously made a similar confession to a brethren writing. Well, that briefly is the story.

And that's why I could not be more explicit about the quarrel with Stella's father and a natural dislike for me. Ether, what did you think, I wonder of the man of your choice as you sat there on the city by Janet's side in the fast-fading light? To me, it came in a sudden flash of enlightenment

the reason for the impressive power of the unemotional, unassuming man. Bedrock, fundamental, essential honesty, was the one foundation of his quiet strength, a rock on which he stood deriding fear and all the petty evils that beset the half and apha. I felt a flush of shame that I could have allowed my amateurish reasoning to besmirge my belief in such a one.

My sheets of notes and my table of relative guilt, which I still carried in my pocket, scoffed at me aloud. But for you, Ethel, what a glow of happiness his words must have brought you. Of all of us, you alone had trusted him through thick and threw thin. You had overdrawn your account at the bank of blind belief, and your lover had met the debt and paid you back in full. No wonder your eyes were bright. There was another little pause when the Tundish had finished speaking. We none of us made any comment, and Alport again continued his explanations. As you already know, I found some burned papers in Ms. Hunter's bedroom

great, but you did not know that there was one unburned fragment among the rest. Quite unmistakably it was a corner of a photograph of a photograph's name. A little later in the drawing room, you and Inspector Brown were there, Mr. Jeffcock, and once again with the sheerest piece of good fortune, I caught sight of exactly the same name across the corner of a photograph of Mr. Bennett

that stood on the top of the piano. It had been taken in Sheffield by Parbury, and the letters R, B, E, R-R-R-Y, had straggled across the corner of the bit I had found in the bedroom grate, and allowing for the treatment it had received, the texture and quality of the heavy mounds were both the same. I could not be certain that the photo Miss Hunter had burned was a duplicate of the one on the piano. But somehow I felt that it might be, and I decided to find out more about it if I could, and as far as I might, the extent to which

the two had been acquainted. I did find out a certain amount from my direct questions to Miss Hunter, but it was to Mr. Bennett that I was chiefly indebted, though I put no questions to him. you will remember that one of the questions I asked you, Miss Hansen, was whether the doctor had ever shown any sign that he might perhaps be attracted by Miss Paul Freeman? A quiet yes came from Ethel's corner of the city. When I asked that question, Mr. Bennett quite unmistakably took a suddenly increased interest in the proceedings. I concluded that he had had a special interest in Miss Paul Freeman himself, but I felt that there might still be a motive of Miss Hunter had committed the crime and not the doctor.

Please don't imagine that I actually arrived with my conclusions on such vague and shadowy material. I merely felt that the whole affair required further scrutiny. But even now, I don't think I understand why she burned the photo. Why did she do it? Heetl queried. She burned the photo because she didn't want to be found among her belongings. She would feel that it would be too patent that her old love affair with Mr. Bennett still survived so far as she was concerned,

and that if it came to light that Mr. Bennett had been obviously attracted by Miss Paul Freeman, it might suggest a possible notive. But she knew that both Dr. Wallace and I knew exactly how fond she has always been of Ralph, Ethel objected. She couldn't count on her not telling you. No, that's quite true, but I think that it was a reasonable action for her to take all the same. For her to bring a photo with her on a short visit was a complete admission of her feelings. It was definite. fact that the finding of the unburned corner did help to convince me that she was involved,

proves that she was right in what she did, if only she had taken more care. Hital nodded her agreement. I was dissatisfied, too, even then, about Miss Somerson. I don't know whether it struck you in the same way, but to me there was something unnatural about her behaviour when she told us she had lost the key. I was convinced that she was keeping information back, very much against the inspector's wishes, then I had made up my mind before the inquiry that I would not immediately arrest the doctor and after the inquiry, and in spite of what came out about the practical joke and the quarrel

with Miss Paul Freeman's father, I saw no real reason to alter my decision. I quite made up my mind to leave you undivided, and to put an unknown agent into the house who could not be suspected of having any connection with the police. I saw my darling bend a graceful head lower over the cat. What made you change your mind then? Ethel asked. He didn't change his mind, Janet replied. I'd almost forgotten that Ethel and the Tundish were both of them unaware of Janet's connection with Alport. And even after they had spoken, they were a little time in grasping what of words implied. It was the Tundish who tumbled to it first.

