The Pale Horse
by
Agatha Christie


THE PALE HORSE

AGATHA CHRISTIE

HarperCollins Publish

This paperback edition 1994

Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1964 First published in
Great Britain by Collins 1961

Copyright Agatha Christie Limited 1961

ISBN 000 616438 2

To John and Helen Mildmay White with many thanks for the opportunity
given me to see justice done

FOREWORD

by Mark Easterbrook

There are two methods, it seems to me, of approaching this strange
business of the Pale Horse.  In spite of the dictum of the White King,
it is difficult to achieve simplicity.  One cannot, that is to say,
"Begin at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop."  For where
is the beginning?

To a historian, that always is the difficulty.  At what point in
history does one particular portion of history begin.

In this case, you can begin at the moment when Father Gorman set forth
from his presbytery to visit a dying woman.  Or you can start before
that, on a certain evening in Chelsea.

Perhaps, since I am writing the greater part of this narrative myself,
it is there that I should begin.

CHAPTER ONE

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

The Espresso machine behind my shoulder hissed like an angry snake. The
noise it made had a sinister, not to say devilish, suggestion about it.
Perhaps, I reflected, most of our contemporary noises carry that
implication.  The intimidating angry scream of jet planes as they flash
across the sky; the slow menacing rumble of a tube train approaching
through its tunnel; the heavy road transport that shakes the very
foundations of your house .. . Even the minor domestic noises of today,
beneficial in action though they may be, yet carry a kind of alert. The
dish-washers, the refrigerators, the pressure cookers, the whining
vacuum cleaners "Be careful," they all seem to say.  "I am a genie
harnessed to your service, but if your control of me fails A dangerous
world that was it, a dangerous world.

I stirred the foaming cup placed in front of me.  It smelt pleasant.

"What else will you have?  Nice banana and bacon sandwich?"

It seemed an odd juxtaposition to me.  Bananas I connected with my
childhood or occasionally flambe with sugar and rum.  Bacon, in my
mind, was firmly associated with eggs.  However, when in Chelsea, eat
as Chelsea does.  I agreed to a nice banana and bacon sandwich.

Although I lived in Chelsea that is to say, I had had a furnished flat
there for the last three months I was in every other way a stranger in
these parts.  I was writing a book on certain aspects of Mogul
architecture, but for that purpose I could have lived in Hampstead or
Bloomsbury or Streatham or Chelsea and it would have been all the same
to me.  I was oblivious of my surroundings except for the tools of my
trade, and the neighbourhood in which I lived was completely
indifferent to me, I existed in a world of my own.

On this particular evening, however, I had suffered from one of those
sudden revulsions that all writers know.

Mogul architecture, Mogul Emperors, the Mogul way of life and all the
fascinating problems it raised, became suddenly as dust and ashes. What
did they matter?  Why did I want to write about them?

I flicked back various pages, rereading what I had written.  It all
seemed to me uniformly bad poorly written and singularly devoid of
interest.  Whoever had said "History is bunk' (Henry Ford?) had been
absolutely right.

I pushed back my manuscript with loathing, got up and looked at my
watch.  The time was close on eleven p.m. I tried to remember if I had
had dinner .. . From my inner sensations I thought not.  Lunch, yes, at
the Athenaeum.  That was a long time ago.

I went and looked into the refrigerator.  There was a small remnant of
desiccated tongue, I looked at it without favour.  So it was that I
wandered out into the King's Road, and eventually turned into an
Espresso Coffee Bar with the name Luigi written in red neon light
across its window, and was now contemplating a bacon and banana
sandwich whilst I reflected on the sinister implications of present-day
noises and their atmospheric effects.

All of them, I thought, had something in common with my early memories
of pantomime.  Davy Jones arriving from his locker in clouds of smoke!
Trap doors and windows that exuded the infernal powers of evil,
challenging and defying a Good Fairy Diamond, or some such name, who in
turn waved an inadequate-looking wand and recited hopeful platitudes as
to the ultimate triumph of good in a flat voice, thus prefacing the
inevitable 'song of the moment' which never had anything to do with the
story of that particular pantomime.

It came to me suddenly that evil was, perhaps, necessarily always more
impressive than good.  It had to make a show!  It had to startle and
challenge!  It was instability attacking stability.  And in the end, I
thought, stability will always win.  Stability can survive the
triteness of Good Fairy Diamond; the flat voice, the rhymed couplet,
even the irrelevant vocal statement of "There's a Winding Road runs
down the Hill, To the Olde World Town I love."  All very poor weapons
it would seem, and yet those weapons would inevitably prevail.  The
pantomime would end in the way it always ended.  The staircase, and the
descending cast in order of seniority, with Good Fairy Diamond,
practising the Christian virtue of humility and not seeking to be first
(or, in this case, last) but arriving about half-way through the
procession, side by side with her late opponent, now seen to be no
longer the snarling Demon King breathing fire and brimstone, but just a
man dressed up in red tights.

The Espresso hissed again in my ear.  I signalled for another cup of
coffee and looked around me.  A sister of mine was always accusing me
of not being observant, not noticing what was going on.  "You live in a
world of your own," she would say accusingly.  Now, with a feeling of
conscious virtue, I took note of what was going on.  It was almost
impossible not to read about the coffee bars of Chelsea and their
patrons every day in the newspapers; this was my chance to make my own
appraisal of contemporary life.

It was rather dark in the Espresso, so you could not see very clearly.
The clientele were almost all young people.  They were, I supposed
vaguely, what was called the offbeat generation.  The girls looked, as
girls always did look to me nowadays, dirty.  They also seemed to be
much too warmly dressed.  I had noticed that when I had gone out a few
weeks ago to dine with some friends.  The girl who had sat next to me
had been about twenty.  The restaurant was hot, but she had worn a
yellow wool pullover, a black skirt and black woollen stockings, and
the perspiration poured down her face all through the meal.  She smelt
of perspiration-soaked wool and also, strongly, of unwashed hair.  She
was said, according to my friends, to be very attractive.  Not to me!
My only reaction was a yearning to throw her into a hot bath, give her
a cake of soap and urge her to get on with it!  Which just showed, I
suppose, how out of touch with the times I was.  Perhaps it came of
having lived abroad so much.  I recalled with pleasure Indian women
with their beautifully-coiled black hair, and their saris of pure
bright colours hanging in graceful folds, and the rhythmic sway of
their bodies as they walked .. .

I was recalled from these pleasant thoughts by a sudden accentuation of
noise.  Two young women at the table next to me had started a quarrel.
The young men who were with them tried to adjust things, but without
avail.

Suddenly they were screaming at.  each other.  One girl slapped the
other's face, the second dragged the first from her chair.  They fought
each other like fishwives, screaming abuse hysterically.  One was a
tousled red-head, the other a lank haired blonde.

What the quarrel was about, apart from terms of abuse, I did not
gather.  Cries and catcalls arose from other tables.

"Attagirl!  Sock her, Lou!"

The proprietor behind the bar, a slim Italian-looking fellow with
sideburns, whom I had taken to be Luigi, came to intervene in a voice
that was pure cockney London.

"Nah then break it up break it up You'll 'ave the whole street in in a
minute.  You'll 'ave the coppers here.  Stop it, I say."

But the lank blonde had the red-head by the hair and was tugging
furiously as she screamed:

"You're nothing but a man-stealing bitch!"

"Bitch yourself."

Luigi and the two embarrassed escorts forced the girls apart.  In the
blonde's fingers were large tufts of red hair.  She held them aloft
gleefully, then dropped them on the floor.

The door from the street was pushed open and Authority, dressed in
blue, stood on the threshold and uttered the regulation words
majestically.

"What's going on here?"

Immediately a common front was presented to the enemy.

"Just a bit of fun," said one of the young men.

"That's all," said Luigi.  "Just a bit of fun among friends."

With his foot he kicked the tufts of hair adroitly under the nearest
table.  The contestants smiled at each other in false amnesty.

The policeman looked at everybody suspiciously.

"We're just going now," said the blonde sweetly.  "Come on, Doug."  By
a coincidence several other people were just going.  Authority watched
them go grimly.  His eye said that he was overlooking it this time, but
he'd got his eye on them.  He withdrew slowly.

The red-head's escort paid the check.

"You all right?"  said Luigi to the girl who was adjusting a headscarf.
"Lou served you pretty bad, tearing out your hair by the roots like
that."

"It didn't hurt," said the girl nonchalantly.  She smiled at him.
"Sorry for the row, Luigi."

The party went out.  The bar was now practically empty.  I felt in my
pocket for change.  "She's a sport all right," said Luigi approvingly
watching the door close.  He seized a floor brush and swept the tufts
of red hair behind the counter.

"It must have been agony," I said.

"I'd have hollered if it had been me," admitted Luigi.  "But she's a
real sport, Tommy is."

"You know her well?"

"Oh, she's in here most evenings.  Tuckerton, that's her name,
Thomasina Tuckerton, if you want the whole set out.  But Tommy Tucker's
what she's called round here.  Stinking rich, too.  Her old man left
her a fortune, and what does she go and do?  Comes to Chelsea, lives in
a slum my room half-way to Wandsworth Bridge, and mooches around with a
gang all doing the same thing.  Beats me, half of that crowd's got
money.  Could have any mortal thing they want; stay at the Ritz if they
liked.  But they seem to get a kick out of living the way they do.  Yes
it beats me."

"It wouldn't be your choice?"  "Ar, I've got sense!"  said Luigi.  "As
it is, I just cash in."

I rose to go and asked what the quarrel was about.

"Oh, Tommy's got hold of the other girl's boy friend.  He's not worth
fighting about, believe me!"

"The other girl seemed to think he was," I observed.

"Oh, Lou's very romantic," said Luigi tolerantly.

It was not my idea of romance, but I did not say so.

ii

It must have been about a week later that my eye was caught by a name
in the Deaths column of The Times.

TUCKER TON  On October 2nd at Fallow field Nursing Home, Amberley,
Thomasina Ann, aged twenty, only daughter of the late Thomas Tuckerton,
Esq."  of Carrington Park, Amberley, Surrey.  Funeral private.  No
flowers.

No flowers for poor Tommy Tucker; and no more 'kicks' out of life in
Chelsea.  I felt a sudden fleeting compassion for the Tommy Tuckers of
today.  Yet after all, I reminded myself, how did I know that my view
was the right one?  Who was I to pronounce it a wasted life?  Perhaps
it was my life, my quiet scholarly life, immersed in books, shut off
from the world, that was the wasted one.  Life at second hand.  Be
honest now, was / getting kicks out of life?  A very unfamiliar idea! 
The truth was, of course, that I didn't want kicks.  But there again,
perhaps I ought to?  An unfamiliar and not very welcome thought.

I dismissed Tommy Tucker from my thoughts, and turned to my
correspondence.

The principal item was a letter from my cousin Rhoda Despard, asking me
to do her a favour.  I grasped at this, since I was not feeling in the
mood for work this morning, and it made a splendid excuse for
postponing it.

I went out into King's Road, hailed a taxi, and was driven to the
residence of a friend of mine, a Mrs.  Ariadne Oliver.

Mrs.  Oliver was a well-known writer of detective stories.  Her maid,
Milly, was an efficient dragon who guarded her mistress from the
onslaughts of the outside world.

I raised my eyebrows inquiringly, in an unspoken question.  Milly
nodded a vehement head.

"You'd better go right up, Mr.  Mark," she said.  "She's in a mood this
morning.  You may be able to help her snap out of it."

I mounted two flights of stairs, tapped lightly on a door, and walked
in without waiting for encouragement.  Mrs.  Oliver's workroom was a
good-sized room, the walls papered with exotic birds nesting in
tropical foliage.  Mrs.  Oliver herself, in a state apparently
bordering on insanity, was prowling round the room, muttering to
herself.  She threw me a brief uninterested glance and continued to
prowl.  Her eyes, unfocused, swept round the walls, glanced out of the
window, and occasionally closed in what appeared to be a spasm of
agony.

"But why," demanded Mrs.  Oliver of the universe, 'why doesn't the
idiot say at once that he saw the cockatoo?  Why shouldn't he?  He
couldn't have helped seeing it!  But if he does mention it, it ruins
everything.  There must be a way .. . there must be ..."

She groaned, ran her fingers through her short grey hair and clutched
it in a frenzied hand.  Then, looking at me with suddenly focused eyes,
she said, "Hallo, Mark.  I'm going mad," and resumed her complaint.

"And then there's Monica.  The nicer I try to make her, the more
irritating she gets .. . Such a stupid girl .. . Smug, too!  Monica ..
. Monica?  I believe the name's wrong.  Nancy?  Would that be better?
Joan?  Everybody is always Joan.  Anne is the same.  Susan?  I've had a
Susan.  Lucia?  Lucia?  Lucia?  I believe I can see a Lucia.  Red
haired.  Polo-necked jumper .. . Black tights?  Black stockings,
anyway."  This momentary gleam of good cheer was eclipsed by the memory
of the cockatoo problem, and Mrs.  Oliver resumed her unhappy prowling,
picking up things off tables unseeingly and putting them down again
somewhere else.  She fitted with some care her spectacle case into a
lacquered box which already contained a Chinese fan and then gave a
deep sigh and said:

"I'm glad it's you."

"That's very nice of you."

"It might have been anybody.  Some silly woman who wanted me to open a
bazaar, or the man about Milly's insurance card which Milly absolutely
refuses to have or the plumber (but that would be too much good
fortune, wouldn't it?).  Or, it might be someone wanting an interview
asking me all those embarrassing questions which are always the same
every time.  What made you first think of taking up writing?  How many
books have you written?  How much money do you make?  Etc.  etc.  I
never know the answers to any of them and it makes me look such a fool.
Not that any of that matters because I think I am going mad, over this
cockatoo business."

"Something that won't jell?"  I said sympathetically.  "Perhaps I'd
better go away."

"No, don't.  At any rate you're a distraction."

I accepted this doubtful compliment.

"Do you want a cigarette?"  Mrs.  Oliver asked with vague hospitality.
"There are some somewhere.  Look in the typewriter lid."

"I've got my own, thanks.  Have one.  Oh no, you don't smoke."

"Or drink," said Mrs.  Oliver.  "I wish I did.  Like those American
detectives that always have pints of rye conveniently in their collar
drawers.  It seems to solve all their problems.  You know.  Mark, I
really can't think how anyone ever gets away with a murder in real
life.  It seems to me that the moment you've done a murder the whole
thing is so terribly obvious."

"Nonsense.  You've done lots of them."

"Fifty-five at least," said Mrs.  Oliver.  "The murder part is quite
easy and simple.  It's the covering up that's so difficult.  I mean,
why should it be anyone else but you?  You stick out a mile."  "Not in
the finished article," I said.

"Ah, but what it costs me," said Mrs.  Oliver darkly.  "Say what you
like, it's not natural for five or six people to be on the spot when B
is murdered and all have a motive for killing B unless, that is, B is
absolutely madly unpleasant and in that case nobody will mind whether
he's been killed or not, and doesn't care in the least who's done
it."

"I see your problem," I said.  "But if you've dealt with it
successfully fifty-five times, you will manage to deal with it once
again."  r

"That's what I tell myself," said Mrs.  Oliver, 'over and over again,
but every single time I can't believe it, and so I'm in agony."

She seized her hair again and tugged it violently.

"Don't," I cried.  "You'll have it out by the roots."

"Nonsense," said Mrs.  Oliver.  "Hair's tough.  Though when I had
measles at fourteen with a very high temperature, it did come out all
round the front.  Most shaming.  And it was six whole months before it
grew properly again.  Awful for a girl girls mind so.  I thought of it
yesterday when I was visiting Mary Delafontaine in that nursing home.
Her hair was coming out just like mine did.  She said she'd have to get
a false front when she was better.  If you're sixty it doesn't always
grow again, I believe."

