It was all worked out to a nicetyeach set over and under the two others, to produce the impression that three people had been there at the same time. Intensive study of the works of Mr. Austin Freeman, I should say. And what next? Well, I think we shall find that this Mrs. Forrest, who we think has been her accomplice all along, had brought her car downthe big car, that isand was waiting there for her. Possibly she did the making of the footprints while Mary Whittaker was staging the assault. Anyhow, she probably arrived there after Mary Whittaker and Vera Findlater had left the Austin and departed to the hollow on the downs. When Mary Whittaker had finished her part of the job, they put the handkerchief and the magazine called The Black Mask into the Austin and drove off in Mrs. Forrests car. Im having the movements of the car investigated, naturally. Its a dark blue Renault fourseater, with Michelin balloontyres, and the number is XO4247. We know that it returned to Mrs. Forrests garage on the Monday night with Mrs. Forrest in it. But where is Miss Whittaker? In hiding somewhere. We shall get her all right. She cant get money from her own banktheyre warned. If Mrs. Forrest tries to get money for her, she will be followed. So if the worst comes to the worst, we can starve her out in time with any luck. But weve got another clue. There has been a most determined attempt to throw suspicion on an unfortunate relative of Miss Whittakersa black Nonconformist parson, with the remarkable name of Hallelujah Dawson. He has certain pecuniary claims on Miss Whittakernot legal claims, but claims which any decent and humane person should have respected. She didnt respect them, and the poor old man might very well have been expected to nurse a grudge against her. Yesterday morning he tried to cash a Bearer cheque of hers for 10,000, with a lamesounding story to the effect that it had arrived by the first post, without explanation, in an envelope. So, of course, hes had to be detained as one of the kidnappers. But that is very clumsy, surely. Hes almost certain to have an alibi. I fancy the story will be that he hired some gangsters to do the job for him. He belongs to a Mission in Stepneywhere that mauve cap came fromand no doubt there are plenty of tough lads in his neighbourhood. Of course we shall make close inquiries and publish details broadcast in all the papers. And then? Well then, I fancy, the idea is that Miss Whittaker will turn up somewhere in an agitated condition with a story of assault and holding to ransom made to fit the case. If Cousin Hallelujah has not produced a satisfactory alibi, we shall learn that he was on the spot directing the murderers. If he has definitely shown that he wasnt there, his name will have been mentioned, or he will have turned up at some time which the poor dear girl couldnt exactly ascertain, in some dreadful den to which she was taken in a place which she wont be able to identify. What a devilish plot. Yes. Miss Whittaker is a charming young woman. If theres anything shed stop at, I dont know what it is. And the amiable Mrs. Forrest appears to be another of the same kidney. Of course, doctor, were taking you into our confidence. You understand that our catching Mary Whittaker depends on her believing that weve swallowed all these false clues of hers. Im not a talker, said the doctor. Gang you call it, and gang it is, as far as Im concerned. And Miss Findlater was hit on the head and died of it. I only hope my colleague and the Chief Constable will be equally discreet. I warned them, naturally, after what you said last night. Its all very well, said Wimsey, but what positive evidence have we, after all, against this woman? A clever defending counsel would tear the whole thing to rags. The only thing we can absolutely prove her to have done is the burgling that house on Hampstead Heath and stealing the coal. The other deaths were returned natural deaths at the inquest. And as for Miss Findlatereven if we show it to be chloroformwell, chloroform isnt difficult stuff to get hold ofits not arsenic or cyanide. And even if there were fingerprints on the spanner There were not, said Parker, gloomily. This girl knows what shes about. What did she want to kill Vera Findlater for, anyway? asked the doctor, suddenly. According to you, the girl was the most valuable bit of evidence she had. She was the one witness who could prove that Miss Whittaker had an alibi for the other crimesif they were crimes. She may have found out too much about the connection between Miss Whittaker and Mrs. Forrest. My impression is that she had served her turn and become dangerous. What were hoping to surprise now is some communication between Forrest and Whittaker. Once weve got that Humph! said Dr. Faulkner. He had strolled to the window. I dont want to worry you unduly, but I perceive Sir Charles Pillington in conference with the Special Correspondent of the Wire. The Yell came out with the gang story all over the front page this morning, and a patriotic leader about the danger of encouraging coloured aliens. I neednt remind you that the Wire would be ready to corrupt the Archangel Gabriel in order to kill the Yells story. Oh, hell! said Parker, rushing to the window. Too late, said the doctor. The Wire man has vanished into the post office. Of course, you can phone up and try to stop it. Parker did so, and was courteously assured by the editor of the Wire that the story had not reached him, and that if it did, he would bear Inspector Parkers instructions in mind. The editor of the Wire was speaking the exact truth. The story had been received by the editor of the Evening Banner, sister paper to the Wire. In times of crisis, it is sometimes convenient that the left hand should not know what the right hand does. After all, it was an exclusive story. XXII A Case of Conscience I know thou art religious, And hast a thing within thee called conscience, With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies Which I have seen thee careful to observe. Titus Andronicus Thursday, June 23rd, was the Eve of St. John. The sober green workaday dress in which the church settles down to her daily duties after the bridal raptures of Pentecost, had been put away, and the altar was white and shining once again. Vespers were over in the Lady Chapel at St. Onesimusa faint reek of incense hung cloudily under the dim beams of the roof. A very short acolyte with a very long brass extinguisher snuffed out the candles, adding the faintly unpleasant yet sanctified odour of hot wax. The small congregation of elderly ladies rose up lingeringly from their devotions and slipped away in a series of deep genuflections. Miss Climpson gathered up a quantity of little manuals, and groped for her gloves. In doing so, she dropped her officebook. It fell, annoyingly, behind the long kneeler, scattering as it went a small pentecostal shower of Easter cards, bookmarkers, sacred pictures, dried palms and Ave Marias into the dark corner behind the confessional. Miss Climpson gave a little exclamation of wrath as she dived after themand immediately repented this improper outburst of anger in a sacred place. Discipline, she murmured, retrieving the last lost sheep from under a hassock, discipline. I must learn selfcontrol. She crammed the papers back into the officebook, grasped her gloves and handbag, bowed to the Sanctuary, dropped her bag, picked it up this time in a kind of glow of martyrdom, bustled down the aisle and across the church to the south door, where the sacristan stood, key in hand, waiting to let her out. As she went, she glanced up at the High Altar, unlit and lonely, with the tall candles like faint ghosts in the twilight of the apse. It had a grim and awful look she thought, suddenly. Good night, Mr. Stanniforth, she said, quickly. Good night, Miss Climpson, good night. She was glad to come out of the shadowy porch into the green glow of the June evening. She had felt a menace. Was it the thought of the stern Baptist, with his call to repentance? the prayer for grace to speak the truth and boldly rebuke vice? Miss Climpson decided that she would hurry home and read the Epistle and Gospelcuriously tender and comfortable for the festival of that harsh and uncompromising Saint. And I can tidy up these cards at the same time, she thought. Mrs. Budges firstfloor front seemed stuffy after the scented loveliness of the walk home. Miss Climpson flung the window open and sat down by it to rearrange her sanctified oddments. The card of the Last Supper went in at the Prayer of Consecration; the Fra Angelico Annunciation had strayed out of the office for March 25th and was wandering among the Sundays after Trinity; the Sacred Heart with its French text belonged to Corpus Christi; the  Dear me! said Miss Climpson, I must have picked this up in church. Certainly the little sheet of paper was not in her writing. Somebody must have dropped it. It was natural to look and see whether it was anything of importance. Miss Climpson was one of those people who say I am not the kind of person who reads other peoples postcards. This is clear notice to all and sundry that they are, precisely, that kind of person. They are not untruthful; the delusion is real to them. It is merely that Providence has provided them with a warning rattle, like that of the rattlesnake. After that, if you are so foolish as to leave your correspondence in their way, it is your own affair. Miss Climpson perused the paper. In the manuals for selfexamination issued to the Catholicminded, there is often included an unwise little paragraph which speaks volumes for the innocent unworldliness of the compilers. You are advised, when preparing for confession, to make a little list of your misdeeds, lest one or two peccadilloes should slip your mind. It is true that you are cautioned against writing down the names of other people or showing your list to your friends, or leaving it about. But accidents may happenand it may be that this recording of sins is contrary to the mind of the church, who bids you whisper them with fleeting breath into the ear of a priest and bids him, in the same moment that he absolves, forget them as though they had never been spoken. At any rate, somebody had been recently shriven of the sins set forth upon the paperprobably the previous Saturdayand the document had fluttered down unnoticed between the confessionbox and the hassock, escaping the eye of the cleaner. And here it wasthe tale that should have been told to none but Godlying open upon Mrs. Budges round mahogany table under the eye of a fellowmortal. To do Miss Climpson justice, she would probably have destroyed it instantly unread, if one sentence had not caught her eye The lies I told for M. W.s sake. At the same moment she realised that this was Vera Findlaters handwriting, and it came over her like a flashas she explained afterwards, exactly what the implication of the words was. For a full halfhour Miss Climpson sat alone, struggling with her conscience. Her natural inquisitiveness said Read; her religious training said, You must not read; her sense of duty to Wimsey, who employed her, said, Find out; her own sense of decency said, Do no such thing; a dreadful, harsh voice muttered gratingly, Murder is the question. Are you going to be the accomplice of Murder? She felt like Lancelot Gobbo between conscience and the fiendbut which was the fiend and which was conscience? To speak the truth and boldly rebuke vice. Murder. There was a real possibility now. But was it a possibility? Perhaps she had read into the sentence more than it would bear. In that case, was it notalmosta duty to read further and free her mind from this horrible suspicion? She would have liked to go to Mr. Tredgold and ask his advice. Probably he would tell her to burn the paper promptly and drive suspicion out of her mind with prayer and fasting. She got up and began searching for the matchbox. It would be better to get rid of the thing quickly. What, exactly, was she