Well then, Mrs. Kenley, he said pleasantly, we are more indebted to you than ever. You relieved us of Tokemada here in the chair. You saved us from Aunt Emmeline. you probably prevented us all from cutting one another's throat, and all the time you were solving the mystery that entangled us in its measures. But I don't begin to understand. You are Bob Kenley's wife, aren't you? You must be, because of Mother's letter.

Ethel was properly bribilded and took some convincing that Janet could be anything other than she had pretended, but ultimately always explained, and I was relieved to see that Janet had not in any way lost prestige by what had come to light. with Mrs. Kenley safely installed in the house, I went over to Sheffield to make what inquiries I could. I was soon satisfied that there had been something in the nature of a love affair between Miss Hunter and Mr. Bennett. I also learned that she had been asked to resign from the school in which she taught. That was on the Thursday morning. In the evening, when I got back here, I was met with the disturbing information that the Chinese flagon had been found to contain nothing but water,

and that the poison itself was still in the murderous private possession. you will see at once that almost surely cut out the doctor unless he was being very, very clever and had removed it just to make me come to the conclusion I did. I practically made it my mind to break up a party and rely on obtaining further evidence in some other way, but Janet over-persuaded me, and we took Mr. Jeffcock partly into our confidence so that she should have someone always at hand in case of need. When I remembered how I had caught them behind the garage, it amused me,

his reference to taking me into their confidence. I smiled to myself, and I thought that Janet was equally amused, but I made no comment. This is what I imagine actually happened. Mr. Bennett's obvious attentions to Miss Paul Freeman aroused Miss Hunter's jealousy. Who knows what castle she had built on the foundation that they were staying in the same house and playing in the same tournament together? What hopes she may not have had with regard to their reunion? Perhaps at the psychological moment she heard the doctor tell Miss Paul Freeman that her medicine had been said, sent upstairs. Or perhaps she saw Annie taking it up. The cupboard key, she already had. And in spite of

what you have said, doctor, she probably knew a good deal about the poison. Remember a connection with Miss Somerson. I think that the poison must have been taken from the cupboard and added to the draft sometime between six and seven on Tuesday. What made her decide to keep the rest? I can't explain. Neither have I found out where she put it. But it would be easy to hide. For instance, she could have put it in one of her scent bottles and have it in it in the garden. On the Wednesday morning, after the murder was discovered, she probably lost her nerve to some extent and thought she might add to her safety by throwing away the glass

and putting the key to the bedroom door in the doctor's pocket. As luck would have it, the doctor unfortunately drew particularly attention to the fact that he hadn't locked the door. When Mr. Dane stated at the inquiry that the doctor had laid unnatural stress on the fact that you, all of you, might have been upstairs, unknown to the rest during the Tuesday evening, that probably decided her later actions and explains the second note

and the hiding of the newspaper in Mr. Jeff Cox's bedroom. That still puzzles me, I exclaimed. Why on earth didn't she hide the paper in the doctor's room? I think that she wanted to spread the suspicion, Alport answered me after a pause. And it wasn't a bad plan either. She had already put the medicine glass inside one of your socks before she threw it out of the window among the ivy on the roof,

but for accidents such as the unburned corner of photograph the splinter of glass and the diamond, we might have been sadly at sea, and it may interest you to know Mr. Jeff Cog that for a period you were the prime favorite of a good friend, Inspector Brown. But why didn't you suspect me in the same way that you suspected Margaret, just at first I mean?

Ethel asked him. There was the photograph for one thing. And then as we sat round the dining room table, it was quite obvious to me that, well, I think I shall leave the doctor to find out what it was that was so obvious, himself if he doesn't know it already the little man actually chuckled john don't be such a tease janet admonished alport was going up in my estimation again but i did not like his frequent janet's nor janet calling him john interested as i had been in what he had told us i wanted to get ahead with that still greater mystery that concerned janet and me alone and alderdy her half-formed clan of campaign was shaping in my head i suppressed several questions that I really wanted to ask, but the others were not so considerate.