"I saw a girl pull out another girl's hair by the roots the other
night," I said.  I was conscious of a slight note of pride in my voice
as one who has seen life.  "What extraordinary places have you been
going to?"  asked Mrs.  Oliver.

"This was in a coffee bar in Chelsea."

"Oh Chelsea!"  said Mrs.  Oliver.  "Everything happens there, I
believe.  Beatniks and sputniks and squares and the beat generation.  I
don't write about them much because I'm so afraid of getting the terms
wrong.  It's safer, I think, to stick to what you know."

"Such as?"

"People on cruises, and in hotels, and what goes on in hospitals, and
on parish councils and sales of work and music festivals, and girls in
shops, and committees and daily women, and young men and girls who hike
round the world in the interests of science, and shop assistants '

She paused, out of breath.

"That seems fairly comprehensive to be getting on with," I said.

"All the same, you might take me out to a coffee bar in Chelsea some
time just to widen my experience," said Mrs.  Oliver wistfully.

"Any time you say.  Tonight?"

"Not tonight.  I'm too busy writing or rather worrying because I can't
write.  That's really the most tiresome thing about writing though
everything is tiresome really, except the one moment when you get what
you think is going to be a wonderful idea, and can hardly wait to
begin.  Tell me, Mark, do you think it is possible to kill someone by
remote control?"

"What do you mean by remote control?  Press a button and set off a
radioactive death ray?"

"No, no, not science fiction.  I suppose," she paused doubtfully, "I
really mean black magic."

"Wax figures and pins in them?"

"Oh, wax figures are right out," said Mrs.  Oliver scornfully.  "But
queer things do happen in Africa or the West Indies.  People are always
telling you so.  How natives just curl up and die.  Voodoo or juju .. .
Anyway, you know what I mean."

I said that much of that was attributed nowadays to the power of
suggestion.  Word is always conveyed to the victim that his death has
been decreed by the medicine-man and his subconscious does the rest.

Mrs.  Oliver snorted.

"If anyone hinted to me that I had been doomed to lie down and die, I'd
take a pleasure in thwarting their expectations!"  I laughed.

"You've got centuries of good Occidental sceptical blood in your veins.
No predispositions."

"Then you think it can happen?"

"I don't know enough about the subject to judge.  What put it into your
head?  Is your new masterpiece to be Murder by Suggestion?"

"No, indeed.  Good old-fashioned rat poison or arsenic is good enough
for me.  Or the reliable blunt instrument.  Not firearms if possible.
Firearms are so tricky.  But you didn't come here to talk to me about
my books."

"Frankly no The fact is that my cousin Rhoda Despard has got a church
fete and '

"Never again!"  said Mrs.  Oliver.  "You know what happened last time?
I arranged a Murder Hunt, and the first thing that happened was a real
corpse.  I've never quite got over it!"

"It's not a Murder Hunt.  All you'd have to do would be to sit in a
tent and sign your own books at five bob a time."

"We-e-1-1-1," said Mrs.  Oliver doubtfully.  That might be all right. I
shouldn't have to open the fete?  Or say silly things?  Or have to wear
a hat?"

None of these things, I assured her, would be required of her.

"And it would only be for an hour or two," I said coaxingly.  "After
that, there'll be a cricket match no, I suppose not this time of year.
Children dancing, perhaps.  Or a fancy dress competition'

Mrs.  Oliver interrupted me with a wild scream.

"That's it," she cried.  "A cricket ball!  Of course!  He sees it from
the window .. . rising up in the air ... and it distracts him and so he
never mentions the cockatoo!  What a good thing you came, Mark.  You've
been wonderful."

"I don't quite see '

"Perhaps not, but I do," said Mrs.  Oliver.  "It's all rather
complicated, and I don't want to waste time explaining.  Nice as it's
been to see you, what I'd really like you to do now is to go away.  At
once."

"Certainly.  About the fete'

I'll think about it.  Don't worry me now.  Now where on earth did I put
my spectacles?  Really, the way things just disappear .. ."

CHAPTER TWO

Mrs.  Gerahty opened the door of the presbytery in her usual sharp
pouncing style.  It was less like answering a bell, than a triumphant
manoeuvre expressing the sentiment "I've caught you this time!"

"Well now, and what would you be wanting?"  she demanded
belligerently.

There was a boy on the doorstep, a very negligible looking boy a boy
not easily noticeable nor easily remembered a boy like a lot of other
boys.  He sniffed because he had a cold in his head.

"Is this the priest's place?"

"Is it Father Gorman you're wanting?"

"He's wanted," said the boy.

"Who wants him and where and what for?"

"Benthall Street.  Twenty-three.  Woman as says she's dying.  Mrs.
Coppins sent me.  This is a Carthlick place all right, isn't it?  Woman
says the vicar won't do."

Mrs.  Gerahty reassured him on this essential point, told him to stop
where he was and retired into the presbytery.  Some three minutes later
a tall elderly priest came out carrying a small leather case in his
hand.

"I'm Father Gorman," he said.  "Benthall Street?  That's round by the
railway yards, isn't it?"
"Sright.  Not more than a step, it isn't."

They set out together, the priest walking with a free striding step.

"Mrs.  Coppins, did you say?  Is that the name?"

"She's the one what owns the house.  Lets rooms, she does.  It's one of
the lodgers wants you.  Name of Davis, I think."

"Davis.  I wonder now.  I don't remember'

"She's one of you all right.  Carthlick, I mean.  Said as no vicar
would do."

The priest nodded.  They came to Benthall Street in a very short time.
The boy indicated a tall dingy house in a row of other tall dingy
houses.

That's it."

"Aren't you coming in?"

"I don't belong.  Mrs.  C. gave me a bob to take the message."

"I see.  What's your name?"

"Mike Potter."

"Thank you, Mike."

"You're welcome," said Mike, and went off whistling.  The imminence of
death for someone else did not affect him.

The door of No.  23 opened and Mrs.  Coppins, a large red-faced woman,
stood on the threshold and welcomed the visitor with enthusiasm.

"Come in, come in.  She's bad, I'd say.  Ought to be in hospital, not
here.  I've rung up, but goodness knows when anybody will come
nowadays.  Six hours my sister's husband had to wait when he broke his
leg.  Disgraceful, I call it.  Health Service, indeed!  Take your money
and when you want them where are they?"

She was preceding the priest up the narrow stairs as she talked.

"What's the matter with her?"  
"Flu's what she's had.  Seemed better.
Went out too soon I'd say.  Anyway she comes in last night looking like
death.  Took to her bed.  Wouldn't eat anything.  Didn't want a doctor.
This morning I could see she was in a raging fever.  Gone to her
lungs."

"Pneumonia?"

Mrs.  Coppins, out of breath by now, made a noise like a steam engine,
which seemed to signify assent.  She flung open a door, stood aside to
let Father Gorman go in, said over his shoulder: "Here's the Reverend
for you.  Now you'll be all right!"  in a spuriously cheerful way, and
retired.

Father Gorman advanced.  The room, furnished with old fashioned
Victorian furniture, was clean and neat.  In the bed near the window a
woman turned her head feebly.  That she was very ill, the priest saw at
once.

"You've come .. . There isn't much time she spoke between panting
breaths.  .. . Wickedness .. . such wickedness ... I must ... I must
... I can't die like this .. . Confess confess my sin grievous grievous
."  the eyes wandered .. . half closed .. .

A rambling monotone of words came from her lips.

Father Gorman came to the bed.  He spoke as he had spoken so often so
very often.  Words of authority of reassurance .. . the words of his
calling and of his belief.  Peace came into the room .. . The agony
went out of the tortured eyes .. .

Then, as the priest ended his ministry, the dying woman spoke again.

"Stopped ... It must be stopped .. . You will .. ."

The priest spoke with reassuring authority.

"I will do what is necessary.  You can trust me .. ."

A doctor and an ambulance arrived simultaneously a little later.  Mrs.
Coppins received them with gloomy triumph.

"Too late as usual!"  she said.  "She's gone .. ."

ii

Father Gorman walked back through the gathering twilight.  There would
be fog to-night, it was growing denser rapidly.  He paused for a
moment, frowning.  Such a fantastic extraordinary story .. . How much
of it was born of delirium and high fever?  Some of it was true, of
course but how much?  Anyway it was important to make a note of
certain names whilst they were fresh in his memory.  The St.  Francis
Guild would be assembled when he got back.  He turned abruptly into a
small cafe, ordered a cup of coffee and sat down.  He felt in the
pocket of his cassock.  Ah, Mrs.  Gerahty he'd asked her to mend the
lining.  As usual, she hadn't!  His notebook and a loose pencil and the
few coins he carried about him, had gone through to the lining.  He
prised up a coin or two and the pencil, but the notebook was too
difficult.  The coffee came, and he asked if he could have a piece of
paper.

"This do you?"

It was a torn paper bag.  Father Gorman nodded and took it.  He began
to write the names it was important not to forget the names.  Names
were the sort of thing he did forget .. .

The cafe door opened and three young lads in Edwardian dress came in
and sat down noisily.

Father Gorman finished his memorandum.  He folded up the scrap of paper
and was about to shove it into his pocket when he remembered the hole.
He did what he had often done before, pressed the folded scrap down
into his shoe.

A man came in quietly and sat down in a far corner.  Father Gorman took
a sip or two of the weak coffee for politeness' sake, called for his
bill, and paid.  Then he got up and went out.  The man who had just
come in seemed to change his mind.  He looked at his watch as though he
had mistaken the time, got up, and hurried out.  The fog was coming on
fast. Father Gorman quickened his steps.  He knew his district very
well. He took a shortcut by turning down the small street which ran
close by the railway.  He may have been conscious of steps behind him
but he thought nothing of them.  Why should he?

The blow from the cosh caught him completely unaware.  He heeled
forward and fell .. .

III

Dr.  Corrigan, whistling "Father O'Flynn," walked into the D.D.I."s
room and addressed Divisional Detective Inspector Lejeune in a chatty
manner.

"I've done your padre for you," he said.

"And the result?"

"We'll save the technical terms for the coroner.  Well and truly co
shed  First blow probably killed him, but whoever it was made sure.
Quite a nasty business."

"Yes," said Lejeune.

He was a sturdy man, dark haired and grey eyed.  He had a misleadingly
quiet manner, but his gestures were sometimes surprisingly graphic and
betrayed his French Huguenot ancestry.

He said thoughtfully:

"Nastier than would be necessary for robbery?"

"Was it robbery?"  asked the doctor.

"One supposes so.  His pockets were turned out and the lining of his
cassock ripped."

"They couldn't have hoped for much," said Corrigan.  "Poor as a rat,
most of these parish priests."

"They battered his head in to make sure," mused Lejeune.  "One would
like to know why."

"Two possible answers," said Corrigan.  "One, it was done by a
vicious-minded young thug, who likes violence for violence's sake there
are plenty of them about these days, more's the pity."

"And the other answer?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"Somebody had it in for your Father Gorman.  Was that likely?"

Lejeune shook his head.

"Most unlikely.  He was a popular man, well loved in the district.  No
enemies, as far as one can hear.  And robbery's unlikely.  Unless'

"Unless what?"  asked Corrigan.  "The police have a clue!  Am I
right?"

"He did have something on him that wasn't taken away.  It was in his
shoe, as a matter of fact."

Corrigan whistled.  "Sounds like a spy story."

Lejeune smiled.

"It's much simpler than that.  He had a hole in his pocket.  Sergeant
Pine talked to his housekeeper.  She's a bit of a slattern, it seems.
Didn't keep his clothes mended in the way she might have done.  She
admitted that, now and again, Father Gorman would thrust a paper or a
letter down the inside of his shoe to prevent it from going down into
the lining of his cassock."

"And the killer didn't know that?"

"The killer never thought of that!  Assuming, that is, that this piece
of pap eris what he may have been wanting rather than a miserly amount
of small change."

"What was on the paper?"

Lejeune reached into a drawer and took out a flimsy piece of creased
paper.

"Just a list of names," he said.

Corrigan looked at it curiously.

Ormerod

Sandford

Parkinson

HeskethDubois

Shaw

Harmondsworth

Tuckerton

Corrigan?

Delafontaine?

His eyebrows rose."I see I'm on the list!"

"Do any of the names mean anything to you?"  asked the inspector.

"None of them."

"And you've never met Father Gorman?"

"Never."

"Then you won't be able to help us much."

"Any ideas as to what this list means if anything?"

Lejeune did not reply directly.

"A boy called at Father Gorman's about seven o'clock in the evening.
Said a woman was dying and wanted the priest.  Father Gorman went with
him."

"Where to?  If you know."

"We know.  It didn't take long to check up.  Twenty-three Benthall
Street.  House owned by a woman named Coppins.  The sick woman was a
Mrs.  Davis.  The priest got there at a quarter past seven and was with
her for about half an hour.  Mrs.  Davis died just before the ambulance
arrived to take her to hospital."

"I see."

"The next we hear of Father Gorman is at Tony's Place, a small
down-at-heel cafe.  Quite decent, nothing criminal about it, serves
refreshment of poor quality and isn't much patronised.  Father Gorman
asked for a cup of coffee.  Then apparently he felt in his pocket,
couldn't find what he wanted and asked the proprietor, Tony, for a
piece of paper.  This' he gestured with his finger, 'is the piece of
paper."

"And then?"

"When Tony brought the coffee, the priest was writing on the paper.
Shortly afterwards he left, leaving his coffee practically untasted
(for which I don't blame him), having completed this list and shoved it
into his shoe."

"Anybody else in the place?"

"Three boys of the Teddy boy type came in and sat at one table and an
elderly man came in and sat at another.  The latter went away without
ordering."

"He followed the priest?"

"Could be.  Tony didn't notice when he went.  Didn't notice what he
looked like, either.  Described him as an inconspicuous type of man.
Respectable.  The kind of man that looks like everybody else.  Medium
height, he thinks, dark blue overcoat or could be brown.  Not very dark
and not very fair.  No reason he should have had anything to do with
it.  One just doesn't know.  He hasn't come forward to say he saw the
priest in Tony's place but it's early days yet.  We're asking for
anyone who saw Father Gorman between a quarter to eight and
eight-fifteen to communicate with us.  Only two people so far have
responded: a woman and a chemist who had a shop nearby.  I'll be going
to see them presently.  His body was found at eight-fifteen by two
small boys in West Street you know it?  Practically an alleyway,
bounded by the railway on one side.  The rest you know."

Corrigan nodded.  He tapped the paper.  "What's your feeling about
this?"

"I think it's important," said Lejeune.

"The dying woman told him something and he got these names down on
paper as soon as he could before he forgot them?  The only thing is
would he have done that if he'd been told under seal of the
confessional?"

"It needn't have been under a seal of secrecy," said Lejeune. "Suppose,
for instance, these names have a connection of- say, blackmail'

"That's your idea, is it?"

"I haven't any ideas yet.  This is just a working hypothesis.  These
people were being blackmailed.  The dying woman was either the
blackmailer, or she knew about the blackmail.  I'd say that the general
idea was, repentance, confession, and a wish to make reparation as far
as possible.  Father Gorman assumed the responsibility."

"And then?"

"Everything else is conjectural," said Lejeune.  "Say it was a paying
racket, and someone didn't want it to stop paying.  Someone knew Mrs.
Davis was dying and that she'd sent for the priest.  The rest
follows."

"I wonder now," said Corrigan, studying the paper again.  "Why do you
think there's an interrogation mark after the last two names?"

"It could be that Father Gorman wasn't sure he'd remembered those two
names correctly."

"It might have been Mulligan instead of Corrigan," agreed the doctor
with a grin.  "That's likely enough.  But I'd say that with a name like
Delafontaine, either you'd remember it or you wouldn't if you know what
I mean.  It's odd that there isn't a single address' He read down the
list again.