about to do?To destroy the clue to the discovery of a Murder? Whenever she thought of the word, it wrote itself upon her brain in large capitals, heavily underlined. Murderlike a policebill. Then she had an idea. Parker was a policemanand probably also he had no particular feelings about the sacred secrecy of the Confessional. He had a Protestant appearanceor possibly he thought nothing of religion one way or the other. In any case, he would put his professional duty before everything. Why not send him the paper, without reading it, briefly explaining how she had come upon it? Then the responsibility would be his. On consideration, however, Miss Climpsons innate honesty scouted this scheme as Jesuitical. Secrecy was violated by this open publication as much as if she had read the thingor more so. The old Adam, too, raised his head at this point, suggesting that if anybody was going to see the confession, she might just as well satisfy her own reasonable curiosity. Besidessuppose she was quite mistaken. After all, the lies might have nothing whatever to do with Mary Whittakers alibi. In that case, she would have betrayed another persons secret wantonly, and to no purpose. If she did decide to show it, she was bound to read it firstin justice to all parties concerned. Perhapsif she just glanced at another word or two, she would see that it had nothing to do withmurderand then she could destroy it and forget it. She knew that if she destroyed it unread she never would forget it, to the end of her life. She would always carry with her that grim suspicion. She would think of Mary Whittaker asperhapsa Murderess. When she looked into those hard blue eyes, she would be wondering what sort of expression they had when the soul behind them was plottingmurder. Of course, the suspicions had been there before, planted by Wimsey, but now they were her own suspicions. They crystallisedbecame real to her. What shall I do? She gave a quick, shamefaced glance at the paper again. This time she saw the word London. Miss Climpson gave a kind of little gasp, like a person stepping under a cold showerbath. Well, said Miss Climpson, if this is a sin I am going to do it, and may I be forgiven. With a red flush creeping over her cheeks as though she were stripping something naked, she turned her attention to the paper. The jottings were brief and ambiguous. Parker might not have made much of them, but to Miss Climpson, trained in this kind of devotional shorthand, the story was clear as print. Jealousythe word was written large and underlined. Then there was a reference to a quarrel, to wicked accusations and angry words and to a preoccupation coming between the penitents soul and God. Idoland a long dash. From these few fossil bones, Miss Climpson had little difficulty in reconstructing one of those hateful and passionate scenes of slighted jealousy with which a womanridden life had made her only too familiar. I do everything for youyou dont care a bit for meyou treat me cruellyyoure simply sick of me, thats what it is! And Dont be so ridiculous. Really, I cant stand this. Oh, stop it, Vera! I hate being slobbered over. Humiliating, degrading, exhausting, beastly scenes. Girls school, boardinghouse, Bloomsburyflat scenes. Damnable selfishness wearying of its victim. Silly schwrmerei swamping all decent selfrespect. Barren quarrels ending in shame and hatred. Beastly, bloodsucking woman, said Miss Climpson, viciously. Its too bad. Shes only making use of the girl. But the selfexaminer was now troubled with a more difficult problem. Piecing the hints together, Miss Climpson sorted it out with practised ease. Lies had been toldthat was wrong, even though done to help a friend. Bad confessions had been made, suppressing those lies. This ought to be confessed and put right. But (the girl asked herself) had she come to this conclusion out of hatred of the lies or out of spite against the friend? Difficult, this searching of the heart. And ought she, not content with confessing the lies to the priest, also to tell the truth to the world? Miss Climpson had here no doubt what the priests ruling would be. You need not go out of your way to betray your friends confidence. Keep silent if you can, but if you speak you must speak the truth. You must tell your friend that she is not to expect any more lying from you. She is entitled to ask for secrecyno more. So far, so good. But there was a further problem. Ought I to connive at her doing what is wrong?and then a sort of explanatory asidethe man in South Audley Street. This was a little mysterious  No!on the contrary, it explained the whole mystery, jealousy, quarrel and all. In those weeks of April and May, when Mary Whittaker had been supposed to be all the time in Kent with Vera Findlater, she had been going up to London. And Vera had promised to say that Mary was with her the whole time. And the visits to London had to do with a man in South Audley Street, and there was something sinful about it. That probably meant a loveaffair. Miss Climpson pursed her lips virtuously, but she was more surprised than shocked. Mary Whittaker! she would never have suspected it of her, somehow. But it so explained the jealousy and the quarrelthe sense of desertion. But how had Vera found out? Had Mary Whittaker confided in her?No; that sentence again, under the heading Jealousywhat was itfollowing M. W. to London. She had followed then, and seen. And then, at some moment, she had burst out with her knowledgereproached her friend. Yet this expedition to London must have happened before her own conversation with Vera Findlater, and the girl had then seemed so sure of Marys affection. Or had it been that she was trying to persuade herself, with determined selfdeception, that there was nothing in this business about the man? Probably. And probably some brutality of Marys had brought all the miserable suspicions boiling to the surface, vocal, reproachful and furious. And so they had gone on to the row and the break. Queer, thought Miss Climpson, that Vera has never come and told me about her trouble. But perhaps she is ashamed, poor child. I havent seen her for nearly a week. I think Ill call and see her and perhaps shell tell me all about it. In which casecried Miss Climpsons conscience, suddenly emerging with a bright and beaming smile from under the buffets of the enemyin which case I shall know the whole history of it legitimately and can quite honourably tell Lord Peter about it. The next daywhich was the Fridayshe woke, however, with an unpleasant ache in the conscience. The paperstill tucked into the officebookworried her. She went round early to Vera Findlaters house, only to hear that she was staying with Miss Whittaker. Then I suppose theyve made it up, she said. She did not want to see Mary Whittaker, whether her secret was murder or mere immorality; but she was tormented by the desire to clear up the matter of the alibi for Lord Peter. In Wellington Avenue she was told that the two girls had gone away on the Monday and had not yet returned. She tried to reassure the maid, but her own heart misgave her. Without any real reason, she was uneasy. She went round to the church and said her prayers, but her mind was not on what she was saying. On an impulse, she caught Mr. Tredgold as he pottered in and out of the Sacristy, and asked if she might come the next evening to lay a case of conscience before him. So far, so good, and she felt that a good walk might help to clear the cobwebs from her brain. So she started off, missing Lord Peter by a quarter of an hour, and took the train to Guildford and then walked and had lunch in a wayside teashop and walked back into Guildford and so came home, where she learnt that Mr. Parker and ever so many gentlemen had been asking for her all day, and what a dreadful thing, miss, here was Miss Whittaker and Miss Findlater disappeared and the police out looking for them, and them motorcars was such dangerous things, miss, wasnt they? It was to be hoped there wasnt an accident. And into Miss Climpsons mind there came, like an inspiration, the words, South Audley Street. Miss Climpson did not, of course, know that Wimsey was at Crows Beach. She hoped to find him in Town. For she was seized with a desire, which she could hardly have explained even to herself, to go and look at South Audley Street. What she was to do when she got there she did not know, but go there she must. It was the old reluctance to make open use of that confession paper. Vera Findlaters story at first handthat was the idea to which she obscurely clung. So she took the first train to Waterloo, leaving behind her, in case Wimsey or Parker should call again, a letter so obscure and mysterious and so lavishly underlined and interlined that it was perhaps fortunate for their reason that they were never faced with it. In Piccadilly she saw Bunter, and learned that his lordship was at Crows Beach with Mr. Parker, where he, Bunter, was just off to join him. Miss Climpson promptly charged him with a message to his employer slightly more involved and mysterious than her letter, and departed for South Audley Street. It was only when she was walking up it that she realised how vague her quest was and how little investigation one can do by merely walking along a street. Also, it suddenly occurred to her that if Miss Whittaker was carrying on anything of a secret nature in South Audley Street, the sight of an acquaintance patrolling the pavement would put her on her guard. Much struck by this reflection, Miss Climpson plunged abruptly into a chemists shop and bought a toothbrush, by way of concealing her movements and gaining time. One can while away many minutes comparing the shapes, sizes and bristles of toothbrushes, and sometimes chemists will be nice and gossipy. Looking round the shop for inspiration, Miss Climpson observed a tin of nasal snuff labelled with the chemists own name. I will take a tin of that, too, please, she said. What excellent stuff it isquite wonderful. I have used it for years and am really delighted with it. I recommend it to all my friends, particularly for hay fever. In fact, theres a friend of mine who often passes your shop, who told me only yesterday what a martyr she was to that complaint. My dear, I said to her, you have only to get a tin of this splendid stuff and you will be quite all right all summer. She was so grateful to me for telling her about it. Has she been in for it yet? And she described Mary Whittaker closely. It will be noticed, by the way, that in the struggle between Miss Climpsons conscience and what Wilkie Collins calls detective fever, conscience was getting the worst of it and was winking at an amount of deliberate untruth which a little time earlier would have staggered it. The chemist, however, had seen nothing of Miss Climpsons friend. Nothing, therefore, was to be done but to retire from the field and think what was next to be done. Miss Climpson left, but before leaving she neatly dropped her latchkey into a large basket full of sponges standing at her elbow. She felt she might like to have an excuse to visit South Audley Street again. Conscience sighed deeply, and her guardian angel dropped a tear among the sponges. Retiring into the nearest teashop she came to, Miss Climpson ordered a cup of coffee and started to think out a plan for honeycombing South Audley Street. She needed an excuseand a disguise. An adventurous spirit was welling up in her elderly bosom, and her first dozen or so ideas were more lurid than practical. At length a really brilliant notion occurred to her. She was (she did not attempt to hide it from herself) precisely the type and build of person one associates with the collection of subscriptions. Moreover, she had a perfectly good and genuine cause ready to hand. The church which she attended in London ran a slum mission, which was badly in need of funds, and she possessed a number of collecting cards, bearing full authority to receive subscriptions on its behalf. What more natural than