Why did she attack Mrs. Kenley, came from the doctor. And by the way, Jeffcock, he added, turning to me. I still owe you an apology for my conduct in the boxroom, but poor Margaret came to me in a great state and told me that she had just seen you drag Mrs. Kenley along the attic passage, and into the box room at the end of it, locking the room behind you. And when I had broken the door down, there you were, with the atmosphere ricking of chloroform.

Your mistake was both understandable and excusable, I assure him. As to why she attacked me, I believe that she suspected me from the very beginning. Janet said, picking up the cat and cuddling her up against her neck in the most distracting fashion. To start with, I am almost sure that she overheard, or at any rate saw me talking to you behind the garage, John. As Mr. Jeffcock and I came away, someone, I'm certain, moved on the bushes nearby. She probably coupled what she saw with the fact that it was I who had discovered. were a diamond with such surprising ease in the grass and the lawn.

When she came to think about it, she would realize what a mistake she had made in claiming it as hurts. Didn't you really find the diamond there then? Heathel question. No, of course I didn't. Mr. Alport gave it to me. Whether she may not also have seen me searching in one of your bedrooms, I don't

know. But she was very sly and she trapped me cleverly in the box room. Just after we finished tea in the garden, she whispered to me that she wanted to show me something indoors. I was suspicious, but I still had a sneaking feeling that you might have been the culprit after all, Dr. Valis. The incident of the bird bath had put me off the scent. It was odd that you should have come up to the rose garden and have noticed that the bath had disappeared so immediately after Mr. Jeffcock and I had found the dead birds.

Dead birds? What are you talking about? Yes. Birds and a cat. Hasn't John told you of a sad little fine in the roast garden? just before you came to call us into breakfast this morning we had found that the poison had been emptied into the bird bath there were dozens of dead birds and one of the cats lying dead in the lawns

we rang up for inspector brown and we had no sooner bundled him away then you appeared on the scene and began to make inquiries about the missing bath then too i did not quite like your taking away the whiskey bottle and the glass from the kitchen table the night before i wanted to find out if they contained anything in addition to the whiskey and they did the whiskey had been heavily drugged. Yes, we know it was. I took the tablecloth in which some of it had been spilled to the police station.

Miss Hunter had drugged the whiskey and then had turned on the gas after Cook had succumbed to its effects. She made a bad mistake when she forgot to turn on the lights as well. But as I was saying, at the time it made me begin to wonder when I saw you go off with a bottle and the glass. You see, I didn't appreciate that you suspected Miss Hunter too, and I thought that you were taking them to prevent anyone else from knowing what they had contained. I was puzzled about it, and when she showed me a slip from one of your memo pads with the words pasted over it,

as though you had been making a trial to see what it would look like, and a newspaper with odd words cut out of it, well, I followed her to the boxroom eagerly enough, hoping that we might find something else. I was leaning over a box on the floor when she came up behind me and held a pad soaked in chloroform over my nose and mouth. I hadn't the ghost of a chance and couldn't utter a sound. My darling finished the explanation, and I cried out, Oh, what a fool I've been, what a blundering fool! I see it now, and there I sat in the garden and left you without help. No, no, indeed, it wasn't your fault at all.

I ought never to have gone with her. You couldn't have guessed, anyone might have missed it. Look here, are you two talking some other language? What's it all about? Alport interrupted. You know, to tell him, Mr. Jeffcock. She warned me that she thought she might be in danger as clearly as she could. An idiot that I am, I only just this minute understood.

Then I went on to tell them how Margaret had shown me her alleged boxroom find behind the garage and of how we had found Miss Somerson hiding in the hedge and what she had said. Yes, Miss Somerson has told me about that. Halport informed us when I had finished. Miss Hunter had sent her there and had told her to hide in the hedge

until she came to her. Then she took you along with her and Miss Somerson was too frightened of a tormentor to explain. She was in complete subjection. But it was I who heard a moving, I told him. Oh, she would have done it if you hadn't. And why did you want me to tell her about dusting the doctor's room and that I had noticed that you hadn't any duster?

I asked turning to Janet. I wanted to know what she said. what did she say by the way? I told her. Oh, if only I had known that, she would never have got me into that box room alone. But surely, what she said was innocent and reasonable enough? No, it was neither. You see, she and I had dusted the doctor's room together directly after breakfast. It proved quite clearly that she knew something of who I was, and that she suspected me.