"Parkinson lots of Parkinsons.  Sandford, not uncommon - Hesketh-Dubois
that's a bit of a mouthful.  Can't be many of them."

On a sudden impulse he leaned forward and took the telephone directory
from the desk.

"E to L. Let's see.  Hesketh, Mrs.  A.... John and Co., Plumbers ...
Sir Isidore.  Ah!  here we are!  HeskethDubois, Lady, Forty-nine,
Ellesmere Square, S.W.I. What say we just ring her up?"

"Saying what?"

"Inspiration will come," said Doctor Corrigan airily.

"Go ahead," said Lejeune.  "What?"  Corrigan stared at him.

"I said go ahead," Lejeune spoke airily.  "Don't look so taken aback."
He himself picked up the receiver.  "Give me an outside line."  He
looked at Corrigan.  "Number?"

"Grosvenor 64578."

Lejeune repeated it, then handed the receiver over to Corrigan.

"Enjoy yourself," he said.

Faintly puzzled, Corrigan looked at him as he waited.  The ringing
tone continued for some time before anyone answered.  Then,
interspersed with heavy breathing, a woman's voice said:

"Grosvenor 64578."

"Is that Lady Hesketh-Dubois's house?"

"Well well, yes I mean '

Doctor Corrigan ignored these uncertainties.

"Can I speak to her, please?"

"No, that you can't do!  Lady Hesketh-Dubois died last April."

"Oh!"  Startled, Dr.  Corrigan ignored the "Who is it speaking,
please?"  and gently replaced the receiver.

He looked coldly at Inspector Lejeune.

"So that's why you were so ready to let me ring up."

Lejeune smiled maliciously.

"We don't really neglect the obvious," he pointed out.

"Last April," said Corrigan thoughtfully.  "Five months ago.  Five
months since blackmail or whatever it was has failed to worry her.  She
didn't commit suicide, or anything like that?"

"No.  She died of a tumour on the brain."

"So now we start again," said Corrigan, looking down at the list.

Lejeune sighed.

"We don't really know that list had anything to do with it," he pointed
out.  "It may have been just an ordinary coshing on a foggy night and
precious little hope of finding who did it unless we have a piece of
luck .. ."

Dr.  Corrigan said: "Do you mind if I continue to concentrate on this
list?"

"Go ahead.  I wish you all the luck in the world."

"Meaning I'm not likely to get anywhere if you haven't!  Don't be too
sure, I shall concentrate on Corrigan.  Mr.  or Mrs.  or Miss Corrigan
with a big interrogation mark."

CHAPTER THREE

"Well, really, Mr.  Lejeune, I don't see what more I can tell you!  I
told it all before to your sergeant.  I don't know who Mrs.  Davis was,
or where she came from.  She'd been with me about six months.  She paid
her rent regular, and she seemed a nice quiet respectable person, and
what more you expect me to say I'm sure I don't know."

Mrs.  Coppins paused for breath and looked at Lejeune with some
displeasure.  He gave her the gentle melancholy smile which he knew by
experience was not without its effect.

"Not that I wouldn't be willing to help if I could," she amended.

"Thank you.  That's what we need help.  Women know they feel
instinctively so much more than a man can know."

It was a good gambit, and it worked.

"Ah," said Mrs.  Coppins.  "I wish Coppins could hear you.  So
hoity-toity and off-hand he always was.  "Saying you know things when
you haven't got anything to go on!"  he'd say and snort.  And nine
times out of ten I was right."

"That's why I'd like to hear what ideas you have about Mrs.  Davis. Was
she an unhappy woman, do you think?"

"Now as to that no, I wouldn't say so.  Businesslike.  That's what she
always seemed.  Methodical.  As though she'd got her life planned and
was acting accordingly.  She had a job, I understand, with one of these
consumer research associations.  Going around and asking people what
soap powder they used, or flour, and what they spend on their weekly
budget and how it's divided up.  Of course I've always felt that sort
of thing is snooping really and why the Government or anyone else wants
to know beats me!  All you hear at the end of it is only what everybody
has known perfectly well all along but there, there's a craze for that
sort of thing nowadays.  And if you've got to have it, I should say
that poor Mrs.  Davis would do the job very nicely.  A pleasant manner,
not nosy, just businesslike and matter-of-fact."  "You don't know the
actual name of the firm or association that employed her?"

"No, I don't, I'm afraid."

"Did she ever mention relatives ?"

"No.  I gathered she was a widow and had lost her husband many years
ago.  A bit of an invalid he'd been, but she never talked much about
him."

"She didn't mention where she came from what part of the country?"

"I don't think she was a Londoner.  Came from somewhere up north, I
should say."

"You didn't feel there was anything well, mysterious about her?"

Lejeune felt a doubt as he spoke.  If she was a suggestible woman But
Mrs.  Coppins did not take advantage of the opportunity offered to
her.

"Well, I can't say really that I did.  Certainly not from anything she
ever said.  The only thing that perhaps might have made me wonder was
her suitcase.  Good quality it was, but not new.  And the initials on
it had been painted over.  J.D. Jessie Davis.  But originally it had
been J. something else.  H."  I think.  But it might have been an A.
Still, I didn't think anything of that at the time.  You can often pick
up a good piece of luggage second-hand ever so cheap, and then it's
natural to get the initials altered.  She hadn't a lot of stuff only
the one case."

Lejeune knew that.  The dead woman had had curiously few personal
possessions.  No letters had been kept, no photographs.  She had had
apparently no insurance card, no bank book, no cheque book.  Her
clothes were of good everyday serviceable quality, nearly new.

"She seemed quite happy?"  he asked.

"I suppose so."

He pounced on the faint doubtful tone in her voice.

"You only suppose so?"

"Well, it's not the kind of thing you think about, is it?  I should say
she was nicely off, with a good job, and quite satisfied with her life.
She wasn't the bubbling over sort.  But of course, when she got ill '

"Yes, when she got ill?"  he prompted her.

"Vexed, she was at first.  When she went down with 'flu, I mean.  It
would put all her schedule out, she said.  Missing appointments and all
that.  But 'flu's 'flu, and you can't ignore it when it's there.  So
she stopped in bed, and made herself tea on the gas ring, and took
aspirin.  I said why not have the doctor and she said no point in it.
Nothing to do for 'flu but stay in bed and keep warm and I'd better not
come near her to catch it.  I did a bit of cooking for her when she got
better.  Hot soap and toast.  And a rice pudding now and again.  It got
her down, of course, 'flu does but not more than what's usual, I'd say.
It's after the fever goes down that you get the depression and she got
that like everyone does.  She sat there, by the gas fire, I remember,
and said to me, "I wish one didn't have so much time to think.  I don't
like having time to think.  It gets me down."

Lejeune continued to look deeply attentive and Mrs.  Coppins warmed to
her theme.

"Lent her some magazines, I did.  But she didn't seem able to keep her
mind on reading.  Said once, I remember, "If things aren't all they
should be, it's better not to know about it, don't you agree?"  and I
said, "That's right, dearie."  And she said, "I don't know I've never
really been sure."  And I said that was all right, then.  And she said,
"EverythingI've done has always been perfectly straightforward and
above board.  I've nothing to reproach myself with."  And I said, "Of
course you haven't, dear."  But I did just wonder in my own mind
whether in the firm that employed her there mightn't have been some
funny business with the accounts maybe, and she'd got wind of it but
had felt it wasn't really her business."  "Possible," agreed Lejeune.

"Anyway, she got well again or nearly so, and went back to work.  I
told her it was too soon.  Give yourself another day or two, I said.
And there, how right I was!  Come back the second evening, she did, and
I could see at once she'd got a high fever.  Couldn't hardly climb the
stairs.  You must have the doctor, I says, but no, she wouldn't.  Worse
and worse she got, all that day, her eyes glassy, and her cheeks like
fire, and her breathing terrible.  And the next day in the evening she
said to me, hardly able to get the words out: "A priest.  I must have a
priest.  And quickly ... or it will be too late."  But it wasn't our
vicar she wanted.  It had to be a Roman Catholic priest.  I never knew
she was a Roman, never any crucifix about or anything like that."

But there had been a crucifix, tucked away at the bottom of the
suitcase.  Lejeune did not mention it.  He sat listening.

"I saw young Mike in the street and I sent him for that Father Gorman
at St.  Dominic's.  And I rang for the doctor, and the hospital on my
own account, not saying nothing to her."

"You took the priest up to her when he came?"

"Yes, I did.  And left them together."

"Did either of them say anything?"

"Well now, I can't exactly remember.  I was talking myself, saying here
was the priest and now she'd be all right, trying to cheer her up, but
I do call to mind now as I closed the door I heard her say something
about wickedness.  Yes and something, too, about a horse horse-racing,
maybe.  I like a half-crown on myself occasionally but there's a lot
of crookedness goes on in racing, so they say."

"Wickedness," said Lejeune.  He was struck by the word.

"Have to confess their sins, don't they, Romans, before they die?  So I
suppose that was it."

Lejeune did not doubt that that was it, but his imagination was stirred
by the word used.  Wickedness .. .

Something rather special in wickedness, he thought, if the priest who
knew about it was followed and clubbed to death .. .

There was nothing to be learnt from the other three lodgers in the
house.  Two of them, a bank clerk and an elderly man who worked in a
shoe shop, had been there for some years.  The third was a girl of
twenty-two who had come there recently and had a job in a nearby
department store.  All three of them barely knew Mrs.  Davis by
sight.

The woman who had reported having seen Father Gorman in the street that
evening had no useful information to give.  She was a Catholic who
attended St.  Dominic's and she knew Father Gorman by sight.  She had
seen him turn out of Benthall Street and go into Tony's Place about ten
minutes to eight.  That was all.

Mr.  Osborne, the proprietor of the chemist's shop on the corner of
Barton Street, had a better contribution to make.

He was a small, middle-aged man, with a bald domed head, a round
ingenuous face, and glasses.

"Good evening, Chief Inspector.  Come behind, will you?"  He held up
the flap of an old-fashioned counter.  Lejeune passed behind and
through a dispensing alcove where a young man in a white overall was
making up bottles of medicine with the swiftness of a professional
conjurer, and so through an archway into a tiny room with a couple of
easy-chairs, a table and a desk.  Mr.  Osborne pulled the curtain of
the archway behind him in a secretive manner and sat down in one chair,
motioning to Lejeune to take the other.  He leaned forward, his eyes
glinting in pleasurable excitement.

"It just happens that I may be able to assist you.  It wasn't a busy
evening nothing much to do, the weather being unfavorable.  My young
lady was behind the counter.  We keep open until eight on Thursdays
always.  The fog was coming on and there weren't many people about. I'd
gone to the door to look at the weather, thinking to myself that the
fog was coming up fast.  The weather forecast had said it would.  I
stood there for a bit nothing going on inside that my young lady
couldn't deal with face creams and bath salts and all that.  Then I saw
Father Gorman coming along on the other side of the street.  I know him
quite well by sight, of course.  A shocking thing, this murder,
attacking a man so well thought of as he is.  "There's Father Gorman,"
I said to myself.  He was going in the direction of West Street, it's
the next turn on the left before the railway, as you know.  A little
way behind him there was another man.  It wouldn't have entered my head
to notice or think anything of that, but quite suddenly this second man
came to a stop quite abruptly, just when he was level with my door.  I
wondered why he'd stopped and then I noticed that Father Gorman, a
little way ahead, was slowing down.  He didn't quite stop.  It was as
though he was thinking of something so hard that he almost forgot he
was walking.  Then he started on again, and this other man started to
walk, too rather fast.  I thought inasmuch as I thought at all, that
perhaps it was someone who knew Father Gorman and wanted to catch him
up and speak to him."

"But in actual fact he could simply have been following him?"

"That's what I'm sure he was doing now not that I thought anything of
it at the time.  What with the fog coming up, I lost sight of them both
almost at once."

"Can you describe this man at all?"

Lejeune's voice was not confident.  He was prepared for the usual
nondescript characteristics.  But Mr.  Osborne was made of different
mettle to Tony of Tony's Place.

"Well, yes, I think so," he said with complacency.  "He was a tall man
'

Tall?  How tall?"

"Well five eleven to six feet, at least, I'd say.  Though he might have
seemed taller than he was because he was very thin.  Sloping shoulders
he had, and a definite Adam's apple.  Grew his hair rather long under
his Homburg.  A great beak of a nose.  Very noticeable.  Naturally I
couldn't say as to the colour of his eyes.  I saw him in profile as
you'll appreciate.  Perhaps fifty as to age.  I'm going by the walk.  A
youngish man moves quite differently."

Lejeune made a mental survey of the distance across the street, then
back again to Mr.  Osborne, and wondered.  He wondered very much .. .

A description such as that given by the chemist could mean one of two
things.  It could spring from an unusually vivid imagination he had
known many examples of that kind, mostly from women.  They built up a
fancy portrait of what they thought a murderer ought to look like. Such
fancy portraits, however, usually contained some decidedly spurious
details such as rolling eyes, beetle brows, apelike jaws, snarling
ferocity.  The description given by Mr.  Osborne sounded like the
description of a real person.  In that case it was possible that here
was the witness in a million a man who observed accurately and in
detail and who would be quite unshakable as to what he had seen.

Again Lejeune considered the distance across the street.  His eyes
rested thoughtfully on the chemist.

He asked: "Do you think you would recognise this man if you saw him
again?"

"Oh, yes."  Mr.  Osborne was supremely confident.  "I never forget a
face.  It's one of my hobbies.  I've always said that if one of these
wife murderers came into my place and bought a nice little package of
arsenic, I'd be able to swear to him at the trial.  I've always had my
hopes that something like that would happen one day."

"But it hasn't happened yet?"

Mr.  Osborne admitted sadly that it hadn't.

"And not likely to now," he added wistfully.  "I'm selling this
business.  Getting a very nice price for it, and retiring to
Bournemouth."  "It looks a nice place you've got here."

"It's got class," said Mr.  Osborne, a note of pride in his voice.
"Nearly a hundred years we've been established here.  My grandfather
and my father before me.  A good old fashioned family business.  Not
that I saw it that way as a boy.  Stuffy, I thought it.  Like many a
lad, I was bitten by the stage.  Felt sure I could act.  My father
didn't try to stop me.  "See what you can make of it, my boy," he said.
"You'll find you're no Sir Henry Irving."  And how right he was!  Very
wise man, my father.  Eighteen months or so in repertory and back I
came into the business.  Took a pride in it, I did.  We've always kept
good solid stuff.  Old-fashioned.  But quality.  But nowadays' he shook
his head sadly 'disappointing for a pharmaceutist.  All this toilet
stuff. You've got to keep it.  Half the profits come from all that
muck. Powder and lipstick and face creams; and hair shampoos and fancy
sponge bags.  I don't touch the stuff myself.  I have a young lady
behind the counter who attends to all that.  No, it's not what it used
to be, having a chemist's establishment.  However, I've a good sum put
by, and I'm getting a very good price, and I've made a down payment on
a very nice little bungalow near Bournemouth."

He added:

"Retire whilst you can still enjoy life.  That's my motto.  I've got
plenty of hobbies.  Butterflies, for instance.  And a bit of bird
watching now and then.  And gardening plenty of good books on how to
start a garden.  And there's travel.  I might go on one of these
cruises see foreign parts before it's too late."

Lejeune rose.

"Well, I wish you the best of luck," he said.  "And if, before you
actually leave these parts, you should catch sight of that man '

"I'll let you know at once, Mr.  Lejeune.  Naturally.  You can count on
me.  It will be a pleasure.  As I've told you, I've a very good eye for
a face.  I shall be on the lookout.  On the qui vive, as they say.  Oh
yes.  You can rely on me.  It will be a pleasure."