that she should try a little housetohouse visiting in a wealthy quarter? The question of disguise, also, was less formidable than it might appear. Miss Whittaker had only known her welldressed and affluent in appearance. Ugly, clumping shoes, a hat of virtuous ugliness, a shapeless coat and a pair of tinted glasses would disguise her sufficiently at a distance. At close quarters, it would not matter if she was recognised, for if once she got to close quarters with Mary Whittaker, her job was done and she had found the house she wanted. Miss Climpson rose from the table, paid her bill and hurried out to buy the glasses, remembering that it was Saturday. Having secured a pair which hid her eyes effectively without looking exaggeratedly mysterious, she made for her rooms in St. Georges Square, to choose suitable clothing for her adventure. She realised, of course, that she could hardly start work till MondaySaturday afternoon and Sunday are hopeless from the collectors point of view. The choice of clothes and accessories occupied her for the better part of the afternoon. When she was at last satisfied she went downstairs to ask her landlady for some tea. Certainly, miss, said the good woman. Aint it awful, miss, about this murder? What murder? asked Miss Climpson, vaguely. She took the Evening Views from her landladys hand, and read the story of Vera Findlaters death. Sunday was the most awful day Miss Climpson had ever spent. An active woman, she was condemned to inactivity, and she had time to brood over the tragedy. Not having Wimseys or Parkers inside knowledge, she took the kidnapping story at its face value. In a sense, she found it comforting, for she was able to acquit Mary Whittaker of any share in this or the previous murders. She put them downexcept, of course, in the case of Miss Dawson, and that might never have been a murder after allto the mysterious man in South Audley Street. She formed a nightmare image of him in her mindbloodboltered, sinister, andmost horrible of allan associate and employer of debauched and brutal black assassins. To Miss Climpsons credit be it said that she never for one moment faltered in her determination to track the monster to his lurkingplace. She wrote a long letter to Lord Peter, detailing her plans. Bunter, she knew, had left 110A Piccadilly, so, after considerable thought, she addressed it to Lord Peter Wimsey, co Inspector Parker, The PoliceStation, Crows Beach. There was, of course, no Sunday post from Town. However, it would go with the midnight collection. On the Monday morning she set out early, in her old clothes and her spectacles, for South Audley Street. Never had her natural inquisitiveness and her hard training in thirdrate boardinghouses stood her in better stead. She had learned to ask questions without heeding rebuffsto be persistent, insensitive and observant. In every flat she visited she acted her natural self, with so much sincerity and such limpetlike obstinacy that she seldom came away without a subscription and almost never without some information about the flat and its inmates. By teatime, she had done one side of the street and nearly half the other, without result. She was just thinking of going to get some food, when she caught sight of a woman, about a hundred yards ahead, walking briskly in the same direction as herself. Now it is easy to be mistaken in faces, but almost impossible not to recognise a back. Miss Climpsons heart gave a bound. Mary Whittaker! she said to herself, and started to follow. The woman stopped to look into a shop window. Miss Climpson hesitated to come closer. If Mary Whittaker was at large, thenwhy then the kidnapping had been done with her own consent. Puzzled, Miss Climpson determined to play a waiting game. The woman went into the shop. The friendly chemists was almost opposite. Miss Climpson decided that this was the moment to reclaim her latchkey. She went in and asked for it. It had been put aside for her and the assistant produced it at once. The woman was still in the shop over the way. Miss Climpson embarked upon a long string of apologies and circumstantial details about her carelessness. The woman came out. Miss Climpson gave her a longish start, brought the conversation to a close, and fussed out again, replacing the glasses which she had removed for the chemists benefit. The woman walked on without stopping, but she looked into the shop windows from time to time. A man with a fruiterers barrow removed his cap as she passed and scratched his head. Almost at once, the woman turned quickly and came back. The fruiterer picked up the handles of his barrow and trundled it away into a side street. The woman came straight on, and Miss Climpson was obliged to dive into a doorway and pretend to be tying a bootlace, to avoid a face to face encounter. Apparently the woman had only forgotten to buy cigarettes. She went into a tobacconists and emerged again in a minute or two, passing Miss Climpson again. That lady had dropped her bag and was agitatedly sorting its contents. The woman passed her without a glance and went on. Miss Climpson, flushed from stooping, followed again. The woman turned in at the entrance to a block of flats next door to a florists. Miss Climpson was hard on her heels now, for she was afraid of losing her. Mary Whittakerif it was Mary Whittakerwent straight through the hall to the lift, which was one of the kind worked by the passenger. She stepped in and shot up. Miss Climpsongazing at the orchids and roses in the florists windowwatched the lift out of sight. Then, with her subscription card prominently in her hand, she too entered the flats. There was a porter on duty in a little glass case. He at once spotted Miss Climpson as a stranger and asked politely if he could do anything for her. Miss Climpson, selecting a name at random from the list of occupants in the entrance, asked which was Mrs. Forrests flat. The man replied that it was on the fourth floor, and stepped forward to bring the lift down for her. A man, to whom he had been chatting, moved quietly from the glass case and took up a position in the doorway. As the lift ascended, Miss Climpson noticed that the fruiterer had returned. His barrow now stood just outside. The porter had come up with her, and pointed out the door of Mrs. Forrests flat. His presence was reassuring. She wished he would stay within call till she had concluded her search of the building. However, having asked for Mrs. Forrest, she must begin there. She pressed the bell. At first she thought the flat was empty, but after ringing a second time she heard footsteps. The door opened, and a heavily overdressed and peroxided lady made her appearance, whom Lord Peter would at onceand embarrassinglyhave recognised. I have come, said Miss Climpson, wedging herself briskly in at the doorway with the skill of the practised canvasser, to try if I can enlist your help for our Mission Settlement. May I come in? I am sure you No thanks, said Mrs. Forrest, shortly, and in a hurried, breathless tone, as if there was somebody behind her who she was anxious should not overhear her, Im not interested in Missions. She tried to shut the door. But Miss Climpson had seen and heard enough. Good gracious! she cried, staring, why, its Come in. Mrs. Forrest caught her by the arm almost roughly and pulled her over the threshold, slamming the door behind them. How extraordinary! said Miss Climpson, I hardly recognised you, Miss Whittaker, with your hair like that. You! said Mary Whittaker. Youof all people! They sat facing one another in the sittingroom with its tawdry pink silk cushions. I knew you were a meddler. How did you get here? Is there anyone with you? NoyesI just happened, began Miss Climpson vaguely. One thought was uppermost in her mind.


How did you get free? What happened? Who killed Vera? She knew she was asking her questions crudely and stupidly. Why are you disguised like that? Who sent you? reiterated Mary Whittaker. Who is the man with you? pursued Miss Climpson. Is he here? Did he do the murder? What man? The man Vera saw leaving your flat. Did he? So thats it. Vera told you. The liar. I thought I had been quick enough. Suddenly, something which had been troubling Miss Climpson for weeks crystallised and became plain to her. The expression in Mary Whittakers eyes. A long time ago, Miss Climpson had assisted a relative to run a boardinghouse, and there had been a young man who paid his bill by cheque. She had had to make a certain amount of unpleasantness about the bill, and he had written the cheque unwillingly, sitting, with her eye upon him, at the little plushcovered table in the drawingroom. Then he had gone awayslinking out with his bag when no one was about. And the cheque had come back, like the bad penny that it was. A forgery. Miss Climpson had had to give evidence. She remembered now the odd, defiant look with which the young man had taken up his pen for his first plunge into crime. And today she was seeing it againan unattractive mingling of recklessness and calculation. It was with the look which had once warned Wimsey and should have warned her. She breathed more quickly. Who was the man? The man? Mary Whittaker laughed suddenly. A man called Templetonno friend of mine. Its really funny that you should think he was a friend of mine. I would have killed him if I could. But where is he? What are you doing? Dont you know that everybody is looking for you? Why dont you? Thats why! Mary Whittaker flung her ten oclock edition of the Evening Banner, which was lying on the sofa. Miss Climpson read the glaring headlines Amazing New Developments in Crows Beach Crime. Wounds on Body Inflicted After Death. Faked Footprints. Miss Climpson gasped with amazement, and bent over the smaller type. How extraordinary! she said, looking up quickly. Not quite quickly enough. The heavy brass lamp missed her head indeed, but fell numbingly on her shoulder. She sprang to her feet with a loud shriek, just as Mary Whittakers strong white hands closed upon her throat. XXIII And Smote Him, Thus  Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a churchdoor; but tis enough, twill serve. Romeo and Juliet Lord Peter missed both Miss Climpsons communications. Absorbed in the police inquiry, he never thought to go back to Leahampton. Bunter had duly arrived with Mrs. Merdle on the Saturday evening. Immense police activity was displayed in the neighbourhood of the downs, and at Southampton and Portsmouth, in order to foster the idea that the authorities supposed the gang to be lurking in those districts. Nothing, as a matter of fact, was farther from Parkers thoughts. Let her think she is safe, he said, and shell come back. Its the catandmouse act for us, old man, Wimsey fretted. He wanted the analysis of the body to be complete and loathed the thought of the long days he had to wait. And he had small hope of the result. Its all very well sitting round with your large disguised policemen outside Mrs. Forrests flat, he said irritably, over the bacon and eggs on Monday morning, but you do realise, dont you, that weve still got no proof of murder. Not in one single case. Thats so, replied Parker, placidly. Well, doesnt it make your blood boil? said Wimsey. Hardly, said Parker. This kind of thing happens too often. If my blood boiled every time there was a delay in getting evidence, I should be in a perpetual fever. Why worry? It may be that perfect crime youre so fond of talking aboutthe one that leaves no trace. You ought to be charmed with it. Oh, I daresay. O Turpitude, where are the charms that sages have seen in thy face? Times called at the Criminals Arms, and there isnt a drink in the place. Wimseys Standard Poets, with emendations by Thingummy. As a matter of fact, Im not at all sure that Miss Dawsons death wasnt the perfect crimeif only the Whittaker girl had stopped at that and not tried to cover it up. If you notice, the deaths are becoming more and more violent, elaborate and unlikely in appearance. Telephone again. If