And she would not have suspected me unless she had a guilty conscience. Knowing that she had dusted the room with me, it was a most unnatural thing for her to say. That was why I wanted you to tell her about it. Only, unfortunately, I never had the chance of asking you the result of the little trap. And cook. What about cook? Eithel asked. Grace is a bad lot, Miss Hanson, and got no more than she deserved, Alport answered. I've seen her in the hospital, and I've looked up a record, which is almost a record in itself. She told me that she actually saw Miss Hunter

coming out of Miss Paul Freeman's room on Tuesday evening But that she didn't like to say anything because of the family owner You should have heard her attempt at the old family retain her touch What she really meant was that she hoped to do better for herself by blackmailing miss hunter I wonder why she seemed to threaten you so on the landing that night then doctor Do you remember her I knows what I knows dr. Wallace? I asked turning to the tunt "'No, I can't quite understand that either,' he replied thoughtfully.

"'It was silly if she was really trying to blackmail Margaret, "'but after all, she was half-fuddled with whiskey, "'and doubtless resented my remarks about the dinner. "'I told him then how I had heard Cook's threatening voice "'from one of the upper windows, "'and we concluded that it was to Margaret she had been speaking then.' "'The pauses in a conversation were growing longer. "'The thrush had finished her song and had gone to roost.

though i could barely make o'jad janet's eyes so dark had it become though i could still see the clear-cut oval of her face and the light having gone i could feast on what i saw she should not leave dalehouse a resolve before i had made some real attempt to secure an early further meeting when did she get upstairs to throw away the glass the tundersha asked knocking the ashes out of his pipe and pulling the window too she can have had very slight opportunity after breakfast i can tell you that i answered When I stood at the telephone trying to get through to the police station, Margaret came out of the dining room. I thought that she went down to the kitchen, but she must have run upstairs. I didn't hear her, but the call was difficult and maybe I was shouting. A little later, I did think that I heard someone come down. Wally, I was too engrossed look round. Then I told them of the conversation I had had with Margaret in the garden,

and of how she had told me that she had heard someone on the stairs, and had thought it was me and had directly accused me of hiding the bedroom key. That's it then, Alport said with satisfaction. She was pumping you to find out if you had heard or seen anything that might have been dangerous to her. I hate to think about her. What'll happen to her, John?

Janet's low voice was full of sympathy. It was a Tundish who replied. She will never come out of Highfield Asylum alive. Now she is neither living nor dead, but I believe no more accountable for what has happened than any of his here. You suspected her all the time, didn't you? I asked him. Yes, I did. But how could I say anything? What might not Alport here have thought had I attempted to put forward such a facile solution,

and what would have been gained? Besides, I had nothing very much to go on, and I could have proved neither guilty nor insane. But a family history alone was enough to make me wonder. You caught me looking it up again in how, Hansen's casebook that afternoon Jeffcock. Hansen himself suspected her of taking drugs, and it was I who persuaded Ethel to ask her to stay here for the tournament. Ethel didn't want to, because young Bennett was coming, and she knew that she'd still cared for him, and that, unfortunately, from a point of view, he no longer cared for her.

But I wanted her to come because I was interested in her case. I felt certain from the very first that it was she who had poison stella, but I certainly hadn't anything definite to back up suspicions, and at times they weakened. For instance, when I caught you in the box room, Jeffcock, I only had little things to go on. You remember when I asked her and you to witness me making up the medicine for ethel? Well, you wouldn't notice anything, but I was watching her closely. She was simply thrilled. The idea of another sleeping graft, the association was too strong for her to hide. It was horrible. I dare not allow her to take it up to ethel. if you had been here then, Mr. Alport, I should have told you of what I suspected.

I should have risked your possible misconstructions. I was terrified less there should be some further catastrophe. As you know, they were very nearly two, but I felt that it would have been quite useless for me to have made any statement to Inspector Brown. I felt that he would have locked me up on the spot if I had made any suggestions of the sort, and that until you arrived on the scene again, I was better at lunch. I've been unhappy about Margaret, Ethel, ever since the time your father ran over that dog. About 18 months ago, wasn't it?