CHAPTER FOUR

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

I came out of the Old Vic, my friend Hermia Redcliffe beside me.  We
had been to see a performance of Macbeth.  It was raining hard.  As we
ran across the street to the spot where I had parked the car, Hermia
remarked unjustly that whenever one went to the Old Vic it always
rained.

"It's just one of those things."

I dissented from this view.  I said that, unlike sundials, she
remembered only the rainy hours.

"Now at Glyndebourne," went on Hermia as I let in the clutch, "I've
always been lucky.  I can't imagine it other than perfection: the music
the glorious flower borders the white flower border in particular."

We discussed Glyndebourne and its music for a while, and then Hermia
remarked:

"We're not going to Dover for breakfast, are we?"

"Dover?  What an extraordinary idea.  I thought we'd go to the
Fantasie.  One needs some really good food and drink after all the
magnificent blood and gloom of Macbeth, Shakespeare always makes me
ravenous."

"Yes.  So does Wagner.  Smoked salmon sandwiches at Covent Garden in
the intervals are never enough to stay the pangs.  As to why Dover,
it's because you're driving in that direction."

"One has to go round," I explained.

"But you've overdone going round.  You're well away on the Old (or is
it the New?) Kent Road."

I took stock of my surroundings and had to admit that Hermia, as usual,
was quite right.

"I always get muddled here," I said in apology.

"It is confusing," Hermia agreed.  "Round and round Waterloo
Station."

Having at last successfully negotiated Westminster Bridge we resumed
our conversation, discussing the production of Macbeth that we had just
been viewing.  My friend Hermia Redcliffe was a handsome young woman of
twenty-eight.  Cast in the heroic mould, she had an almost flawless
Greek profile, and a mass of dark chestnut hair, coiled on the nape of
her neck.  My sister always referred to her as "Mark's girl friend'
with an intonation of inverted commas about the term that never failed
to annoy me.

The Fantasie gave us a pleasant welcome and showed us to a small table
against the crimson velvet wall.  The Fantasie is deservedly popular,
and the tables are close together.  As we sat down, our neighbours at
the next table greeted us cheerfully.  David Ardingly was a lecturer in
History at Oxford.  He introduced his companion, a very pretty girl,
with a fashionable hairdo, all ends, bits and pieces, sticking out at
improbable angles on the crown of her head.  Strange to say, it suited
her.  She had enormous blue eyes and a mouth that was usually
half-open.  She was, as all David's girls were known to be, extremely
silly.  David, who was a remarkably clever young man, could only find
relaxation with girls who were practically half witted

"This is my particular pet, Poppy," he explained.  "Meet Mark and
Hermia.  They're very serious and highbrow and you must try and live up
to them.  We've just come from Do it for Kicks.  Lovely show!  I bet
you two are straight from Shakespeare or a revival of Ibsen."

"Macbeth at the Old Vic," said Hermia.

"Ah, what do you think of Batterson's production?"

"I liked it," said Hermia.  "The lighting was very interesting.  And
I've never seen the banquet scene so well managed."

"Ah, but what about the witches?"

"Awful!"  said Hermia.  "They always are," she added.

David agreed.

"A pantomime element seems bound to creep in," he said.  "All of them
capering about and behaving like a threefold Demon King.  You can't
help expecting a Good Fairy to appear in white with spangles to say in
a flat voice:

Your evil shall not triumph.  In the end, It is Macbeth who will be
round the bend."

We all laughed, but David, who was quick on the uptake, gave me a sharp
glance.

"What gives with you?"  he asked.

"Nothing.  It was just that I was reflecting only the other day about
Evil and Demon Kings in pantomime.  Yes and Good Fairies, too."

"Apropos de what?"

"Oh, in Chelsea at a coffee bar."

"How smart and up to date you are, aren't you, Mark?  All among the
Chelsea set.  Where heiresses in tights marry corner boys on the make.
That's where Poppy ought to be, isn't it, duckie?"  Poppy opened her
enormous eyes still wider.

"I hate Chelsea," she protested.  "I like the Fantasie much better!
Such lovely, lovely food."

"Good for you, Poppy.  Anyway, you're not really rich enough for
Chelsea.  Tell us more about Macbeth, Mark, and the awful witches.  I
know how I'd produce the witches if I were doing a production."

David had been a prominent member of the O.U.D.S. in the past.

"Well, how?"

"I'd make them very ordinary.  Just sly quiet old women.  Like the
witches in a country village."

"But there aren't any witches nowadays?"  said Poppy, staring at
him.

"You say that because you're a London girl.  There's still a witch in
every village in rural England.  Old Mrs.  Black, in the third cottage
up the hill.  Little boys are told not to annoy her, and she's given
presents of eggs and a home baked cake now and again.  Because," he
wagged a finger impressively, 'if you get across her, your cows will
stop giving milk, your potato crop will fail, or little Johnnie will
twist his ankle.  You must keep on the right side of old Mrs.  Black.
Nobody says so outright but they all knowl'

"You're joking," said Poppy, pouting.

"No, I'm not.  I'm right, aren't I, Mark?"

"Surely all that kind of superstition has died out completely with
education," said Hermia sceptic ally

"Not in the rural pockets of the land.  What do you say, Mark?"

"I think perhaps you're right," I said slowly.  "Though I wouldn't
really know.  I've never lived in the country much."

"I don't see how you could produce the witches as ordinary old women,"
said Hermia, reverting to David's earlier remark.  "They must have a
supernatural atmosphere about them, surely."

"Oh, but just think," said David.  "It's rather like madness.  If you
have someone who raves and staggers about with straws in their hair and
looks mad, it's not frightening at all!  But I remember being sent once
with a message to a doctor at a mental home and I was shown into a room
to wait, and there was a nice elderly lady there, sipping a glass of
milk.  She made some conventional remark about the weather and then
suddenly she leant forward and asked in a low voice:

' "Is it your poor child who's buried there behind the fireplace?"  And
then she nodded her head and said "12.10

exactly.  It's always at the same time every day.  Pretend you don't
notice the blood."

"It was the matter-of-fact way she said it that was so spine chilling

"Was there really someone buried behind the fireplace?"  Poppy wanted
to know.

David ignored her and went on:

"Then take mediums.  At one moment trances, darkened rooms, knocks and
raps.  Afterwards the medium sits up, pats her hair and goes home to a
meal of fish and chips, just an ordinary quite jolly woman."

"So your idea of the witches," I said, 'is three old Scottish crones
with second sight who practise their arts in secret, muttering their
spells round a cauldron, conjuring up spirits, but remaining themselves
just an ordinary trio of old women.  Yes it could be impressive."

"If you could ever get any actors to play it that way," said Hermia
drily.

"You have something there," admitted David.  "Any hint of madness in
the script and an actor is immediately determined to go to town on it!
The same with sudden deaths.  No actor can just quietly collapse and
fall down dead.  He has to groan, stagger, roll his eyes, gasp, clutch
his heart, clutch his head, and make a terrific performance of it.
Talking of performances, what did you think of Fielding's Macbeth?
Great division of opinion among the critics."

"I thought it was terrific," said Hermia.  "That scene with the doctor,
after the sleep-walking scene.  "Canst thou not minister to a mind
diseas'd."  He made clear what I'd never thought of before that he was
really ordering the doctor to kill her.  And yet he loved his wife.  He
brought out the struggle between his fear and his love.  That "Thou
shouldst have died hereafter" was the most poignant thing I've ever
known."

"Shakespeare might get a few surprises if he saw his plays acted
nowadays," I said drily.

"Burbage and Co.  had already quenched a good deal of his spirit, I
suspect," said David.

Hermia murmured:

"The eternal surprise of the author at what the producer has done to
him."

"Didn't somebody called Bacon really write Shakespeare?"  asked
Poppy.

"That theory is quite out of date nowadays," said David kindly.  "And
what do you know of Bacon?"

"He invented gunpowder," said Poppy triumphantly.

"You see why I love this girl?"  he said.  "The things she knows are
always so unexpected.  Francis, not Roger, my love."

"I thought it interesting," said Hermia, 'that Fielding played the part
of Third Murderer.  Is there a precedent for that?"

"I believe so," said David.  "How convenient it must have been in those
times," he went on, 'to be able to call up a handy murderer whenever
you wanted a little job done.  Fun if one could do it nowadays."

"But it is done," protested Hermia.  "Gangsters.  Hoods or whatever you
call them.  Chicago and all that."

"Ah," said David.  "But what I meant was not gangster dom not
racketeers or Crime Barons.  Just ordinary everyday folk who want to
get rid of someone.  That business rival; Aunt Emily, so rich and so
unfortunately long lived; that awkward husband always in the way.  How
convenient if you could ring up Harrods and say "Please send along two
good murderers, will you?"

We all laughed.

"But one can do that in a way, can't one?"  said Poppy.

We turned towards her.

"What way, poppet?"  asked David.

"Well, I mean, people can do that if they want to ... People like us,
as you said.  Only I believe it's very expensive."

Poppy's eyes were wide and ingenuous, her lips were slightly parted.

"What do you mean?"  asked David curiously.

Poppy looked confused.

"Oh1 expect I've got it mixed.  I meant the Pale Horse.  All that sort
of thing."

"A pale horse?  What kind of a pale horse?"

Poppy flushed and her eyes dropped.

"I'm being stupid.  It's just something someone mentioned but I must
have got it all wrong."

"Have some lovely Coupe Nesselrode," said David kindly.

One of the oddest things in life, as we all know, is the way that when
you have heard a thing mentioned, within twenty four hours you nearly
always come across it again.  I had an instance of that the next
morning.

My telephone rang and I answered it "Flaxman 73841."  A kind of gasp
came through the phone.  Then a voice said breathlessly but
defiantly:

"I've thought about it, and I'll come!"

I cast round wildly in my mind.

"Splendid," I said, stalling for time.  "Er is that ?"

"After all," said the voice, 'lightning never strikes twice."

"Are you sure you've got the right number?"

"Of course I have.  You're Mark Easterbrook, aren't you?"

"Got it!"  I said.  "Mrs.  Oliver."

"Oh," said the voice, surprised.  "Didn't you know who it was?  I never
thought of that.  It's about that fete of Rhoda's.  I'll come and sign
books if she wants me to."

"That's frightfully nice of you.  They'll put you up, of course."

"There won't be parties, will there?"  asked Mrs.  Oliver
apprehensively.

"You know the kind of thing," she went on.  "People coming up to me and
saying am I writing something just now when you'd think they could see
I'm drinking ginger ale or tomato juice and not writing at all.  And
saying they like my books which of course is pleasing, but I've never
found the right answer.  If you say "I'm so glad" it sounds like
"Pleased to meet you."  A kind of stock phrase.  Well, it is, of
course.  And you don't think they'll want me to go out to the Pink
Horse and have drinks?"

"The Pink Horse?"

"Well, the Pale Horse.  Pubs, I mean.  I'm so bad in pubs.  I can just
drink beer at a pinch, but it makes me terribly gurgly."

"Just what do you mean by the Pale Horse?"

"There's a pub called that down there, isn't there?  Or perhaps I do
mean the Pink Horse?  Or perhaps that's somewhere else.  I may have
just imagined it.  I do imagine quite a lot of things."

"How's the Cockatoo getting on?"  I asked.

"The Cockatoo?"  Mrs.  Oliver sounded at sea.

"And the cricket ball?"

"Really," said Mrs.  Oliver with dignity.  "I think you must be mad or
have a hangover or something.  Pink Horses and cockatoos and cricket
balls."  She rang off.

I was still considering this second mention of the Pale Horse when my
telephone rang again.

This time, it was Mr.  Soames White, a distinguished solicitor who rang
up to remind me that under the will of my godmother, Lady
Hesketh-Dubois, I was entitled to choose three of her pictures.

There is nothing outstandingly valuable, of course," said Mr.  Soames
White in his defeatist melancholy tones.  "But I understand that at
some time you expressed admiration of some of the pictures to the
deceased."

"She had some very charming water colours of Indian scenes," I said. "I
believe you already have written to me about this matter, but I'm
afraid it slipped my memory."

"Quite so," said Mr.  Soames White.  "But probate has now been granted,
and the executors, of whom I am one, are arranging for the sale of the
effects of her London house.  If you could go round to Ellesmere Square
in the near future .. ."

I'll go now," I said.

It seemed an unfavorable morning for work.

in

Carrying the three water colours of my choice under my arm, I emerged
from Forty-nine Ellesmere Square and immediately cannoned into someone
coming up the steps to the front door.  I apologised, received
apologies in return, and was just about to hail a passing taxi when
something clicked in my mind and I turned sharply to ask:

"Hallo isn't it Corrigan?"

"It is and yes you're Mark Easterbrook!"

Jim Corrigan and I had been friends in our Oxford days but it must have
been fifteen years or more since we had last met.

"Thought I knew you but couldn't place you for the moment," said
Corrigan.  "I read your articles now and again and enjoy them, I must
say."

"What about you?  Have you gone in for research as you meant to do?"

Corrigan sighed.

"Hardly.  It's an expensive job if you want to strike out on your own.
Unless you can find a tame millionaire, or a suggestible Trust."

"Liver flukes, wasn't it?"

"What a memory!  No, I went off liver flukes.  The properties of the
secretions of the Mandarian glands; that's my present-day interest. You
wouldn't have heard of them!  Connected with the spleen.  Apparently
serving no purpose whatever!"

He spoke with a scientist's enthusiasm.

"What's the big idea, then?"

"Well," Corrigan sounded apologetic.  "I have a theory that they may
influence behaviour.  To put it very crudely, they may act rather as
the fluid in your car brakes does.  No fluid the brakes don't act.  In
human beings, a deficiency in these secretions might1 only say might-
make you a criminal."

I whistled.

"And what happens to Original Sin?"

"What indeed?"  said Dr.  Corrigan.  "The parsons wouldn't like it,
would they?  I haven't been able to interest anyone in my theory,
unfortunately.  So I'm a police surgeon, in N.W. division.  Quite
interesting.  One sees a lot of criminal types.  But I won't bore you
with shop unless you'll come and have some lunch with me?"  "I'd like
to.  But you were going in there," I nodded towards the house behind
Corrigan.

"Not really," said Corrigan.  "I was just going to gate crash

"There's nobody there but a caretaker."

"So I imagined.  But I wanted to find out something about the late Lady
Hesketh-Dubois if I could."

"I dare say I can tell you more than a caretaker could.  She was my
godmother."

"Was she indeed?  That's a bit of luck.  Where shall we go to feed?
There's a little place off Lowndes Square not grand, but they do a
special kind of sea food soup."

We settled ourselves in the little restaurant a cauldron of steaming
soup was brought to us by a pale-faced lad in French sailor trousers.

"Delicious," I said, sampling the soup.  "Now then, Corrigan, what do
you want to know about the old lady?  And incidentally, why?"

"Why's rather a long story," said my friend.  "First tell me what kind
of an old lady she was?"

I considered.

"She was an old-fashioned type," I said.  "Victorian.  Widow of an
ex-Governor of some obscure island.  She was rich and liked her
comfort.  Went abroad in the winters to Estoril and places like that.
Her house is hideous, full of Victorian furniture and the worst and
most ornate kind of Victorian silver.  She had no children, but kept a
couple of fairly well behaved poodles whom she loved dearly.  She was
opinionated and a staunch Conservative.  Kindly, but autocratic.  Very
set in her ways.  What more do you want to know?"

"I'm not quite sure," said Corrigan.  "Was she ever likely to have been
blackmailed, would you say?"

"Blackmailed?"  I asked in lively astonishment.  "I can imagine nothing
more unlikely.  What is this all about?"

It was then I heard for the first time of the circumstances of Father
Gorman's murder.