the Post Office accounts dont show a handsome profit on telephones this year it wont be your fault. Its the cap and shoes, said Parker, mildly. Theyve traced them. They were ordered from an outfitters in Stepney, to be sent to the Rev. H. Dawson, Peveril Hotel, Bloomsbury, to await arrival. The Peveril again! Yes. I recognise the hand of Mr. Triggs mysterious charmer. The Rev. Hallelujah Dawsons card, with message Please give parcel to bearer, was presented by a District Messenger next day, with a verbal explanation that the gentleman found he could not get up to town after all. The messenger, obeying instructions received by telephone, took the parcel to a lady in a nurses dress on the platform at Charing Cross. Asked to describe the lady, he said she was tall and wore blue glasses and the usual cloak and bonnet. So thats that. How were the goods paid for? Postal order, purchased at the West Central office at the busiest moment of the day. And when did all this happen? Thats the most interesting part of the business. Last month, shortly before Miss Whittaker and Miss Findlater returned from Kent. This plot was well thought out beforehand. Yes. Well, thats something more for you to pin on to Mrs. Forrest. It looks like proof of conspiracy, but whether its proof of murder Its meant to look like a conspiracy of Cousin Hallelujahs, I suppose. Oh, well, we shall have to trace the letters and the typewriter that wrote them and interrogate all these people, I suppose. God! what a grind! Hullo! Come in! Oh, its you, doctor? Excuse my interrupting your breakfast, said Dr. Faulkner, but early this morning, while lying awake, I was visited with a bright idea. So I had to come and work it off on you while it was fresh. About the blow on the head and the marks on the arms, you know. Do you suppose they served a double purpose? Besides making it look like the work of a gang, could they be hiding some other, smaller mark? Poison, for instance, could be injected, and the mark covered up by scratches and cuts inflicted after death. Frankly, said Parker, I wish I could think it. Its a very sound idea and may be the right one. Our trouble is, that in the two previous deaths which we have been investigating, and which we are inclined to think form a part of the same series as this one, there have been no signs or traces of poison discoverable in the bodies at all by any examination or analysis that skill can devise. In fact, not only no proof of poison, but no proof of anything but natural death. And he related the cases in fuller detail. Odd, said the doctor. And you think this may turn out the same way. Still, in this case the death cant very well have been naturalor why these elaborate efforts to cover it up? It wasnt, said Parker; the proof being thatas we now knowthe plot was laid nearly two months ago. But the method! cried Wimsey, the method! Hang it allhere are all we people with our brilliant brains and our professional reputationsand this halftrained girl out of a hospital can beat the lot of us. How was it done? Its probably something so simple and obvious that its never occurred to us, said Parker. The sort of principle you learn when youre in the fourth form and never apply to anything. Rudimentary. Like that motorcycling imbecile we met up at Crofton, who sat in the rain and prayed for help because hed never heard of an airlock in his feed. Now I daresay that boy had learntWhats the matter with you? My God! cried Wimsey. He smashed his hand down among the breakfast things, upsetting his cup. My God! But thats it! Youve got ityouve done itObvious? God Almightyit doesnt need a doctor. A garage hand could have told you. People die of it every day. Of course, it was an airlock in the feed. Bear up, doctor, said Parker, hes always like this when he gets an idea. It wears off in time. Dyou mind explaining yourself, old thing? Wimseys pallid face was flushed. He turned on the doctor. Look here, he said, the bodys a pumping engine, isnt it? The jolly old heart pumps the blood round the arteries and back through the veins and so on, doesnt it? Thats what keeps things working, what? Round and home again in two minutesthat sort of thing? Certainly. Little valve to let the blood out; nother little valve to let it injust like an internal combustion engine, which it is? Of course. And sposin that stops? You die. Yes. Now, look here. Sposin you take a good big hypodermic, empty, and dig it into one of the big arteries and push the handlewhat would happen? What would happen, doctor? Youd be pumpin a big airbubble into your engine feed, wouldnt you? What would become of your circulation, then? It would stop it, said the doctor, without hesitation. That is why nurses have to be particular to fill the syringe properly, especially when doing an intravenous injection. I knew it was the kind of thing you learnt in the fourth form. Well, go on. Your circulation would stopit would be like an embolism in its effect, wouldnt it? Only if it was in a main artery, of course. In a small vein the blood would find a way round. That is why (this seemed to be the doctors favourite opening) that is why it is so important that embolismsbloodclotsshould be dispersed as soon as possible and not left to wander about the system. Yesyesbut the airbubble, doctorin a main arterysay the femoral or the big vein in the bend of the elbowthat would stop the circulation, wouldnt it? How soon? Why, at once. The heart would stop beating. And then? You would die. With what symptoms? None to speak of. Just a gasp or two. The lungs would make a desperate effort to keep things going. Then youd just stop. Like heart failure. It would be heart failure. How well I know it  That sneeze in the carburettora gasping, as you say. And what would be the postmortem symptoms? None. Just the appearances of heart failure. And, of course, the little mark of the needle, if you happened to be looking for it. Youre sure of all this, doctor? said Parker. Well, its simple, isnt it? A plain problem in mechanics. Of course that would happen. It must happen. Could it be proved? insisted Parker. Thats more difficult. We must try, said Parker. Its ingenious, and it explains a lot of things. Doctor, will you go down to the mortuary again and see if you can find any puncture mark on the body. I really think youve got the explanation of the whole thing, Peter. Oh, dear! Whos on the phone now?  What?what?oh, hell!Well, thats torn it. Shell never come back now. Warn all the portssend out an allstations callwatch the railways and go through Bloomsbury with a toothcombthats the part she knows best. Im coming straight up to Town nowyes, immediately. Right you are. He hung up the receiver with a few brief, choice expressions. That adjectival imbecile, Pillington, has let out all he knows. The whole story is in the early editions of the Banner. Were doing no good here. Mary Whittaker will know the games up, and shell be out of the country in two twos, if she isnt already. Coming back to Town, Wimsey? Naturally. Take you up in the car. Lose no time. Ring the bell for Bunter, would you? Oh, Bunter, were going up to Town. How soon can we start? At once, my lord. I have been holding your lordships and Mr. Parkers things ready packed from hour to hour, in case a hurried adjournment should be necessary. Good man. And there is a letter for you, Mr. Parker, sir. Oh, thanks. Ah, yes. The fingerprints off the cheque. Hm. Two sets onlybesides those of the cashier, of courseCousin Hallelujahs and a female set, presumably those of Mary Whittaker. Yes, obviouslyhere are the four fingers of the left hand, just as one would place them to hold the cheque flat while signing. Pardon me, sirbut might I look at that photograph? Certainly. Take a copy for yourself. I know it interests you as a photographer. Well, cheerio, doctor. See you in Town some time. Come on, Peter. Lord Peter came on. And that, as Dr. Faulkner would say, was why Miss Climpsons second letter was brought up from the policestation too late to catch him. They reached Town at twelveowing to Wimseys brisk work at the wheeland went straight to Scotland Yard, dropping Bunter, at his own request, as he was anxious to return to the flat. They found the Chief Commissioner in rather a brusque moodangry with the Banner and annoyed with Parker for having failed to muzzle Pillington. God knows where she will be found next. Shes probably got a disguise and a getaway all ready. Probably gone already, said Wimsey. She could easily have left England on the Monday or Tuesday and nobody a penny the wiser. If the coast had seemed clear, shed have come back and taken possession of her goods again. Now shell stay abroad. Thats all. Im very much afraid youre right, agreed Parker, gloomily. Meanwhile, what is Mrs. Forrest doing? Behaving quite normally. Shes been carefully shadowed, of course, but not interfered with in any way. Weve got three men out there nowone as a costerone as a dear friend of the hallporters who drops in every so often with racing tips, and an oddjob man doing a spot of work in the backyard. They report that she has been in and out, shopping and so on, but mostly having her meals at home. No one has called. The men deputed to shadow her away from the flat have watched carefully to see if she speaks to anyone or slips money to anyone. Were pretty sure the two havent met yet. Excuse me, sir. An officer put his head in at the door. Heres Lord Peter Wimseys man, sir, with an urgent message. Bunter entered, trimly correct in bearing, but with a glitter in his eye. He laid down two photographs on the table. Excuse me, my lord and gentlemen, but would you be so good as to cast your eyes on these two photographs? Fingerprints? said the Chief, interrogatively. One of them is our own official photograph of the prints on the 10,000 cheque, said Parker. The otherwhere did you get this, Bunter? It looks like the same set of prints, but its not one of ours. They appeared similar, sir, to my uninstructed eye. I thought it better to place the matter before you. Send Dewsby here, said the Chief Commissioner. Dewsby was the head of the fingerprint department, and he had no hesitation at all. They are undoubtedly the same prints, he said. A light was slowly breaking in on Wimsey. Bunterdid these come off that wineglass? Yes, my lord. But they are Mrs. Forrests! So I understood you to say, my lord, and I have filed them under that name. Then, if the signature on the cheque is genuine We havent far to look for our bird, said Parker, brutally. A double identity; damn the woman, shes made us waste a lot of time. Well, I think we shall get her now, on the Findlater murder at least, and possibly on the Gotobed business. But I understood there was an alibi for that, said the Chief. There was, said Parker, grimly, but the witness was the girl thats just been murdered. Looks as though she had made up her mind to split and was got rid of. Looks as though several people had had a near squeak of it, said Wimsey. Including you. That yellow hair was a wig, then. Probably. It never looked natural, you know. When I was there that night she had on one of those close turban affairsshe might have been bald for all one could see. Did you notice the scar on the fingers of the right hand? I did notfor the very good reason that her fingers were stiff with rings to the knuckles. There was pretty good sense behind her ugly bad taste. I suppose I was to be druggedor, failing that, caressed into slumber and thenshall we say, put out of circulation! Highly distressin incident. Amorous clubman dies in a flat. Relations very anxious to hush matter up. I was selected, I suppose, because I was seen with Evelyn Cropper at Liverpool. Bertha Gotobed got the same sort of dose, too, I take it. Met by old employer, accidentally, on leaving work5 note and nice little dinnerlashings of champagnepoor kid as drunk as a blind fiddlerbundled into the carfinished off there and trundled out to Epping in company with a ham sandwich and a bottle of Bass. Easy, aint