The poor brute was an agony of pain when we got out of the car, and unawares I caught a glimpse of Margaret's face. It bore a look of... No, there's no other word for it. A look of simply hellish delight. In a flash it was gone, and she was all womanly sympathy and sorrow. Tears rolled down her cheeks,

and I remember your mother saying, how tender-hearted she was. Do you mean to tell us that she has been mad from more than a year without anyone being the wiser? Alport queried. No, not mad, but she was abnormal, wildly excitable, a borderland

case. Anything might have pushed her over the line. There was insanity on both sides of the family. It was all too ghastly for comment, and we were silent for a space. And now I think it's time we made our way to bed, he added. I, for one, have ideas to make good.

and tomorrow I suppose I must write post-haste for Aunt Emmeline, Ethel said with an uncomplimentary sigh. Couldn't I? Would you like me to stay on for a few days? Janet asked on her sweet low voice. I should be really glad too if you'd prefer it. That's very kind of you, the Tundish said, with his usual decision. But it'll be neither you nor Aunt Emmeline.

I'm going to pack Ethel off to Forkestone by the first available train. I've already arranged it all over the telephone with Mrs. Heller. and Annie can look after me. Now was my opportunity, I thought. It was a preposterous suggestion to make. Alport, I had only met for a few uncomfortable hours, and Janet, I hadn't even heard of three days ago, but the darkness hid my embarrassment and I plunged.

I was wondering, Mr. Alport, whether you and Mrs. Player would care to come and spend the weekend with my sister and me at Millingham? There was silence, and I felt uncomfortably sure that the darkness alone hid the astonishment they felt. But the words were said, irrevocable. That would be very nice, but unfortunately I must report to Scotland Yard tomorrow morning. Janet, though, is unofficial and there is no reason.

I should love too, Janet interrupted. We said our good nights and went upstairs to bed. Stairs, did I say? There were no stairs. I floated up on air, and the banisters were wrought of pure gold. in the morning i woke to find the curtains ploughing into the room and a refreshing sense of movement and stir in the air that was invigorating after the stagnant heat of the previous days grey masses of cloud were chasing across a watery sky over the lawn that looked like some soddened piece of toast odd shrivel leaves were scurrying it was a day of action and resting as quickly as i could i went and fetched my car from the inn before the others were down for breakfast it had been arranged that ethel and alport were to travel together as far as London, and a meal was a hurried one as they wished to catch an early train.

I was in thorns, lest Janet should receive some letter, or something unforeseen should occur to prevent her from coming with me, but nothing so disastrous happened, and soon after half-past nine we were saying good-bye to the solitary tundish who came into Dalehouse lane to see us off. The placid, inscrutable tundish, for that is how I shall think of him always, looked just the same steady thundish of the previous days, and not one writ relieved to find that his troubles had vanished. Goodbye Jeff Cork, he cried, and with a merry twinkle in his eyes, Goodbye, Mrs. Kenley player.

Something makes me think that we shall meet again. Did he mean anything? Had I given myself away so completely there? Had Janet noticed, I wondered, but I dared not look at Janet, so I slipped in the clutch, and soon Dalehouse, and Merchester were left behind things of the past. The open country and the future lay ahead. Was ever air so fresh and cool,

or country since so sweet, was ever woman more perfect than this dear one so demure and quiet at my side? The road stretched straight and drew ahead, and Janet and I were starting a journey together. Under the tree, where I had stopped on my way into Merchester, I drew up again to take one.

last look at the cathedral, like a plain white column. Some gigantic centauper, I thought, it stood out against the bank of grey cloud behind it. We were kneeling on the seat looking over the back of the car, and after a time I turned to find Janet looking at me with a quiet little smile. A penny for your thoughts, she said. She looked distractingly bewitching. I had plunged when I had asked her to come to Millingham, and I made up my mind to plunge once more. My thoughts were with a certain unhappy general, I prevaricated boldly, and I was wondering whether

you always treated your admirer, sir. There was a pause of a hundred years, and then, I dare you to try, she whispered. From over the hedge, an old red cow, chewing a cut contentedly, gazed at us with solemn ruminative ice. A field or two away, there was a steady chop-chop, as some son of the soil chopped turnips for his sheep. A hide of fish and again behind, the road was deserted and clear. I took my courage in my hands and accepted her challenge. The end of Chapter 16 The end of the Dale House murder.