I laid down my spoon and asked,

"This list of names?  Have you got it?"

"Not the original.  But I copied them out.  Here you are."

I took the paper he produced from his pocket and proceeded to study
it.

"Parkinson?  I know two Parkinsons.  Arthur who went into the Navy.
Then there's a Henry Parkinson in one of the Ministries.  Ormerod
there's a Major Ormerod in the Blues Sandford our old Rector when I was
a boy was Sandford.  Harmondsworth?  No Tuckerton -' I paused.
"Tuckerton .. . Not Thomasina Tuckerton, I suppose?"

Corrigan looked at me curiously.

"Could be, for all I know.  Who's she and what does she do?"

"Nothing now.  Her death was in the paper about a week ago."

"That's not much help, then."

I continued with my reading.  "Shaw.  I know a dentist called Shaw, and
there's Jerome Shaw, Q.C..  .. Delafontaine - I've heard that name
lately, but I can't remember where.  Corrigan.  Does that refer to you,
by any chance?"

"I devoutly hope not.  I've a feeling that it's unlucky to have your
name on that list."

"Maybe.  What made you think of blackmail in connection with it?"

"It was Detective-Inspector Lejeune's suggestion if I remember rightly.
It seemed the most likely possibility But there are plenty of others.
This may be a list of dope smugglers or drug addicts or secret agents
it may be anything in fact.  There's only one thing sure, it was
important enough for murder to be committed in order to get hold of
it."

I asked curiously: "Do you always take such an interest in the police
side of your work?"

He shook his head.

"Can't say I do.  My interest is in criminal character.  Background,
upbringing, and particularly glandular health all that!"

"Then why the interest in this list of names?"

"Blessed if I know," said Corrigan slowly.  "Seeing my own name on the
list, perhaps.  Up the Corrigans!  One Corrigan to the rescue of
another Corrigan."

"Rescue?  Then you definitely see this as a list of victims not a list
of malefactors.  But surely it could be either?"

"You're entirely right.  And it's certainly odd that I should be so
positive.  Perhaps it's just a feeling.  Or perhaps it's something to
do with Father Gorman.  I didn't come across him very often, but he was
a fine man, respected by everyone and loved by his own flock.  He was
the good tough militant kind.  I can't get it out of my head that he
considered this list a matter of life or death .. ."

"Aren't the police getting anywhere?"

"Oh yes, but it's a long business.  Checking here, checking there.
Checking the antecedents of the woman who called him out that night."

"Who was she?"

"No mystery about her, apparently.  Widow.  We had an idea that her
husband might have been connected with horse-racing, but that doesn't
seem to be so.  She worked for a small commercial firm that does
consumer research.  Nothing wrong there.  They are a reputable firm in
a small way.  They don't know much about her.  She came from the north
of England Lancashire.  The only odd thing about her is that she had so
few personal possessions."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I expect that's true for a lot more people than we ever imagine.  It's
a lonely world."

"Yes, as you say."

"Anyway, you decided to take a hand?"

"Just nosing around.  Hesketh-Dubois is an uncommon name.  I thought if
I could find out a little about the lady ' He left the sentence
unfinished.  "But from what you tell me, there doesn't seem to be any
possible lead there."

"Neither a dope addict nor a dope smuggler," I assured him.  "Certainly
not a secret agent.  Has led far too blameless a life to have been
blackmailed.  I can't imagine what kind of a list she could possibly be
on.  Her jewellery she keeps at the bank so she wouldn't be a hopeful
prospect for robbery."

"Any other Hesketh-Duboises that you know about?  Sons?"

"No children.  She's got a nephew and a niece, I think, but not of that
name.  Her husband was an only child."

Corrigan told me sourly that I'd been a lot of help.  He looked at his
watch, remarked cheerfully that he was due to cut somebody up, and we
parted.

I went home thoughtful, found it impossible to concentrate on my work,
and finally, on an impulse, rang up David Ardingly.

"David?  Mark here.  That girl I met with you the other evening. Poppy.
 What's her other name?"

"Going to pinch my girl, is that it?"

David sounded highly amused.  "You've got so many of them," I retorted.
"You could surely spare one."

"You've got a heavyweight of your own, old boy.  I thought you were
going steady with her."

"Going steady."  A repulsive term.  And yet, I thought, struck suddenly
with its aptitude, how well it described my relationship with Hermia.
And why should it make me feel depressed?  I had always felt in the
back of my mind that some day Hermia and I would marry ... I liked her
better than anyone I knew.  We had so much in common .. .

For no conceivable reason, I felt a terrible desire to yawn .. . Our
future stretched out before me.  Hermia and I going to plays of
significance that mattered.  Discussions of art of music.  No doubt
about it, Hermia was the perfect companion.

But not much fun, said some derisive imp, popping up from my
subconscious.  I was shocked.  "Gone to sleep?"  asked David.

"Of course not.  To tell the truth, I found your friend Poppy very
refreshing."

"Good word.  She is taken in small doses.  Her actual name is Pamela
Stirling, and she works in one of those arty flower places in Mayfair.
You know, three dead twigs, a tulip with its petals pinned back and a
speckled laurel leaf.  Price three guineas."

He gave me the address.

"Take her out and enjoy yourself," he said in a kindly avuncular
fashion.  "You'll find it a great relaxation.  That girl knows nothing
she's absolutely empty headed.  She'll believe anything you tell her.
She's virtuous by the way, so don't indulge in any false hopes."  He
rang off.

IV

I invaded the portals of Flower Studies Ltd.  with some trepidation. An
overpowering smell of gardenia nearly knocked me backwards.  A number
of girls, dressed in pale green sheaths and all looking exactly like
Poppy, confused me.  Finally I identified her.  She was writing down an
address with some difficulty, pausing doubtfully over the spelling of
Fortescue Crescent.  As soon as she was at liberty, after having
further difficulties connected with producing the right change for a
five-pound note, I claimed her attention.

"We met the other night with David Ardingly," I reminded her.

"Oh yes!"  agreed Poppy warmly, her eyes passing vaguely over my
head.

"I wanted to ask you something."  I felt sudden qualms.  "Perhaps I'd
better buy some flowers?"  Like an automaton who has had the right
button pressed, Poppy said:

"We've some lovely roses, fresh in today."

"These yellow ones, perhaps?"  There were roses everywhere.  "How much
are they?"  "Vewy vewy cheap," said Poppy in a honeyed persuasive
voice. "Only five shillings each."

I swallowed and said I would have six of them.

"And some of these vewy special leaves with them?"

I looked dubiously at the special leaves which appeared to be in an
advanced state of decay.  Instead I chose some bright green asparagus
fern, which choice obviously lowered me in Poppy's estimation.

"There was something I wanted to ask you," I reiterated as Poppy was
rather clumsily draping the asparagus fern round the roses.  "The other
evening you mentioned something called the Pale Horse."

With a violent start, Poppy dropped the roses and the asparagus fern on
the floor.

"Can you tell me more about it?"

Poppy straightened herself after stooping.

"What did you say?"  she asked.

"I was asking you about the Pale Horse."

"A pale horse?  What do you mean?"

"You mentioned it the other evening."

"I'm sure I never did anything of the kind!  I've never heard of any
such thing."

"Somebody told you about it.  Who was it?"

Poppy drew a deep breath and spoke very fast.

"I don't in the least know what you mean!  And we're not supposed to
talk to customers."  .. . She slapped paper round my choice.  "That
will be thirty-five shillings, please."

I gave her two pound notes.  She thrust six shillings into my hand and
turned quickly to another customer.

Her hands, I noticed, were shaking slightly.

I went out slowly.  When I had gone a little way, I realised she had
quoted the wrong price (asparagus fern was seven and six) and had also
given me too much change.  Her mistakes in arithmetic had previously
been in the other direction.  I saw again the rather lovely vacant face
and the wide blue eyes.  There had been something showing in those eyes
.. .

"Scared," I said to myself.  "Scared stiff..  . Now why?  Why?"

CHAPTER FIVE

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

"What a relief," sighed Mrs.  Oliver.  "To think it's over and nothing
has happened!"

It was a moment of relaxation.  Rhoda's fete had passed off in the
manner of fetes.  Violent anxiety about the weather which in the early
morning appeared capricious in the extreme.  Considerable argument as
to whether any stalls should be set up in the open, or whether
everything should take place in the long barn and the marquee.  Various
passionate local disputes regarding tea arrangements, produce stalls,
et cetera.  Tactful settlement of same by Rhoda.  Periodical escapes of
Rhoda's delightful but undisciplined dogs who were supposed to be
incarcerated in the house, owing to doubts as to their behaviour on
this great occasion.  Doubts fully justified!  Arrival of pleasant but
vague starlet in a profusion of pale fur, to open the fete, which she
did very charmingly, adding a few moving words about the plight of
refugees which puzzled everybody, since the object of the fete was the
restoration of the church tower.  Enormous success of the bottle stall.
The usual difficulties about change.  Pandemonium at tea-time when
every patron wanted to invade the marquee and partake of it
simultaneously.

Finally, blessed arrival of evening.  Displays of local dancing in the
long barn were still going on.  Fireworks and a bonfire were scheduled,
but the weary household had now retired to the house, and were
partaking of a sketchy cold meal in the dining-room, indulging
meanwhile in one of those desultory conversations where everyone
utters their own thoughts, and pays little attention to those of other
people.  It was all disjointed and comfortable.  The released dogs
crunched bones happily under the table.

"We shall take more than we did for the Save the Children last year,"
said Rhoda gleefully.

"It seems very extraordinary to me," said Miss Macalister, the
children's Scottish nursery governess, 'that Michael Brent should find
the buried treasure three years in succession.  I'm wondering if he
gets some advance information?"

"Lady Brookbank won the pig," said Rhoda.  "I don't think she wanted
it.  She looked terribly embarrassed."

The party consisted of my cousin Rhoda, and her husband Colonel
Despard, Miss Macalister, a young woman with red hair suitably called
Ginger, Mrs.  Oliver, and the vicar, the Rev.  Caleb Dane Calthrop and
his wife.  The vicar was a charming elderly scholar whose principal
pleasure was finding some apposite comment from the classics.  This,
though often an embarrassment, and a cause of bringing the conversation
to a close, was perfectly in order now.  The vicar never required
acknowledgement of his sonorous Latin, his pleasure in having found an
apt quotation was its own reward.

"As Horace says .. ."  he observed, beaming round the table.

The usual pause happened and then:

"I think Mrs.  Horsefall cheated over the bottle of champagne," said
Ginger thoughtfully.  "Her nephew got it."

Mrs.  Dane Calthrop, a disconcerting woman with fine eyes, was studying
Mrs.  Oliver thoughtfully.  She asked abruptly:

"What did you expect to happen at this fete?"

"Well, really, a murder or something like that?"

Mrs.  Dane Calthrop looked interested.

"But why should it?"

"No reason at all.  Most unlikely, really.  But there was one at the
last fete I went to."

"I see.  And it upset you?"

"Very much."

The vicar changed from Latin to Greek.

After the pause, Miss Macalister cast doubts on the honesty of the
raffle for the live duck.

"Very sporting of old Lugg at the King's Arms to send us twelve dozen
beer for the bottle stall," said Despard.

"King's Arms?"  I asked sharply.

"Our local, darling," said Rhoda.

"Isn't there another pub round here?  The Pale Horse, didn't you say,"
I asked, turning to Mrs.  Oliver.

There was no such reaction here as I had half expected.  The faces
turned towards me were vague and uninterested.

"The Pale Horse isn't a pub," said Rhoda.  "I mean, not now."

"It was an old inn," said Despard.  "Mostly sixteenth century I'd say.
But it's just an ordinary house now.  I always think they should have
changed the name."

"Oh, no," exclaimed Ginger.  "It would have been awfully silly to call
it Wayside, or Fairview.  I think the Pale Horse is much nicer, and
there's a lovely old inn sign.  They've got it framed in the hall."

"Who's they?"  I asked.

"It belongs to Thyrza Grey," said Rhoda.  "I don't know if you saw her
today?  Tall woman with short grey hair."

"She's very occult," said Despard.  "Goes in for spiritualism and
trances, and magic.  Not quite black masses, but that sort of thing."

Ginger gave a sudden peal of laughter.

"I'm sorry," she said apologetically.  "I was just thinking of Miss
Grey as Madame de Montespan on a black velvet altar."

"Ginger!"  said Rhoda.  "Not in front of the vicar."

"Sorry, Mr.  Dane Calthrop."

"Not at all," said the vicar, beaming.  "As the ancients put it ' he
continued for some time in Greek.

After a respectful silence of appreciation, I returned to the attack.

"I still want to know who are "they" Miss Grey and who else?"

"Oh, there's a friend who lives with her.  Sybil Stamfordis.  She acts
as medium, I believe.  You must have seen her about Lots of scarabs and
beads and sometimes she puts on a said1 can't think why she's never
been in India '

"And then there's Bella," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.  "She's their
cook," she explained.  "And she's also a witch.  She comes from the
village of Little Dunning.  She had quite a reputation for witchcraft
there.  It runs in the family.  Her mother was a witch, too."

She spoke in a matter-of-fact way.

"You sound as though you believe in witchcraft, Mrs.  Dane Calthrop," I
said.

"But of course!  There's nothing mysterious or secretive about it. It's
all quite matter-of-fact.  It's a family asset that you inherit.
Children are told not to tease your cat, and people give you a cottage
cheese or a pot of home-made jam from time to time."

I looked at her doubtfully.  She appeared to be quite serious.

"Sybil helped us today by telling fortunes," said Rhoda.  "She was in
the green tent.  She's quite good at it, I believe."

"She gave me a lovely fortune," said Ginger.  "Money in my hand.  A
handsome dark stranger from overseas, two husbands and six children.
Really very generous."

"I saw the Curtis girl come out giggling," said Rhoda.  "And she was
very coy with her young man afterwards.  Told him not to think he was
the only pebble on the beach."

"Poor Tom," said her husband.  "Did he make any comeback?"

"Oh, yes.  "I'm not telling you what she promised me" he said.  "Mebbe
you wouldn't like it too well, my girl!"

"Good for Tom."

"Old Mrs.  Parker was quite sour," said Ginger, laughing.  ""Tis all
foolishness," that's what she said.  "Don't you believe none of it, you
two."  But then Mrs.  Cripps piped up and said, "You know, Lizzie, as
well as I do, that Miss Stamfordis sees things as others can't see, and
Miss Grey knows to a day when there's going to be a death.  Never
wrong, she is!  Fairly gives me the creeps sometimes."  And Mrs. Parker
said: "Death that's different.  It's a gift."  And Mrs.  Cripps said:
"Anyway I wouldn't like to offend none of those three, that I
wouldn't!"

"It does all sound exciting.  I'd love to meet them," said Mrs.  Oliver
wistfully.

"We'll take you over there tomorrow," Colonel Despard promised.  "The
old inn is really worth seeing.  They've been very clever in making it
comfortable without spoiling its character."

"I'll ring up Thyrza tomorrow morning," said Rhoda.

I must admit that I went to bed with a slight feeling of deflation.

The Pale Horse which had loomed in my mind as a symbol of something
unknown and sinister had turned out to be nothing of the sort.

Unless, of course, there was another Pale Horse somewhere else?

I considered that idea until I fell asleep.

There was a feeling of relaxation next day, which was a Sunday.  An
after-the-party feeling.  On the lawn the marquee and tents flapped
limply in a damp breeze, awaiting removal by the caterer's men at early
dawn on the morrow.  On Monday we would all set to work to take stock
of what damage had been done, and clear things up.  Today, Rhoda had
wisely decided, it would be better to go out as much as possible.

We all went to church, and listened respectfully to Mr.  Dane
Calthrop's scholarly sermon on a text taken from Isaiah which seemed to
deal less with religion than with Persian history.