itwhen you know how? That being so, said the Chief Commissioner, the sooner we get hold of her the better. Youd better go at once, Inspector; take a warrant for Whittaker or Forrestand any help you may require. May I come? asked Wimsey, when they were outside the building. Why not? You may be useful. With the men weve got there already we shant need any extra help. The car whizzed swiftly through Pall Mall, up St. Jamess Street and along Piccadilly. Halfway up South Audley Street they passed the fruitseller, with whom Parker exchanged an almost imperceptible signal. A few doors below the entrance to the flats they got out and were almost immediately joined by the hallporters sporting friend. I was just going out to call you up, said the latter. Shes arrived. What, the Whittaker woman? Yes. Went up about two minutes ago. Is Forrest there too? Yes. She came in just before the other woman. Queer, said Parker. Another good theory gone west. Are you sure its Whittaker? Well, shes made up with oldfashioned clothes and greyish hair and so on. But shes the right height and general appearance. And shes running the old bluespectacle stunt again. I think its the right onethough of course I didnt get close to her, remembering your instructions. Well, well have a look, anyhow. Come along. The coster had joined them now, and they all entered together. Did the old girl go up to Forrests flat all right? asked the third detective of the porter. Thats right. Went straight to the door and started something about a subscription. Then Mrs. Forrest pulled her in quick and slammed the door. Nobodys come down since. Right. Well take ourselves upand mind you dont let anybody give us the slip by the staircase. Now then, Wimsey, she knows you as Templeton, but she may still not know for certain that youre working with us. Ring the bell, and when the doors opened, stick your foot inside. Well stand just round the corner here and be ready to rush. This manoeuvre was executed. They heard the bell trill loudly. Nobody came to answer it, however. Wimsey rang again, and then bent his ear to the door. Charles, he cried suddenly, theres something going on here. His face was white. Be quick! I couldnt stand another! Parker hastened up and listened. Then he caught Peters stick and hammered on the door, so that the hollow liftshaft echoed with the clamour. Come on thereopen the doorthis is the police. And all the time, a horrid, stealthy thumping and gurgling sounded insidedragging of something heavy and a scuffling noise. Then a loud crash, as though a piece of furniture had been flung to the floorand then a loud hoarse scream, cut brutally off in the middle. Break in the door, said Wimsey, the sweat pouring down his face. Parker signalled to the heavier of the two policemen. He came along, shoulder first, lunging. The door shook and cracked. Parker added his weight, thrusting Wimseys slight body into the corner. They stamped and panted in the narrow space. The door gave way, and they tumbled into the hall. Everything was ominously quiet. Oh, quick! sobbed Peter. A door on the right stood open. A glance assured them that there was nothing there. They sprang to the sittingroom door and pushed it. It opened about a foot. Something bulky impeded its progress. They shoved violently and the obstacle gave. Wimsey leapt over itit was a tall cabinet, fallen, with broken china strewing the floor. The room bore signs of a violent struggletables flung down, a broken chair, a smashed lamp. He dashed for the bedroom, with Parker hard at his heels. The body of a woman lay limply on the bed. Her long, grizzled hair hung in a dark rope over the pillow and blood was on her head and throat. But the blood was running freely, and Wimsey could have shouted for joy at the sight. Dead men do not bleed. Parker gave only one glance at the injured woman. He made promptly for the dressingroom beyond. A shot sang past his headthere was a snarl and a shriekand the episode was over. The constable stood shaking his bitten hand, while Parker put the comealongome grip on the quarry. He recognised her readily, though the peroxide wig had fallen awry and the blue eyes were bleared with terror and fury. Thatll do, said Parker, quietly, the games up. Its not a bit of use. Come, be reasonable. You dont want us to put the bracelets on, do you? Mary Whittaker, alias Forrest, I arrest you on the charge he hesitated for a moment and she saw it. On what charge? What have you got against me? Of attempting to murder this lady, for a start, said Parker. The old fool! she said, contemptuously, she forced her way in here and attacked me. Is that all? Very probably not, said Parker. I warn you that anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence at your trial. Indeed, the third officer had already produced a notebook and was imperturbably writing down When told the charge, the prisoner said Is that all?  The remark evidently struck him as an injudicious one, for he licked his pencil with an air of satisfaction. Is the lady all rightwho is it? asked Parker, coming back to a survey of the situation. Its Miss ClimpsonGod knows how she got here. I think shes all right, but shes had a rough time. He was anxiously sponging her head as he spoke, and at that moment her eyes opened. Help! said Miss Climpson, confusedly. The syringeyou shantoh! She struggled feebly, and then recognised Wimseys anxious face. Oh, dear! she exclaimed, Lord Peter. Such an upset. Did you get my letter? Is it all right?  Oh, dear! What a state Im in. Ithat woman Now, dont worry, Miss Climpson, said Wimsey, much relieved, everythings quite all right and you mustnt talk. You must tell us about it later. What was that about a syringe? said Parker, intent on his case. Shed got a syringe in her hand, panted Miss Climpson, trying to sit up, and fumbling with her hands over the bed. I fainted, I thinksuch a struggleand something hit me on the head. And I saw her coming at me with the thing. And I knocked it out of her hand and I cant remember what happened afterwards. But I have remarkable vitality, said Miss Climpson, cheerfully. My dear father always used to say Climpsons take a lot of killing! Parker was groping on the floor. Here you are, said he. In his hand was a hypodermic syringe. Shes mental, thats what she is, said the prisoner. Thats only the hypodermic I use for my injections when I get neuralgia. Theres nothing in that. That is quite correct, said Parker, with a significant nod at Wimsey. There isnothing in it. On the Tuesday night, when the prisoner had been committed for trial on the charges of murdering Bertha Gotobed and Vera Findlater, and attempting to murder Alexandra Climpson, Wimsey dined with Parker. The former was depressed and nervous. The whole things been beastly, he grumbled. They had sat up discussing the case into the small hours. Interesting, said Parker, interesting. I owe you seven and six, by the way. We ought to have seen through that Forrest business earlier, but there seemed no real reason to suspect the Findlater girls word as to the alibi. These mistaken loyalties make a lot of trouble. I think the thing that put us off was that it all started so early. There seemed no reason for it, but looking back on Triggs story its as plain as a pikestaff. She took a big risk with that empty house, and she couldnt always expect to find empty houses handy to do away with people in. The idea was, I suppose, to build up a double identity, so that, if Mary Whittaker was ever suspected of anything, she could quietly disappear and become the frail but otherwise innocent Mrs. Forrest. The real slipup was forgetting to take back that 5 note from Bertha Gotobed. If it hadnt been for that, we might never have known anything about Mrs. Forrest. It must have rattled her horribly when we turned up there. After that, she was known to the police in both her characters. The Findlater business was a desperate attempt to cover up her tracksand it was bound to fail, because it was so complicated. Yes. But the Dawson murder was beautiful in its ease and simplicity. If she had stuck to that and left well alone, we could never have proved anything. We cant prove it now, which is why I left it off the chargesheet. I dont think Ive ever met a more greedy and heartless murderer. She probably really thought that anyone who inconvenienced her had no right to exist. Greedy and malicious. Fancy tryin to shove the blame on poor old Hallelujah. I suppose hed committed the unforgivable sin of askin her for money. Well, hell get it, thats one good thing. The pit digged for Cousin Hallelujah has turned into a goldmine. That 10,000 cheque has been honoured. I saw to that first thing, before Whittaker could remember to try and stop it. Probably she couldnt have stopped it anyway, as it was duly presented last Saturday. Is the money legally hers? Of course it is. We know it was gained by a crime, but we havent charged her with the crime, so that legally no such crime was committed. Ive not said anything to Cousin Hallelujah, of course, or he mightnt like to take it. He thinks it was sent him in a burst of contrition, poor old dear. So Cousin Hallelujah and all the little Hallelujahs will be rich. Thats splendid. How about the rest of the money? Will the Crown get it after all? No. Unless she wills it to someone, it will go to the Whittaker nextofkina first cousin, I believe, called Allcock. A very decent fellow, living in Birmingham. That is, he added, assailed by sudden doubt, if first cousins do inherit under this confounded Act. Oh, I think first cousins are safe, said Wimsey, though nothing seems safe nowadays. Still, dash it all, some relations must still be allowed a lookin, or what becomes of the sanctity of family life? If so, thats the most cheering thing about the beastly business. Do you know, when I rang up that man Carr and told him all about it, he wasnt a bit interested or grateful. Said hed always suspected something like that, and he hoped we werent going to rake it all up again, because hed come into that money he told us about and was setting up for himself in Harley Street, so he didnt want any more scandals. I never did like that man. Im sorry for Nurse Philliter. You neednt be. I put my foot in it again over that. Carrs too grand to marry a nurse nowat least, I fancy thats what it is. Anyway, the engagements off. And I was so pleased at the idea of playing Providence to two deserving young people, added Wimsey, pathetically. Dear, dear! Well, the girls well out of it. Hullo! theres the phone. Who on earth? Some damned thing at the Yard, I suppose. At three ack emma! Whod be a policeman?Yes?Oh!right, Ill come round. The case has gone west, Peter. How? Suicide. Strangled herself with a sheet. Id better go round, I suppose. Ill come with you. An evil woman, if ever there was one, said Parker, softly, as they looked at the rigid body, with its swollen face and the deep, red ring about the throat. Wimsey said nothing. He felt cold and sick. While Parker and the Governor of the prison made the necessary arrangements and discussed the case, he sat hunched unhappily upon his chair. Their voices went on and on interminably. Six oclock had struck some time before they rose to go. It reminded him of the eight strokes of the clock which announce the runningup of the black and hideous flag. As the gate clanged open to let them out, they stepped into a wan and awful darkness. The June day had risen long ago, but only a pale and yellowish gleam lit the halfdeserted streets. And it was bitterly cold and raining. What is the matter with the day? said Wimsey. Is the world coming to an end? No, said Parker, it is the eclipse. Colophon Unnatural Death was published in 1927 by Dorothy L. Sayers. This ebook was transcribed and produced for Standard Ebooks by David Grigg, and is based on digital scans from the Internet Archive. The cover page is adapted from Shadows, a painting completed in 1922 by Fred Leist. The cover and title pages feature the