"We're going to lunch with Mr.  Venables," explained Rhoda afterwards.
"You'll like him, Mark.  He's really a most interesting man.  Been
everywhere and done everything.  Knows all sorts of out-of-the-way
things.  He bought Priors Court about three years ago.  And the things
he's done to it must have cost him a fortune.  He had polio and is
semi-crippled, so he has to go about in a wheeled chair.  It's very sad
for him because up to then he was a great traveller, I believe.  Of
course he's rolling in money, and, as I say, he's done up the house in
a wonderful way it was an absolute ruin, falling to pieces.  It's full
of the most gorgeous stuff.  The sale rooms are his principal interest
nowadays, I believe."

Priors Court was only a few miles away.  We drove there and our host
came wheeling himself along the hall to meet us.

"Nice of you all to come," he said heartily.  "You must be exhausted
after yesterday.  The whole thing was a great success, Rhoda."

Mr.  Venables was a man of about fifty, with a thin hawklike face and a
beaked nose that stood out from it arrogantly.  He wore an open-wing
collar which gave him a faintly old-fashioned air.

Rhoda made introductions.

Venables smiled at Mrs.  Oliver.

"I met this lady yesterday in her professional capacity," he said.
"Six of her books with signatures.  Takes care of six presents for
Christmas.  Great stuff you write, Mrs.  Oliver.  Give us more of it.
Can't have too much of it."  He grinned at Ginger.  "You nearly landed
me with a live duck, young woman."  Then he turned to me.  "I enjoyed
your article in the Review last month," he said.

"It was awfully good of you to come to our fete, Mr.  Venables," said
Rhoda.  "After that generous cheque you sent us, I didn't really hope
that you'd turn up in person."

"Oh, I enjoy that kind of thing.  Part of English rural life, isn't it?
I came home clasping a most terrible Kewpie doll from the hoop-la, and
had a splendid but unrealistic future prophesied me by Our Sybil, all
dressed up in a tinsel turban with about a ton of fake Egyptian beads
slung over her torso."

"Good old Sybil," said Colonel Despard.  "We're going there to tea with
Thyrza this afternoon.  It's an interesting old place."

"The Pale Horse?  Yes.  I rather wish it had been left as an inn.  I
always feel that that place has had a mysterious and unusually wicked
past history.  It can't have been smuggling; we're not near enough to
the sea for that.  A resort for highwaymen, perhaps?  Or rich
travellers spent the night there and were never seen again.  It seems,
somehow, rather tame to have turned it into a desirable residence for
three old maids."  "Oh1 never think of them like that!"  cried Rhoda.
"Sybil Stamfordis, perhaps with her saris and her scarabs, and always
seeing auras round people's heads she is rather ridiculous.  But
there's something really awe-inspiring about Thyrza, don't you agree?
You feel she knows just what you're thinking.  She doesn't talk about
having second sight but everyone says that she has got it."

"And Bella, far from being an old maid, has buried two husbands," added
Colonel Despard.

"I sincerely beg her pardon," said Venables, laughing.

"With sinister interpretations of the deaths from the neighbours,"
added Despard.  "It's said they displeased her, so she turned her eyes
on them, and they slowly sickened and pined away!"

"Of course, I forgot, she is the local witch?"

"So Mrs.  Dane Calthrop says."  "Interesting thing, witchcraft," said
Venables thoughtfully.  "All over the world you get variations of it I
remember when I was in East Africa '

He talked easily, and entertainingly, on the subject.  He spoke of
medicine-men in Africa; of little-known cults in Borneo.  He promised
that, after lunch, he would show us some West African sorcerers'
masks.

"There's everything in this house," declared Rhoda with a laugh.

"Oh well' he shrugged his shoulders 'if you can't go out to everything
then everything must be made to come to you."

Just for a moment there was a sudden bitterness in his voice.  He gave
a swift glance downwards towards his paralysed legs.

' ""The world is so full of a number of things," he quoted.  "I think
that's always been my undoing.  There's so much I want to know about to
see!  Oh well I haven't done too badly in my time.  And even now life
has its consolations."

"Why here?"  asked Mrs.  Oliver suddenly.  The others had been slightly
ill at ease, as people become when a hint of tragedy looms in the air.
Mrs.  Oliver alone had been unaffected.  She asked because she wanted
to know.  And her frank curiosity restored the lighthearted
atmosphere.

Venables looked towards her inquiringly.

"I mean," said Mrs.  Oliver, 'why did you come to live here, in this
neighbourhood?  So far away from things that are going on.  Was it
because you had friends here?"

"No.  I chose this part of the world, since you are interested,
because I had no friends here."

A faint ironical smile touched his lips.

How deeply, I wondered, had his disability affected him?  Had the loss
of unfettered movement, of liberty to explore the world, bitten deep
into his soul?  Or had he managed to adapt himself to altered
circumstances with comparative equanimity with a real greatness of
spirit?

As though Venables had read my thoughts, he said: "In your article you
questioned the meaning of the term "greatness" you compared the
different meanings attached to it in the East and the West.  But what
do we all mean nowadays, here in England, when we use the term "a great
man"?-'

"Greatness of intellect, certainly," I said, 'and surely moral strength
as well?"  He looked at me, his eyes bright and shining.

"Is there no such thing as an evil man, then, who can be described as
great?"  he asked.

"Of course there is," cried Rhoda.  "Napoleon and Hitler and oh, lots
of people.  They were all great men."

"Because of the effect they produced?"  said Despard.  "But if one had
known them personally I wonder if one would have been impressed."
Ginger leaned forward and ran her fingers through her carroty mop of
hair.  "That's an interesting thought," she said.  "Mightn't they,
perhaps, have seemed pathetic, undersized little figures.  Strutting,
posturing, feeling inadequate, determined to be someone, even if they
pulled the world down round them?"

"Oh, no," said Rhoda vehemently.  "They couldn't have produced the
results they did if they had been like that."

"I don't know," said Mrs.  Oliver.  "After all, the stupidest child can
set a house on fire quite easily."

"Come, come," said Venables.  "I really can't go along with this
modern playing down of evil as something that doesn't really exist.
There is evil.  And evil is powerful.  Sometimes more powerful than
good.  It's there.  It has to be recognised and fought.  Otherwise' he
spread out his hands.  "We go down to darkness."

"Of course I was brought up on the devil," said Mrs.  Oliver,
apologetically.  "Believing in him, I mean.  But you know he always did
seem to me so silly.  With hoofs and a tail and all that.  Capering
about like a ham actor.  Of course I often have a master criminal in my
stories people like it but really he gets harder and harder to do.  So
long as one doesn't know who he is, I can keep him impressive but when
it all comes out he seems, somehow, so inadequate.  A kind of
anti-climax.  It's much easier if you just have a bank manager who's
embezzled the funds, or a husband who wants to get rid of his wife and
marry the children's governess.  So much more natural- if you know what
I mean."

Everyone laughed and Mrs.  Oliver said apologetically:

"I know I haven't put it very well but you do see what I mean?"

We all said that we knew exactly what she meant.

CHAPTER SIX

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

It was after four o'clock when we left Priors Court.  After a
particularly delicious lunch, Venables had taken us on a tour of the
house.  He had taken a real pleasure in showing us his various
possessions a veritable treasure house the place was.

"He must be rolling in money," I said when we had finally departed.
"Those jades and the African sculpture to say nothing of all his
Meissen and Bow.  You're lucky to have such a neighbour."

"Don't we know it?"  said Rhoda.  "Most of the people down here are
nice enough but definitely on the dull side.  Mr.  Venables is
positively exotic by comparison."

"How did he make his money?"  asked Mrs.  Oliver.  "Or has he always
had it?"

Despard remarked wryly that nobody nowadays could boast of such a thing
as a large inherited income.  Death duties and taxation had seen to
that.

"Someone told me," he added, 'that he started life as a stevedore but
it seems most unlikely.  He never talks about his boyhood or his
family' He turned towards Mrs.  Oliver.  "A Mystery Man for you'

Mrs.  Oliver said that people were always offering her things she
didn't want The Pale Horse was a half-timbered building (genuine
half-timbering not faked).  It was set back a little way from the
village street.  A walled garden could be glimpsed behind it which gave
it a pleasant old-world look.

I was disappointed in it, and said so.

"Not nearly sinister enough," I complained.  "No atmosphere."

"Wait till you get inside," said Ginger.

We got out of the car and went up to the door, which opened as we
approached.

Miss Thyrza Grey stood on the threshold, a tall, slightly masculine
figure in a tweed coat and skirt.  She had rough grey hair springing up
from a high forehead, a large beak of a nose, and very penetrating
light blue eyes.

"Here you are at last," she said in a hearty bass voice.  Thought you'd
all got lost."

Behind her tweed-clad shoulders I became aware of a face peering out
from the shadows of the dark hall.  A queer, rather formless face, like
something made in putty by a child who had strayed in to play in a
sculptor's studio.  It was the kind of face, I thought, that you
sometimes see amongst a crowd in an Italian or Flemish primitive
painting.

Rhoda introduced us and explained that we had been lunching with Mr.
Venables at Priors Court.

"Ah!"  said Miss Grey.  "That explains it!  Fleshpots.  That Italian
cook of his!  And all the treasures of the treasure house as well.  Oh
well, poor fellow got to have something to cheer him up.  But come in
come in.  We're rather proud of our own little place. Fifteenth-century
and some of it fourteenth."

The hall was low and dark with a twisting staircase leading up from it.
There was a wide fireplace and over it a framed picture.

"The old inn sign," said Miss Grey, noting my glance.  "Can't see much
of it in this light.  The Pale Horse."

"I'm going to clean it for you," said Ginger.  "I said I would.  You
let me have it and you'll be surprised."

"I'm a bit doubtful," said Thyrza Grey, and added bluntly, "Suppose you
ruin it?"

"Of course I shan't ruin it," said Ginger indignantly.  "It's my
job."

"I work for the London Galleries," she explained to me.  "Great fun."

"Modern picture restoring takes a bit of getting used to," said Thyrza.
"I gasp every time I go into the National Gallery nowadays.  All the
pictures look as though they'd had a bath in the latest detergent."

"You can't really prefer them all dark and mustard coloured," protested
Ginger.  She peered at the inn sign.  "A lot more would come up.  The
horse may even have a rider."

I joined her to stare into the picture.  It was a crude painting with
little merit except the doubtful one of old age and dirt.  The pale
figure of a stallion gleamed against a dark indeterminate background.

"Hi, Sybil," cried Thyrza.  "The visitors are crabbing our Horse, damn
their impertinence!"

Miss Sybil Stamfordis came through a door to join us.

She was a tall willowy woman with dark, rather greasy hair, a simpering
expression, and a fish-like mouth.

She was wearing a bright emerald green said which did nothing to
enhance her appearance.  Her voice was faint and fluttery.

"Our dear, dear Horse," she said.  "We fell in love with that old inn
sign the moment we saw it.  I really think it influenced us to buy the
house.  Don't you, Thyrza?  But come in come in."

The room into which she led us was small and square and had probably
been the bar in its time.  It was furnished now with chintz and
Chippendale and was definitely a lady's sitting-room, country style.
There were bowls of chrysanthemums.

Then we were taken out to see the garden which I could see would be
charming in summer, and then came back into the house to find tea had
been laid.  There were sandwiches and home-made cakes and as we sat
down, the old woman whose face I had glimpsed for a moment in the hall
came in bearing a silver teapot.  She wore a plain dark green overall.
The impression of a head made crudely from Plasticine by a child was
borne out on closer inspection.  It had a witless primitive face but I
could not imagine why I had thought it sinister.

Suddenly I felt angry with myself.  All this nonsense about a converted
inn and three middle-aged women!

"Thank you, Bella," said Thyrza.

"Got all you want?"

It came out almost as a mumble.

"Yes, thanks."

Bella withdrew to the door.  She had looked at nobody, but just before
she went out, she raised her eyes and took a speedy glance at me. There
was something in that look that startled me though it was difficult to
describe why.  There was malice in it, and a curious intimate
knowledge.  I felt that without effort, and almost without curiosity,
she had known exactly what thoughts were in my mind.

Thyrza Grey had noticed my reaction.

"Bella is disconcerting, isn't she, Mr.  Easterbrook?"  she said
softly.  "I noticed her look at you."

"She's a local woman, isn't she?"  I strove to appear merely politely
interested.  "Yes.  I dare say someone will have told you she's the
local witch."

Sybil Stamfordis clanked her beads.

"Now do confess, Mr.  Mr'

"Easterbrook."

"Easterbrook.  I'm sure you've heard that we all practise witchcraft.
Confess now.  We've got quite a reputation, you know '

"Not undeserved, perhaps," said Thyrza.  She seemed amused.  "Sybil
here has great gifts."

Sybil sighed pleasurably.

"I was always attracted by the occult," she murmured.  "Even as a child
I realised that I had unusual powers.  Automatic writing came to me
quite naturally.  I didn't even know what it wasl I'd just sit there
with a pencil in my hand and not know a thing about what was happening.
And of course I was always ultra-sensitive.  I fainted once when taken
to tea in a friend's house.  Something awful had happened in that very
room ... I knew it!  We got the explanation later.  There had been a
murder there twenty-five years ago.  In that very room!"

She nodded her head and looked round at us with great satisfaction.

"Very remarkable," said Colonel Despard with polite distaste.

"Sinister things have happened in this house," said Sybil darkly.  "But
we have taken the necessary steps.  The earth-bound spirits have been
freed."

"A kind of spiritual spring cleaning?"  I suggested.

Sybil looked at me rather doubtfully.

"What a lovely coloured said you are wearing," said Rhoda.

Sybil brightened.

"Yes, I got it when I was in India.  I had an interesting time there. I
explored yoga, you know, and all that.  But I could not help feeling
that it was all too sophisticated not near enough to the natural and
the primitive.  One must go back, I feel, to the beginnings, to the
early primitive powers.  I am one of the few women who have visited
Haiti.  Now there you really do touch the original springs of the
occult.  Overlaid, of course, by a certain amount of corruption and
distortion.  But the root of the matt eris there.

"I was shown a great deal, especially when they learnt that I had twin
sisters a little older than myself.  The child who is born next after
twins has special powers, so they told me.

Interesting, wasn't it?  Their death dances are wonderful.  All the
panoply of death, skulls and cross bones, and the tools of a
gravedigger, spade, pick and hoe.  They dress up as undertakers' mutes,
top hats, black clothes "The Grand Masteris Baron Samedi, and the Legba
is the god he invokes, the god who "removes the barrier".  You send the
dead forth to cause death.  Weird idea, isn't it?

"Now this," Sybil rose and fetched an object from the window sill.
"This is my Asson.  It's a dried gourd with a network of beads and you
see these bits?  dried snake vertebrae."

We looked politely, though without enthusiasm.

Sybil rattled her horrid toy affectionately.

"Very interesting," said Despard courteously.

"I could tell you lots more '

At this point my attention wandered.  Words came to me hazily as Sybil
continued to air her knowledge of sorcery and voodoo Maitre Carrefour,
the Coa, the Guide family I turned my head to find Thyrza looking at me
quizzically.

"You don't believe any of it, do you?"  she murmured.  "But you're
wrong, you know.  You can't explain away everything as superstition, or
fear, or religious bigotry.  There are elemental truths and elemental
powers.  There always have been.  There always will be."

"I don't think I would dispute that," I said.

"Wise man.  Come and see my library."  I followed her out through the
french windows into the garden and along the side of the house.

"We made it out of the old stables," she explained.

The stables and outbuildings had been reconstituted as one large room.
The whole of one long wall was lined with books.  I went across to them
and was presently exclaiming.

"You've got some very rare works here, Miss Grey.  Is this an original
Malleus Maleficorum?  My word, you have some treasures."

"I have, haven't I?"

"That Grimoire very rare indeed."  I took down volume after volume from
the shelves.  Thyrza watched me there was an air of quiet satisfaction
about her which I did not understand.

I put back Sadducismus Triumphatus as Thyrza said:

"It's nice to meet someone who can appreciate one's treasures.  Most
people just yawn or gape."

"There can't be much about the practice of witchcraft, sorcery, and all
the rest of it that you don't know," I said.  "What gave you an
interest in it in the first place?"

"Hard to say now .. . It's been so long .. . One looks into a thing
idly and then one gets gripped!  It's a fascinating study.  The things
people believed and the damn' fool things they did!"

I laughed.

"That's refreshing.  I'm glad you don't believe all you read."

"You mustn't judge me by poor Sybil.  Oh yes, I saw you looking
superior!  But you were wrong.  She's a silly woman in a lot of ways.
She takes voodoo, and demonology, and black magic and mixes everything
up into a glorious occult pie but she has the power."

"The power?"

"I don't know what else you can call it ... There are people who can
become a living bridge between this world and a world of strange
uncanny powers.  Sybil is one of them.  She is a first-class medium.
She has never done it for money.  But her gift is quite exceptional.
When she and I and Bella'

"Bella?"

"Oh yes.  Bella has her own powers.  We all have, in our different
degrees.  As a team '

She broke off.

"Sorcerers Ltd?"  I suggested with a smile.

"One could put it that way."

I glanced down at the volume I was holding in my hand.

"Nostradamus and all that?"

"Nostradamus and all that."

I said quietly: "You do believe it, don't you?"

"I don't believe.  I know."

She spoke triumphantly I looked at her.

"But how?  In what way?  For what reason?"

She swept her hand out towards the bookshelves "All that!  So much of
it nonsense!  Such grand ridiculous phraseology!  But sweep away the
superstitions and the prejudices of the times and the core is truth!
You only dress it up it's always been dressed up to impress people."

"I'm not sure I follow you."

"My dear man, why have people come throughout the ages to the
necromancer to the sorcerer to the witch doctor Only two reasons
really.  There are only two things that are wanted badly enough to risk
damnation.  The love potion or the cup of poison."

"Ah."

"So simple, isn't it?  Love and death.  The love potion to win the man
you want the black mass to keep your lover.  A draught to be taken at
the full of the moon.  Recite the names of devils or of spirits.  Draw
patterns on the floor or on the wall.  All that's window dressing.  The
truth is the aphrodisiac in the draught!"

"And death?"  I asked.

"Death?"  She laughed, a queer little laugh that made me uncomfortable.
"Are you so interested in death?"

"Who isn't?"  I said lightly.

"I wonder."  She shot me a glance, keen, searching.  It took me
aback.

"Death.  There's always been a greater trade in that than there ever
has been in love potions.  And yet how childish it all was in the past!
The Borgias and their famous secret poisons.  Do you know what they
really used?  Ordinary white arsenic!  Just the same as any little wife
poisoner in the back streets.  But we've progressed a long way beyond
that nowadays.  Science has enlarged our frontiers."

"With untraceable poisons?"  My voice was sceptical.

"Poisons!  That's vieux jeu.  Childish stuff.  There are new
horizons."

"Such as?"

"The mind.  Knowledge of what the mind is what it can do what it can be
made to do."

"Please go on.  This is most interesting."

"The principle is well known.  Medicine-men have used it in primitive
communities for centuries.  You don't need to kill your victim.  All
you need do is tell him to die."

"Suggestion?  But it won't work unless the victim believes in it."

"It doesn't work on Europeans, you mean," she corrected me.  "It does
sometimes.  But that's not the point.  We've gone further ahead than
the witch-doctor has ever gone.  The psychologists have shown the way.
The desire for death!  It's there in everyone.  Work on that!  Work on
the death wish."  "It's an interesting idea."  I spoke with a muted
scientific interest.  "Influence your subject to commit suicide?  Is
that it?"

"You're still lagging behind.  You've heard of traumatic illnesses?"

"Of course."

"People who, because of an unconscious wish to avoid returning to work,
develop real ailments.  Not malingering real illnesses with symptoms,
with actual pain.  It's been a puzzle to doctors for a long time."

"I'm beginning to get the hang of what you mean," I said slowly.

"To destroy your subject, power must be exerted on his secret
unconscious self.  The death wish that exists in all of us must be
stimulated, heightened."  Her excitement was growing.  "Don't you see?
A real illness will be induced, caused by that death-seeking self.  You
wish to be ill, you wish to die and so you do get ill, and die."

She had flung her head up now, triumphantly.  I felt suddenly very
cold.  All nonsense, of course.  This woman was slightly mad .. . And
yet Thyrza Grey laughed suddenly.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"It's a fascinating theory, Miss Grey quite in line with modern
thought, I'll admit.  But how do you propose to stimulate this death
wish that we all possess?"

"That's my secret.  The way!  The means!  There are communications
without contact.  You've only to think of wireless, radar, television.
Experiments in Extra-Sensory Perception haven't gone ahead as people
hoped, but that's because they haven't grasped the first simple
principle.  You can accomplish it sometimes by accident but once you
know how it works, you could do it every time .. ."

"Can you do it?"

She didn't answer at once then she said, moving away:

"You mustn't ask me, Mr.  Easterbrook, to give all my secrets away."

I followed her towards the garden door "Why have you told me all this?"
I asked.

"You understand my books.  One needs sometimes to to well talk to
someone.  And besides '

"Yes?"

"I had the idea Bella has it, too- that you may need us."

"Need you?"

"Bella thinks you came here to find us.  She is seldom at fault."

"Why should I want to "find you," as you put it?"

"That," said Thyrza Grey softly, "I do not know yet."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

"So there you are!  We wondered where you were."  Rhoda came through
the open door, the others behind her.  She looked round her.  "This is
where you hold your seances, isn't it?"

"You're well informed," Thyrza Grey laughed breezily.  "In a village
everyone knows your business better than you do.  We've a splendid
sinister reputation, so I've heard.  A hundred years ago it would have
been sink or swim or the funeral pyre.  My great-great-aunt or one or
two more greats was burned as a witch, I believe, in Ireland.  Those
were the days!"

"I always thought you were Scottish?"

"On my father's side hence the second sight.  Irish on my mother's.
Sybil is our pythoness, originally of Greek extraction.  Bella
represents Old English."

"A macabre human cocktail," remarked Colonel Despard.

"As you say."

"Fun!"  said Ginger.

Thyrza shot her a quick glance.

"Yes, it is in a way."  She turned to Mrs.  Oliver.  "You should write
one of your books about a murder by black magic.  I can give you a lot
of dope about it."

Mrs.  Oliver blinked and looked embarrassed.

"I only write very plain murders," she said apologetically.

Her tone was of one who says "I only do plain cooking."

"Just about people who want other people out of the way and try to be
clever about it," she added.

"They're usually too clever for me," said Colonel Despard.  He glanced
at his watch.  "Rhoda, I think '

"Oh yes, we must go.  It's much later than I thought."

Thanks and good-byes were said.  We did not go back through the house
but round to a side gate.

"You keep a lot of poultry," remarked Colonel Despard, looking into a
wired enclosure.

"I hate hens," said Ginger.  "They cluck in such an irritating way."

"Mostly cockerels they be."  It was Bella who spoke.  She had come out
from a back door.

"White cockerels," I said.

Table birds?"  asked Despard.

Bella said, "They'm useful to us."

Her mouth widened in a long curving line across the pudgy shapelessness
of her face.  Her eyes had a sly knowing look.

"They're Bella's province," said Thyrza Grey lightly.

We said good-bye and Sybil Stamfordis appeared from the open front door
to join in speeding the parting guests.

"I don't like that woman," said Mrs.  Oliver, as we drove off.  "I
don't like her at all."

"You mustn't take old Thyrza too seriously," said Despard indulgently.
"She enjoys spouting all that stuff and seeing what effect it has on
you."

"I didn't mean her.  She's an unscrupulous woman, with a keen eye on
the main chance.  But she's not dangerous like the other one."

"Bella?  She is a bit uncanny, I'll admit."

"I didn't mean her either.  I meant the Sybil one.  She seems just
silly.  All those beads and draperies and all the stuff about voodoo,
and all those fantastic reincarnations she was telling us about.  (Why
is it that anybody who was a kitchen maid or an ugly old peasant never
seems to get reincarnated?  It's always Egyptian Princesses or
beautiful Babylonian slaves.  Very fishy.) But all the same, though
she's stupid, I have a feeling that she could really do things make
queer things happen.  I always put things badly- but I mean she could
be used by something in a way just because she is so silly.  I don't
suppose anyone understands what I mean," she finished pathetically.

"I do," said Ginger.  "And I shouldn't wonder if you weren't right."

"We really ought to go to one of their seances," said Rhoda wistfully.
"It might be rather fun."

"No, you don't," said Despard firmly.  "I'm not having you getting
mixed up in anything of that sort."

They fell into a laughing argument.  I roused myself only when I heard
Mrs.  Oliver asking about trains the next morning.

"You can drive back with me," I said.

Mrs.  Oliver looked doubtful.  "I think I'd better go by train '

"Oh, come now.  You've driven with me before.  I'm a most reliable
driver."

"It's not that, Mark.  But I've got to go to a funeral tomorrow.  So I
mustn't be late in getting back to town."  She sighed.  "I do hate
going to funerals."

"Must you?"

"I think I must in this case.  Mary Delafontaine was a very old friend
and I think she'd want me to go.  She was that sort of person."

"Of course," I exclaimed.  "Delafontaine of course."

The others stared at me, surprised.

"Sorry," I said.  "It's only that well, I was wondering where I'd heard
the name Delafontaine lately.  It was you, wasn't it?"  I looked at
Mrs.  Oliver.  "You said something about visiting her in a nursing
home."

"Did I?  Quite likely."

"What did she die of?"

Mrs.  Oliver wrinkled her forehead.

"Toxic poly neuritis something like that."

Ginger was looking at me curiously.  She had a sharp penetrating
glance.

As we got out of the car, I said abruptly:

"I think I'll go for a bit of a walk.  Such a lot of food.  That
wonderful lunch and tea on top of it.  It's got to be worked off
somehow."

I went off briskly before anyone could offer to accompany me.  I wanted
badly to get by myself and sort out my ideas.

What was all this business?  Let me at least get it clear to myself. It
had started, had it not, with that casual but startling remark by
Poppy, that if you wanted to 'get rid of someone' the Pale Horse was
the place to go.

Following on that, there had been my meeting with Jim Corrigan, and his
list of 'names' as connected with the death of Father Gorman.  On that
list had been the name of Hesketh-Dubois, and the name of Tuckerton,
causing me to hark back to that evening at Luigi's coffee bar.  There
had been the name of Delafontaine, too, vaguely familiar.  It was Mrs.
Oliver who had mentioned it, in connection with a sick friend.  The
sick friend was now dead.

After that, I had, for some reason which I couldn't quite identify,
gone to beard Poppy in her floral bower.  And Poppy had denied
vehemently any knowledge of such an institution as the Pale Horse. More
significant still, Poppy had been afraid.

Today there had been Thyrza Grey.

But surely the Pale Horse and its occupants was one thing and that list
of names something separate, quite unconnected.  Why on earth was I
coupling them together in my mind?

Why should I imagine for one moment that there was any connection
between them?

Mrs.  Delafontaine had presumably lived in London.

Thomasina Tuckerton's home had been somewhere in Surrey.  No one on
the list had any connection with the little village of Much Deeping.
Unless I was just coming abreast of the King's Arms.  The King's Arms
was a genuine pub with a superior look about it and a freshly-painted
announcement of Lunches, Dinners and Teas.

I pushed its door open and went inside.  The bar, not yet open, was on
my left, on my right was a minute lounge smelling of stale smoke.  By
the stairs was a notice: Office.  The office consisted of a glass
window, firmly closed and a printed card.  PRESS BELL.  The whole place
had the deserted air of a pub at this particular time of day.  On a
shelf by the office window was a battered registration book for
visitors.  I opened it and flicked through the pages.  It was not much
patronised.  There were five or six entries, perhaps, in a week, mostly
for one night only.  I flicked back the pages, noting the names.

It was not long before I shut the book.  There was still no one about.
There were really no questions I wanted to ask at this stage.  I went
out again into the soft damp afternoon.

Was it only coincidence that someone called Sandford and someone else
called Parkinson had stayed at the King's Arms during the last year?
Both names were on Corrigan's list.  Yes, but they were not
particularly uncommon names.  But I had noted one other name the name
of Martin Digby.  If it was the Martin Digby I knew, he was the
great-nephew of the woman I had always called Aunt Min Lady
HeskethDubois.

I strode along, not seeing where I was going.  I wanted very badly to
talk to someone.  To Jim Corrigan.  Or to David Ardingly.  Or to Hermia
with her calm good sense.  I was alone with my chaotic thoughts and I
didn't want to be alone.  What I wanted, frankly, was someone who would
argue me out of the things that I was thinking.

It was after about half an hour of tramping muddy lanes that I finally
turned in at the gates of the vicarage, and made my way up a singularly
ill-kept drive, to pull a rusty-looking bell at the side of the front
door.

"It doesn't ring," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop, appearing at the door with
the unexpectedness of a genie.

I had already suspected that fact.

"They've mended it twice," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.  "But it never
lasts.  So I have to keep alert.  In case it's something important.
It's important with you, isn't it?"

"It well yes, it is important to me, I mean."

"That's what I meant, too .. ."  She looked at me thoughtfully.  "Yes,
it's quite bad, I can see Who do you want?  The vicar?"

"I - I'm not sure '

It had been the vicar I came to see but now, unexpectedly, I was
doubtful.  I didn't quite know why.  But immediately Mrs.  Dane
Calthrop told me.

"My husband's a very good man," she said.  "Besides being the vicar, I
mean.  And that makes things difficult sometimes.  Good people, you
see, don't really understand evil."  She paused and then said with a
kind of brisk efficiency, "I think it had better be me."

A faint smile came to my lips.  "Is evil your department?"  I asked.

"Yes, it is.  It's important in a parish to know all about the various
well sins that are going on."

"Isn't sin your husband's province?  His official business, so to
speak."

"The forgiveness of sins," she corrected me.  "He can give absolution.
I can't.  But I," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop with the utmost
cheerfulness, 'can get sin arranged and classified for him.  And if
one knows about it one can help to prevent its harming other people.
One can't help the people themselves, can't, I mean.  Only God can call
to repentance, you know or perhaps you don't know.  A lot of people
don't nowadays."

"I can't compete with your expert knowledge," I said, 'but I would like
to prevent people being harmed."

She shot me a quick glance.

"It's like that, is it?  You'd better come in and we'll be
comfortable."

The vicarage sitting-room was big and shabby.  It was much shaded by a
gargantuan Victorian shrubbery that no one seemed to have had the
energy to curb.  But the dimness was not gloomy for some peculiar
reason.  It was, on the contrary, restful.  All the large shabby chairs
bore the impress of resting bodies in them over the years.  A fat clock
on the chimney-piece ticked with a heavy comfortable regularity.  Here
there would always be time to talk, to say what you wanted to say, to
relax from the cares brought about by the bright day outside.

Here, I felt, round-eyed girls who had tearfully discovered themselves
to be prospective mothers, had confided their troubles to Mrs.  Dane
Calthrop and received sound, if not always orthodox, advice; here angry
relatives had unburdened themselves of their resentment over their
in-laws; here mothers had explained that their Bob was not a bad boy;
just high-spirited, and that to send him away to an approved school was
absurd.  Husbands and wives had disclosed marital difficulties.