League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by The League of Moveable Type. This edition was released on November 7, 2024, 856 p.m. and is based on revision e80dc58. The first edition of this ebook was released on January 1, 2023, 828 p.m. You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at standardebooks.orgebooksdorothylsayersunnaturaldeath. The volunteerdriven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org. Imprint This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain. This particular ebook is based on digital scans from the Internet Archive. The source text and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. They may still be copyrighted in other countries, so users located outside of the United States must check their local laws before using this ebook. The creators of, and contributors to, this ebook dedicate their contributions to the worldwide public domain via the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the Uncopyright at the end of this ebook. Standard Ebooks is a volunteerdriven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at standardebooks.org. List of Illustrations A sketch of the layout of Agatha Dawsons bedroom showing the position of a mirror through which the maids could see her sign documents. A genealogical table showing the descent of Mary Whittaker, Agatha Dawson and Hallelujah Dawson. Part I The Medical Problem But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, What stuff tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn. Merchant of Venice Part II The Legal Problem The gladsome light of jurisprudence. Sir Edward Coke Part III The MedicoLegal Problem Theres not a crime But takes its proper change out still in crime If once rung on the counter of this world. E. B. Browning Aurora Leigh Unnatural Death By Dorothy L. Sayers. Uncopyright May you do good and not evil. May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others. May you share freely, never taking more than you give. Copyright pages exist to tell you that you cant do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you that the writing and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. The United States public domain represents our collective cultural heritage, and items in it are free for anyone in the United States to do almost anything at all with, without having to get permission. Copyright laws are different all over the world, and the source text or artwork in this ebook may still be copyrighted in other countries. If youre not located in the United States, you must check your local laws before using this ebook. Standard Ebooks makes no representations regarding the copyright status of the source text or artwork in this ebook in any country other than the United States.


Nonauthorship activities performed on items that are in the public domainsocalled sweat of the brow workdont create a new copyright. That means that nobody can claim a new copyright on an item that is in the public domain for, among other things, work like digitization, markup, or typography. Regardless, the contributors to this ebook release their contributions under the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, thus dedicating to the worldwide public domain all of the work theyve done on this ebook, including but not limited to metadata, the titlepage, imprint, colophon, this Uncopyright, and any changes or enhancements to, or markup on, the original text and artwork. This dedication doesnt change the copyright status of the source text or artwork. We make this dedication in the interest of enriching our global cultural heritage, to promote free and libre culture around the world, and to give back to the unrestricted culture that has given all of us so much. Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Part I The Medical Problem I Overheard II Miching Mallecho III A Use for Spinsters IV A Bit Mental V Gossip VI Found Dead VII Ham and Brandy VIII Concerning Crime IX The Will Part II The Legal Problem X The Will Again XI Crossroads XII A Tale of Two Spinsters XIII Hallelujah XIV Sharp Quillets of the Law XV Temptation of St. Peter XVI A CastIron Alibi XVII The Country Lawyers Story XVIII The London Lawyers Story Part III The MedicoLegal Problem XIX Gone Away XX Murder XXI By What Means? XXII A Case of Conscience XXIII And Smote Him, Thus Genealogical Table List of Illustrations Colophon Uncopyright Landmarks Unnatural Death List of Illustrations


And the Dead Spake There is not in all London a quieter spot, or one, apparently, more withdrawn from the heat and bustle of life than Newsome Terrace. It is a culdesac, for at the upper end the roadway between its two lines of square, compact little residences is brought to an end by a high brick wall, while at the lower end, the only access to it is through Newsome Square, that small discreet oblong of Georgian houses, a relic of the time when Kensington was a suburban village sundered from the metropolis by a stretch of pastures stretching to the river. Both square and terrace are most inconveniently situated for those whose ideal environment includes a rank of taxicabs immediately opposite their door, a spate of buses roaring down the street, and a procession of underground trains, accessible by a station a few yards away, shaking and rattling the cutlery and silver on their dining tables. In consequence Newsome Terrace had come, two years ago, to be inhabited by leisurely and retired folk or by those who wished to pursue their work in quiet and tranquillity. Children with hoops and scooters are phenomena rarely encountered in the Terrace and dogs are equally uncommon. In front of each of the couple of dozen houses of which the Terrace is composed lies a little square of railinged garden, in which you may often see the middleaged or elderly mistress of the residence horticulturally employed. By five oclock of a winters evening the pavements will generally be empty of all passengers except the policeman, who with felted step, at intervals throughout the night, peers with his bullseye into these small front gardens, and never finds anything more suspicious there than an early crocus or an aconite. For by the time it is dark the inhabitants of the Terrace have got themselves home, where behind drawn curtains and bolted shutters they will pass a domestic and uninterrupted evening. No funeral (up to the time I speak of) had I ever seen leave the Terrace, no marriage party had strewed its pavements with confetti, and perambulators were unknown. It and its inhabitants seemed to be quietly mellowing like bottles of sound wine. No doubt there was stored within them the sunshine and summer of youth long past, and now, dozing in a cool place, they waited for the turn of the key in the cellar door, and the entry of one who would draw them forth and see what they were worth. Yet, after the time of which I shall now speak, I have never passed down its pavement without wondering whether each house, so seeminglytranquil, is not, like some dynamo, softly and smoothly bringing into being vast and terrible forces, such as those I once saw at work in the last house at the upper end of the Terrace, the quietest, you would have said, of all the row. Had you observed it with continuous scrutiny, for all the length of a summer day, it is quite possible that you might have only seen issue from it in the morning an elderly woman whom you would have rightly conjectured to be the housekeeper, with her basket for marketing on her arm, who returned an hour later. Except for her the entire day might often pass without there being either ingress or egress from the door. Occasionally a middleaged man, lean and wiry, came swiftly down the pavement, but his exit was by no means a daily occurrence, and indeed when he did emerge, he broke the almost universal usage of the Terrace, for his appearances took place, when such there were, between nine and ten in the evening. At that hour sometimes he would come round to my house in Newsome Square to see if I was at home and inclined for a talk a little later on. For the sake of air and exercise he would then have an hours tramp through the lit and noisy streets, and return about ten, still pale and unflushed, for one of those talks which grew to have an absorbing fascination for me. More rarely through the telephone I proposed that I should drop in on him this I did not often do, since I found that if he did not come out himself, it implied that he was busy with some investigation, and though he made me welcome, I could easily see that he burned for my departure, so that he might get busy with his batteries and pieces of tissue, hot on the track of discoveries that never yet had presented themselves to the mind of man as coming within the horizon of possibility. My last sentence may have led the reader to guess that I am indeed speaking of none other than that recluse and mysterious physicist Sir James Horton, with whose death a hundred halfhewn avenues into the dark forest from which life comes must wait completion till another pioneer as bold as he takes up the axe which hitherto none but himself has been able to wield. Probably there was never a man to whom humanity owed more, and of whom humanity knew less. He seemed utterly independent of the race to whom (though indeed with no service of love) he devoted himself for years he lived aloof and apart in his house at the end of the Terrace. Men and women were to him like fossils to the geologist, things to be tapped and hammered and dissected and studied with a view not only to the reconstruction of past ages, but to construction in the future. It is known, for instance, that he made an artificial being formed of the tissue, still living, of animals lately killed, with the brain of an ape and the heart of a bullock, and a sheeps thyroid, and so forth. Of that I can give no firsthand account; Horton, it is true, told me something about it, and in his will directed that certain memoranda on the subject should on his death be sent to me. But on the bulky envelope there is the direction, Not to be opened till January, 1925. He spoke with some reserve and, so I think, with slight horror at the strange things which had happened on the completion of this creature. It evidently made him uncomfortable to talk about it, and for that reason I fancy he put what was then a rather remote date to the day when his record should reach my eye. Finally, in these preliminaries, for the last five years before the war, he had scarcely entered, for the sake of companionship, any house other than his own and mine. Ours was a friendship dating from schooldays, which he had never suffered to drop entirely, but I doubt if in those years he spoke except on matters of business to half a dozen other people. He had already retired from surgical practice in which his skill was unapproached, and most completely now did he avoid the slightest intercourse with his colleagues, whom he regarded as ignorant pedants without courage or the rudiments of knowledge. Now and then he would write an epochmaking little monograph, which he flung to them like a bone to a starving dog, but for the most part, utterly absorbed in his own investigations, he left them to grope along unaided. He frankly told me that he enjoyed talking to me about such subjects, since I was utterly unacquainted with them. It clarified his mind to be obliged to put his theories and guesses and confirmations with such simplicity that anyone could understand them. I well remember his coming in to see me on the evening of the 4th of August, 1914. So the war has broken out, he said, and the streets are impassable with excited crowds. Odd, isnt it? Just as if each of us already was not a far more murderous battlefield than any which can be conceived between warring nations. Hows that? said I. Let me try to put it plainly, though it isnt that I want to talk about. Your blood is one eternal battlefield. It is full of armies eternally marching and countermarching. As long as the armies friendly to you are in a superior position, you remain in good health; if a detachment of microbes that, if suffered to establish themselves, would give you a cold in the head, entrench themselves in your mucous membrane, the commanderinchief sends a regiment down and drives them out. He doesnt give his orders from your brain, mind youthose arent his headquarters, for your brain knows nothing about the landing of the enemy till they have made good their position and given you a cold. He paused a moment. There isnt one headquarters inside you, he said, there are many. For instance, I killed a frog this morning; at least most people would say I killed it. But had I killed it, though its head lay in one place and its severed body in another? Not a bit I had only killed a piece of it. For I opened the body afterwards and took out the heart, which I put in a sterilised chamber of suitable temperature, so that it wouldnt get cold or be infected by any microbe. That was about twelve oclock today. And when I came out just now, the heart was beating still. It was alive, in fact. Thats full of suggestions, you know. Come and see it. The Terrace had been stirred into volcanic activity by the news of war the vendor of some late edition had penetrated into its quietude, and there were half a dozen parlourmaids fluttering about like black and white moths. But once inside Hortons door isolation as of an Arctic night seemed to close round me. He had forgotten his latchkey, but his housekeeper, then newly come to him, who became so regular and familiar a figure in the Terrace, must have heard his step, for before he rang the bell she had opened the door, and stood with his forgotten latchkey in her hand. Thanks, Mrs. Gabriel, said he, and without a sound the door shut behind us. Both her name and face, as reproduced in some illustrated daily paper, seemed familiar, rather terribly familiar, but before I had time to grope for the association, Horton supplied it. Tried for the murder of her husband six months ago, he said. Odd case. The point is that she is the one and perfect housekeeper. I once had four servants, and everything was all mucky, as we used to say at school. Now I live in amazing comfort and propriety with one. She does everything. She is cook, valet, housemaid, butler, and wont have anyone to help her. No doubt she killed her husband, but she planned it so well that she could not be convicted. She told me quite frankly who she was when I engaged her. Of course I remembered the whole trial vividly now. Her husband, a morose, quarrelsome fellow, tipsy as often as sober, had, according to the defence cut his own throat while shaving; according to the prosecution, she had done that for him. There was the usual discrepancy of evidence as to whether the wound could have been selfinflicted, and the prosecution tried to prove that the face had been lathered after his throat had been cut. So singular an exhibition of forethought and nerve had hurt rather than helped their case, and after prolonged deliberation on the part of the jury, she had been acquitted. Yet not less singular was Hortons selection of a probable murderess, however efficient, as housekeeper. He anticipated this reflection. Apart from the wonderful comfort of having a perfectly appointed and absolutely silent house, he said, I regard Mrs. Gabriel as a sort of insurance against my being murdered. If you had been tried for your life, you would take very especial care not to find yourself in suspicious proximity to a murdered body again no more deaths in your house, if you could help it. Come through to my laboratory, and look at my little instance of life after death. Certainly it was amazing to see that little piece of tissue still pulsating with what must be called life; it contracted and expanded faintly indeed but perceptibly, though for nine hours now it had been severed from the rest of the organisation. All by itself it went on living, and if the heart could go on living with nothing, you would say, to feed and stimulate its energy, there must also, so reasoned Horton, reside in all the other vital organs of the body other independent focuses of life. Of course a severed organ like that, he said, will run down quicker than if it had the cooperation of the others, and presently I shall apply a gentle electric stimulus to it. If I can keep that glass bowl under which it beats at the temperature of a frogs body, in sterilised air, I dont see why it should not go on living. Foodof course theres the question of feeding it. Do you see what that opens up in the way of surgery? Imagine a shop with glass cases containing healthy organs taken from the dead. Say a man dies of pneumonia. He should, as soon as ever the breath is out of his body, be dissected, and though they would, of course, destroy his lungs, as they will be full of pneumococci, his liver and digestive organs are probably healthy. Take them out, keep them in a sterilised atmosphere with the temperature at 98.4, and sell the liver, let us say, to another poor devil who has cancer there. Fit him with a new healthy liver, eh? And insert the brain of someone who has died of heart disease into the skull of a congenital idiot? I asked. Yes, perhaps; but the brains tiresomely complicated in its connections and the joining up of the nerves, you know. Surgery will have to learn a lot before it fits new brains in. And the brain has got such a lot of functions. All thinking, all inventing seem to belong to it, though, as you have seen, the heart can get on quite well without it. But there are other functions of the brain I want to study first. Ive been trying some experiments already. He made some little readjustment to the flame of the spirit lamp which kept at the right temperature the water that surrounded the sterilised receptacle in which the frogs heart was beating. Start with the more simple and mechanical uses of the brain, he said. Primarily it is a sort of record office, a diary. Say that I rap your knuckles with that ruler. What happens? The nerves there send a message to the brain, of course, sayinghow can I put it most simplysaying, Somebody is hurting me. And the eye sends another, saying I perceive a ruler hitting my knuckles, and the ear sends another, saying I hear the rap of it. But leaving all that alone, what else happens? Why, the brain records it. It makes a note of your knuckles having been hit. He had been moving about the room as he spoke, taking off his coat and waistcoat and putting on in their place a thin black dressinggown, and by now he was seated in his favourite attitude crosslegged on the hearthrug, looking like some magician or perhaps the afreet which a magician of black arts had caused to appear. He was thinking intently now, passing through his fingers his string of amber beads, and talking more to himself than to me. And how does it make that note? he went on. Why, in the manner in which phonograph records are made. There are millions of minute dots, depressions, pockmarks on your brain which certainly record what you remember, what you have enjoyed or disliked, or done or said. The surface of the brain anyhow is large enough to furnish writingpaper for the record of all these things, of all your memories. If the impression of an experience has not been acute, the dot is not sharply impressed, and the record fades in other words, you come to forget it. But if it has been vividly impressed, the record is never obliterated. Mrs. Gabriel, for instance, wont lose the impression of how she lathered her husbands face after she had cut his throat. Thats to say, if she did it. Now do you see what Im driving at? Of course you do. There is stored within a mans head the complete record of all the memorable things he has done and said there are all his thoughts there, and all his speeches, and, most wellmarked of all, his habitual thoughts and the things he has often said; for habit, there is reason to believe, wears a sort of rut in the brain, so that the lifeprinciple, whatever it is, as it gropes and steals about the brain, is continually stumbling into it. Theres your record, your gramophone plate all ready. What we want, and what Im trying to arrive at, is a needle which, as it traces its minute way over these dots, will come across words or sentences which the dead have uttered, and will reproduce them. My word, what Judgment Books! What a resurrection! Here in this withdrawn situation no remotest echo of the excitement which was seething through the streets penetrated; through the open window there came in only the tide of the midnight silence. But from somewhere closer at hand, through the wall surely of the laboratory, there came a low, somewhat persistent murmur. Perhaps our needleunhappily not yet inventedas it passed over the record of speech in the brain, might induce even facial expression, he said. Enjoyment or horror might even pass over dead features. There might be gestures and movements even, as the words were reproduced in our gramophone of the dead. Some people when they want to think intensely walk about some, theres an instance of it audible now, talk to themselves aloud. He held up his finger for silence. Yes, thats Mrs. Gabriel, he said. She talks to herself by the hour together. Shes always done that, she tells me. I shouldnt wonder if she has plenty to talk about. It was that night when, first of all, the notion of intense activity going on below the placid housefronts of the Terrace occurred to me. None looked more quiet than this, and yet there was seething here a volcanic activity and intensity of living, both in the man who sat crosslegged on the floor and behind that voice just audible through the partition wall. But I thought of that no more, for Horton began speaking of the braingramophone again.  Were it possible to trace those infinitesimal dots and pockmarks in the brain by some needle exquisitely fine, it might follow that by the aid of some such contrivance as translated the pockmarks on a gramophone record into sound, some audible rendering of speech might be recovered from the brain of a dead man. It was necessary, so he pointed out to me, that this strange gramophone record should be new; it must be that of one lately dead, for corruption and decay would soon obliterate these infinitesimal markings. He was not of opinion that unspoken thought could be thus recovered the utmost he hoped for from his pioneering work was to be able to recapture actual speech, especially when such speech had habitually dwelt on one subject, and thus had worn a rut on that part of the brain known as the speechcentre. Let me get, for instance, he said, the brain of a railway porter, newly dead, who has been accustomed for years to call out the name of a station, and I do not despair of hearing his voice through my gramophone trumpet. Or again, given that Mrs. Gabriel, in all her interminable conversations with herself, talks about one subject, I might, in similar circumstances, recapture what she had been constantly saying. Of course my instrument must be of a power and delicacy still unknown, one of which the needle can trace the minutest irregularities of surface, and of which the trumpet must be of immense magnifying power, able to translate the smallest whisper into a shout. But just as a microscope will show you the details of an object invisible to the eye, so there are instruments which act in the same way on sound. Here, for instance, is one of remarkable magnifying power. Try it if you like. He took me over to a table on which was standing an electric battery connected with a round steel globe, out of the side of which sprang a gramophone trumpet of curious construction. He adjusted the battery, and directed me to click my fingers quite gently opposite an aperture in the globe, and the noise, ordinarily scarcely audible, resounded through the room like a thunderclap. Something of that sort might permit us to hear the record on a brain, he said. After this night my visits to Horton became far more common than they had hitherto been. Having once admitted me into the region of his strange explorations, he seemed to welcome me there. Partly, as he had said, it clarified his own thought to put it into simple language, partly, as he subsequently admitted, he was beginning to penetrate into such lonely fields of knowledge by paths so utterly untrodden, that even he, the most aloof and independent of mankind, wanted some human presence near him. Despite his utter indifference to the issues of the warfor, in his regard, issues far more crucial demanded his energieshe offered himself as surgeon to a London hospital for operations on the brain, and his services, naturally, were welcomed, for none brought knowledge or skill like his to such work. Occupied all day, he performed miracles of healing, with bold and dexterous excisions which none but he would have dared to attempt. He would operate, often successfully, for lesions that seemed certainly fatal, and all the time he was learning. He refused to accept any salary; he only asked, in cases where he had removed pieces of brain matter, to take these away, in order by further examination and dissection, to add to the knowledge and manipulative skill which he devoted to the wounded. He wrapped these morsels in sterilised lint, and took them back to the Terrace in a box, electrically heated to maintain the normal temperature of a mans blood. His fragment might then, so he reasoned, keep some sort of independent life of its own, even as the severed heart of a frog had continued to beat for hours without connection with the rest of the body. Then for half the night he would continue to work on these sundered pieces of tissue scarcely dead, which his operations during the day had given him. Simultaneously, he was busy over the needle that must be of such infinite delicacy. One evening, fatigued with a long days work, I had just heard with a certain tremor of uneasy anticipation the whistles of warning which heralded an airraid, when my telephone bell rang. My servants, according to custom, had already betaken themselves to the cellar, and I went to see what the summons was, determined in any case not to go out into the streets. I recognised Hortons voice. I want you at once, he said. But the warning whistles have gone, said I, And I dont like showers of shrapnel. Oh, never mind that, said he. You must come. Im so excited that I distrust the evidence of my own ears. I want a witness. Just come. He did not pause for my reply, for I heard the click of his receiver going back into its place. Clearly he assumed that I was coming, and that I suppose had the effect of suggestion on my mind. I told myself that I would not go, but in a couple of minutes his certainty that I was coming, coupled with the prospect of being interested in something else than airraids, made me fidget in my chair and eventually go to the street door and look out. The moon was brilliantly bright, the square quite empty, and far away the coughings of very distant guns. Next moment, almost against my will, I was running down the deserted pavements of Newsome Terrace. My ring at his bell was answered by Horton, before Mrs. Gabriel could come to the door, and he positively dragged me in. I shant tell you a word of what I am doing, he said. I want you to tell me what you hear. Come into the laboratory. The remote guns were silent again as I sat myself, as directed, in a chair close to the gramophone trumpet, but suddenly through the wall I heard the familiar mutter of Mrs. Gabriels voice. Horton, already busy with his battery, sprang to his feet. That wont do, he said. I want absolute silence. He went out of the room, and I heard him calling to her. While he was gone I observed more closely what was on the table. Battery, round steel globe, and gramophone trumpet were there, and some sort of a needle on a spiral steel spring linked up with the battery and the glass vessel, in which I had seen the frogs heart beat. In it now there lay a fragment of grey matter. Horton came back in a minute or two, and stood in the middle of the room listening. Thats better, he said. Now I want you to listen at the mouth of the trumpet. Ill answer any questions afterwards. With my ear turned to the trumpet, I could see nothing of what he was doing, and I listened till the silence became a rustling in my ears. Then suddenly that rustling ceased, for it was overscored by a whisper which undoubtedly came from the aperture on which my aural attention was fixed. It was no more than the faintest murmur, and though no words were audible, it had the timbre of a human voice. Well, do you hear anything? asked Horton. Yes, something very faint, scarcely audible. Describe it, said he. Somebody whispering. Ill try a fresh place, said he. The silence descended again; the mutter of the distant guns was still mute, and some slight creaking from my shirt front, as I breathed, alone broke it. And then the whispering from the gramophone trumpet began again, this time much louder than it had been beforeit was as if the speaker (still whispering) had advanced a dozen yardsbut still blurred and indistinct. More unmistakable, too, was it that the whisper was that of a human voice, and every now and then, whether fancifully or not, I thought I caught a word or two. For a moment it was silent altogether, and then with a sudden inkling of what I was listening to I heard something begin to sing. Though the words were still inaudible there was melody, and the tune was Tipperary. From that convolvulusshaped trumpet there came two bars of it. And what do you hear now? cried Horton with a crack of exultation in his voice. Singing, singing! Thats the tune they all sang. Fine music that from a dead man. Encore! you say? Yes, wait a second, and hell sing it again for you. Confound it, I cant get on to the place. Ah! Ive got it listen again. Surely that was the strangest manner of song ever yet heard on the earth, this melody from the brain of the dead. Horror and fascination strove within me, and I suppose the first for the moment prevailed, for with a shudder I jumped up. Stop it! I said. Its terrible. His face, thin and eager, gleamed in the strong ray of the lamp which he had placed close to him. His hand was on the metal rod from which depended the spiral spring and the needle, which just rested on that fragment of grey stuff which I had seen in the glass vessel. Yes, Im going to stop it now, he said, or the germs will be getting at my gramophone record, or the record will get cold. See, I spray it with carbolic vapour, I put it back into its nice warm bed. It will sing to us again. But terrible? What do you mean by terrible? Indeed, when he asked that I scarcely knew myself what I meant. I had been witness to a new marvel of science as wonderful perhaps as any that had ever astounded the beholder, and my nervesthese childish whimperershad cried out at the darkness and the profundity. But the horror diminished, the fascination increased as he quite shortly told me the history of this phenomenon. He had attended that day and operated upon a young soldier in whose brain was embedded a piece of shrapnel. The boy was in extremis, but Horton had hoped for the possibility of saving him. To extract the shrapnel was the only chance, and this involved the cutting away of a piece of brain known as the speechcentre, and taking from it what was embedded there. But the hope was not realised, and two hours later the boy died. It was to this fragment of brain that, when Horton returned home, he had applied the needle of his gramophone, and had obtained the faint whisperings which had caused him to ring me up, so that he might have a witness of this wonder. Witness I had been, not to these whisperings alone, but to the fragment of singing. And this is but the first step on the new road, said he. Who knows where it may lead, or to what new temple of knowledge it may not be the avenue? Well, it is late I shall do no more tonight. What about the raid, by the way? To my amazement I saw that the time was verging on midnight. Two hours had elapsed since he let me in at his door; they had passed like a couple of minutes. Next morning some neighbours spoke of the prolonged firing that had gone on, of which I had been wholly unconscious. Week after week Horton worked on this new road of research, perfecting the sensitiveness and subtlety of the needle, and, by vastly increasing the power of his batteries, enlarging the magnifying power of his trumpet. Many and many an evening during the next year did I listen to voices that were dumb in death, and the sounds which had been blurred and unintelligible mutterings in the earlier experiments, developed, as the delicacy of his mechanical devices increased, into coherence and clear articulation. It was no longer necessary to impose silence on Mrs. Gabriel when the gramophone was at work, for now the voice we listened to had risen to the pitch of ordinary human utterance, while as for the faithfulness and individuality of these records, striking testimony was given more than once by some living friend of the dead, who, without knowing what he was about to hear, recognised the tones of the speaker. More than once also, Mrs. Gabriel, bringing in syphons and whisky, provided us with three glasses, for she had heard, so she told us, three different voices in talk. But for the present no fresh phenomenon occurred Horton was but perfecting the mechanism of his previous discovery and, rather grudging the time, was scribbling at a monograph, which presently he would toss to his colleagues, concerning the results he had already obtained. And then, even while Horton was on the threshold of new wonders, which he had already foreseen and spoken of as theoretically possible, there came an evening of marvel and of swift catastrophe. I had dined with him that day, Mrs. Gabriel deftly serving the meal that she had so daintily prepared, and towards the end, as she was clearing the table for our dessert, she stumbled, I supposed, on a loose edge of carpet, quickly recovering herself. But instantly Horton checked some halffinished sentence, and turned to her. Youre all right, Mrs. Gabriel? he asked quickly. Yes, sir, thank you, said she, and went on with her serving. As I was saying, began Horton again, but his attention clearly wandered, and without concluding his narrative, he relapsed into silence, till Mrs. Gabriel had given us our coffee and left the room. Im sadly afraid my domestic felicity may be disturbed, he said. Mrs. Gabriel had an epileptic fit yesterday, and she confessed when she recovered that she had been subject to them when a child, and since then had occasionally experienced them. Dangerous, then? I asked. In themselves not in the least, said he. If she was sitting in her chair or lying in bed when one occurred, there would be nothing to trouble about. But if one occurred while she was cooking my dinner or beginning to come downstairs, she might fall into the fire or tumble down the whole flight. Well hope no such deplorable calamity will happen. Now, if youve finished your coffee, let us go into the laboratory. Not that Ive got anything very interesting in the way of new records. But Ive introduced a second battery with a very strong induction coil into my apparatus. I find that if I link it up with my record, given that the record is aa fresh one, it stimulates certain nerve centres. Its odd, isnt it, that the same forces which so encourage the dead to live would certainly encourage the living to die, if a man received the full current. One has to be careful in handling it. Yes, and what then? you ask. The night was very hot, and he threw the windows wide before he settled himself crosslegged on the floor. Ill answer your question for you, he said, though I believe weve talked of it before. Supposing I had not a fragment of braintissue only, but a whole head, let us say, or best of all, a complete corpse, I think I could expect to produce more than mere speech through the gramophone.