And here was I, Mark Easterbrook, scholar, author, man of the world,
confronting a grey-haired weather-beaten woman with fine eyes, prepared
to lay my troubles in her lap.  Why?  I didn't know.  I only had that
odd surety that she was the right person.

"We've just had tea with Thyrza Grey," I began.

Explaining things to Mrs.  Dane Calthrop was never difficult.  She
leaped to meet you.

"Oh I see.  It's upset you?  These three are a bit much to take, I
agree.  I've wondered myself ... So much boasting.  As a rule, in my
experience, the really wicked don't boast.  They can keep quiet about
their wickedness.  It's if your sins aren't really bad that you want so
much to talk about them.  Sin's such a wretched, mean, ignoble little
thing.  It's terribly necessary to make it seem grand and important.
Village witches are usually silly ill-natured old women who like
frightening people and getting something for nothing that way. Terribly
easy to do, of course.  When Mrs.  Brown's hens die all you have to do
is nod your head and say darkly: "Ah, her Billy teased my Pussy last
Tuesday week."  Bella Webb might be only a witch of that kind.  But she
might, she just might, be something more .. . Something that's lasted
on from a very early age and which crops up now and then in country
places.  It's frightening when it does, because there's real
malevolence not just a desire to impress.  Sybil Stamfordis is one of
the silliest women I've ever met but she really is a medium whatever a
medium may be.  Thyrza -1 don't know .. . What did she say to you?  It
was something that she said that's upset you, I suppose?"

"You have great experience, Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.  Would you say, from
all you know and have heard, that a human being could be destroyed from
a distance, without visible connection, by another human being?"

Mrs.  Dane Calthrop's eyes opened a little wider.

"When you say destroyed, you mean, I take it, killed?  A plain physical
fact?"

"Yes."

"I should say it was nonsense," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop robustly.
"Ah!"  I said, relieved.

"But of course I might be wrong," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.  "My
father said that airships were nonsense, and my great-grandfather
probably said that railway trains were nonsense.  They were both quite
right.  At that time they both were impossible.  But they're not
impossible now.  What does Thyrza do, activate a death ray or
something? Or do they all three draw penta grams and wish?"

I smiled.

"You're making things come into focus," I said.  "I must have let that
woman hypnotise me."

"Oh no," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.  "You wouldn't do that.  You're not
really the suggestible type.  There must have been something else.
Something that happened first.  Before all this."

"You're quite right."  I told her, then, as simply as I could with an
economy of words, of the murder of Father Gorman, and of the casual
mention in the night-club of the Pale Horse.  Then I took from my
pocket the list of names I had copied from the paper Dr.  Corrigan had
shown me.

Mrs.  Dane Calthrop looked down at it, frowning.

"I see," she said.  "And these people?  What have they all in
common?"

"We're not sure.  It might be blackmail or dope '

"Nonsense," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.  "That's not what's worrying you.
What you really believe is that they're all dead?"

I gave a deep sigh.  "Yes," I said.  "That's what I believe.  But I
don't really know that that is so.  Three of them are dead.  Minnie
Hesketh-Dubois, Thomasina Tuckerton, Mary De la fontaine  All three
died in their beds from natural causes.  Which is what Thyrza Grey
claims would happen."

"You mean she claims she made it happen?"

"No, no.  She wasn't speaking of any actual people.  She was expounding
what she believes to be a scientific possibility."

"Which appears on the face of it to be nonsense," said Mrs.  Dane
Calthrop thoughtfully.

"I know.  I would just have been polite about it and laughed to myself,
if it hadn't been for that curious mention of the Pale Horse."

"Yes," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop musingly.  "The Pale Horse.  That's
suggestive."  She was silent a moment.  Then she raised her head.

"It's bad," she said.  "It's very bad.  Whateveris behind it, it's got
to be stopped.  But you know that."

"Well yes .. . But what can one do?"

"That you'll have to find out.  But there's no time to be lost."  Mrs.
Dane Calthrop rose to her feet, a whirlwind of activity.  "You must get
down to it at once."  She considered.  "Haven't you got some friend who
could help you?"

I thought.  Jim Corrigan?  A busy man with little time, and already
probably doing all he could.  David Ardingly but would David believe a
word?  Hermia?  Yes, there was Hermia.  A clear brain, admirable logic.
A tower of strength if she could be persuaded to become an ally. After
all, she and I - I did not finish the sentence.  Hermia was my steady -
Hermia was the person.

"You've thought of someone?  Good."

Mrs.  Dane Calthrop was brisk and businesslike.

I'll keep an eye on the Three Witches.  I still feel that they are
somehow not really the answer.  It's like when the Stamfordis woman
dishes out a lot of idiocy about Egyptian mysteries and prophecies from
the Pyramid texts.  All she says is plain balderdash, but there are
Pyramids and texts and temple mysteries.  I can't help feeling that
Thyrza Grey has got hold of something, found out about it, or heard it
talked about, and is using it in a kind of wild hotchpotch to boost her
own importance and control of occult powers.  People are so proud of
wickedness.  Odd, isn't it, that people who are good are never proud of
it?  That's where Christian humility comes in, I suppose.  They don't
even know they are good."

She was silent for a moment and then said:

"What we really need is a link of some kind.  A link between one of
these names and the Pale Horse.  Something tangible."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Detective-Inspector Lejeune heard the well-known tune "Father O'Flynn'
being whistled outside in the passage and raised his head as Dr.
Corrigan came in.

"Sorry to disoblige everybody," said Corrigan, 'but the driver of that
Jaguar hadn't any alcohol in him at all ... What P.C. Ellis smelt on
his breath must have been Ellis's imagination or halitosis."

But Lejeune at the moment was uninterested in the daily run of
motorists' of fences

"Come and take a look at this," he said.

Corrigan took the letter handed to him.  It was written in a small neat
script.  The heading was Everest, Glendower Close, Bournemouth.

Dear Inspector Lejeune,

You may remember that you asked me to get in touch with you if I should
happen to see the man who was following Father Gorman on the night that
he was killed.  I kept a good look-out in the neighbourhood of my
establishment, but never caught a glimpse of him again.

Yesterday, however, I attended a church fete in a village about twenty
miles from here.  I was attracted by the fact that Mrs.  Oliver, the
well-known detective writer, was going to be there autographing her own
books.  I am a great reader of detective stories and I was quite
curious to see the lady.

What I did see, to my great surprise, was the man I described to you as
having passed my shop the night Father Gorman was killed.  Since then,
it would seem, he must have met with an accident, as on this occasion
he was propelling himself in a wheeled chair.  I made some discreet
inquiries as to who he might be, and it seems he is a local resident of
the name of Venables.  His place of residence is Priors Court, Much
Deeping.  He is said to be a man of considerable means.

Hoping these details may be of some service to you,

Yours truly, Zachariah Osborne

"Well?"  said Lejeune.

"Sounds most unlikely," said Corrigan dampingly.

"On the face of it, perhaps.  But I'm not so sure '

"This Osborne fellow he couldn't really have seen anyone's face very
clearly on a foggy night like that.  I expect this is just a chance
resemblance.  You know what people are.  Ring up all over the country
to say they've seen a missing person and nine times out of ten there's
no resemblance even to the printed description!"

"Osborne's not like that," said Lejeune.

"What is he like?"

"He's a respectable dapper little chemist, old-fashioned, quite a
character, and a great observer of persons.  One of the dreams of his
life is to be able to come forward and identify a wife poisoner who has
purchased arsenic at his shop."

Corrigan laughed.

"In that case, this is clearly an example of wishful thinking."
"Perhaps."

Corrigan looked at him curiously.

"So you think there may be something in it?  What are you going to do
about it?"  "There will be no harm, in any case, in making a few
discreet inquiries about this Mr.  Venables of-' he referred to the
letter 'of Priors Court, Much Deeping."

CHAPTER NINE

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

"What exciting things happen in the country!"  said Hermia lightly.

We had just finished dinner.  A pot of black coffee was in front of us.
I looked at her.  The words were not quite what I had expected.  I had
spent the last quarter of an hour telling her my story.  She had
listened intelligently and with interest.  But her response was not at
all what I had expected.  The tone of her voice was indulgent she
seemed neither shocked nor stirred.  "People who say that the country
is dull and the towns full of excitement don't know what they are
talking about," she went on.  "The last of the witches have gone to
cover in the tumble-down cottage, black masses are celebrated in remote
manor houses by decadent young men.  Superstition runs rife in isolated
hamlets.  Middle-aged spinsters clank their false scarabs and hold
seances and planchettes run luridly over sheets of blank paper.  One
could really write a very amusing series of articles on it all.  Why
don't you try your hand?"

"I don't think you really understand what I've been telling you,
Hermia."

"But I do, Mark!  I think it's all tremendously interesting.  It's a
page out of history, all the lingering forgotten lore of the Middle
Ages."

"I'm not interested historically," I said irritably.  "I'm interested
in the facts.  In a list of names on a sheet of paper.  I know what has
happened to some of those people.  What's going to happen or has
happened to the rest?"

"Aren't you letting yourself get rather carried away?"

"No," I said obstinately.  "I don't think so.  I think the menace is
real.  And I'm not alone in thinking so.  The vicar's wife agrees with
me."

"Oh, the vicar's wife!"  Hermia's voice was scornful.

"No, not "the vicar's wife" like that!  She's a very unusual woman.
This whole thing is real, Hermia."

Hermia shrugged her shoulders.

"Perhaps."

"But you don't think so?"

"I think your imagination is running away with you a little, Mark.  I
dare say your middle-aged pussies are quite genuine in believing it all
themselves.  I'm sure they're very nasty old pussies!"

"But not really sinister?"

"Really, Mark, how can they be?"

I was silent for a moment.  My mind wavered turning from light to
darkness and back again.  The darkness of the Pale Horse, the light
that Hermia represented.  Good everyday sensible light the electric
light bulb firmly fixed in its socket, illuminating all the dark
corners.  Nothing there nothing at all just the everyday objects you
always find in a room.  But yet but yet Hermia's light, clear as it
might make things seem, was after all an artificial light .. .

My mind swung back, resolutely, obstinately .. .

"I want to look into it all, Hermia.  Get to the bottom of what's going
on."

"I agree.  I think you should.  It might be quite interesting.  In
fact, really rather fun."

"Not fun!"  I said sharply.

I went on:

"I wanted to ask if you'd help me, Hermia."

"Help you?  How?"

"Help me to investigate.  Get right down to what this is all about."

"But Mark dear, just at present I'm most terribly busy.  There's my
article for the Journal.  And the Byzantium thing.  And I've promised
two of my students '

Her voice went on reasonably sensibly I hardly listened.

"I see," I said.  "You've too much on your plate already."

"That's it."  Hermia was clearly relieved at my acquiescence.  She
smiled at me.  Once again I was struck by her expression of indulgence.
Such indulgence as a mother might show over her little son's absorption
in his new toy.

Damn it all, I wasn't a little boy.  I wasn't looking for a mother
certainly not that kind of a mother.  My own mother had been charming
and feckless; and everyone in sight, including her son, had adored
looking after her.

I considered Hermia dispassionately across the table.

So handsome, so mature, so intellectual, so well read!  And so how
could one put it?  So yes, so damnably dulll

The next morning I tried to get hold of Jim Corrigan without success. I
left a message, however, that I'd be in between six and seven, if he
could come for a drink.  He was a busy man, I knew, and I doubted if he
would be able to come at such short notice, but he turned up all right
at about ten minutes to seven.  While I was getting him a whisky he
wandered round looking at my pictures and books.  He remarked finally
that he wouldn't have minded being a Mogul Emperor himself instead of a
hard-pressed over-worked police surgeon.

"Though, I dare say," he remarked as he settled down in a chair, 'that
they suffered a good deal from woman trouble.  At least I escape
that."

"You're not married, then?"

"No fear.  And no more are you, I should say, from the comfortable
mess in which you live.  A wife would tidy all that up in next to no
time."

I told him that I didn't think women were as bad as he made out.

I took my drink to the chair opposite him and began:

"You must wonder why I wanted to get hold of you so urgently, but as a
matter of fact something has come up that may have a bearing on what we
were discussing the last time we met."

"What was that?  oh, of course.  The Father Gorman business."

"Yes But first, does the phrase The Pale Horse mean anything to you?"

The Pale Horse .. . The Pale Horse No, I don't think so why?"

"Because I think it's possible that it might have a connection with
that list of names you showed me I've been down in the country with
friends at a place called Much Deeping, and they took me to an old pub,
or what was once a pub, called the Pale Horse."

"Wait a bit!  Much Deeping?  Much Deeping ... Is it anywhere near
Bournemouth?"

"It's about fifteen miles or so from Bournemouth."

"I suppose you didn't come across anyone called Venables down there?"

"Certainly I did."

"You did?"  Corrigan sat up in some excitement.  "You certainly have a
knack of going places!  What is he like?"

"He's a most remarkable man."

"He is, is he?  Remarkable in what way?"

"Principally in the force of his personality.  Although he's completely
crippled by polio'

Corrigan interrupted me sharply.  "What?"

"He had polio some years ago.  He's paralysed from the waist down."
Corrigan threw himself back in his chair with a look of disgust.

"That tears it!  I thought it was too good to be true."

"I don't understand what you mean."

Corrigan said, "You'll have to meet the D.D.I. Divisional
Detective-Inspector Lejeune.  He'll be interested in what you have to
say.  When Gorman was killed, Lejeune asked for information from anyone
who had seen him in the street that night.  Most of the answers were
useless, as is usual.  But there was a pharmacist, name of Osborne, who
has a shop in those parts.  He reported having seen Gorman pass his
place that night, and he also saw a man who followed close after him
naturally he didn't think anything of it at that time.  But he managed
to describe this chap pretty closely seemed quite sure he'd know him
again.  Well, a couple of days ago Lejeune got a letter from Osborne.
He's retired, and living in Bournemouth.  He'd been over to some local
fete and he said he'd seen the man in question there.  He was at the
fete in a wheeled chair.  Osborne asked who he was and was told his
name was Venables."

He looked at me questioningly.  I nodded.

"Quite right," I said.  "It was Venables.  He was at the fete.  But he
couldn't have been the man who was walking along a street in Paddington
following Father Gorman.  It's physically impossible.  Osborne made a
mistake."

"He described him very meticulously.  Height about six feet, a
prominent beaked nose, and a noticeable Adam's apple.  Correct?"

"Yes.  It fits Venables.  But all the same '

"I know.  Mr.  Osborne isn't necessarily as good as he thinks he is at
recognising people.  Clearly he was misled by the coincidence of a
chance resemblance.  But it's disturbing to have you come along
shooting your mouth off about that very district talking about some
pale horse or other.  What is this pale horse?  Let's have your
story."

"You won't believe it," I warned him.  "I don't really believe it
myself."

"Come on.  Let's have it."

I told him of my conversation with Thyrza Grey.  His reaction was
immediate.

"What unutterable balderdash!"

"It is, isn't it?"

"Of course it is!  What's the matter with you, Mark?  White cockerels.
Sacrifices, I suppose!  A medium, the local witch, and a middle-aged
country spinster who can send out a death ray guaranteed lethal.  It's
mad, man- absolutely mad!"

"Yes, it's mad," I said heavily.

"Oh!  stop agreeing with me, Mark.  You make me feel there's something
in it when you do that.  You believe there's something in it, don't
you?"

"Let me ask you a question first.  This stuff about everybody having a
secret urge or wish for death.  Is there any scientific truth in
that?"

Corrigan hesitated for a moment.  Then he said:

"I'm not a psychiatrist.  Strictly between you and me I think half
these fellows are slightly barmy themselves.  They're punch drunk on
theories.  And they go much too far.  I can tell you that the police
aren't at all fond of the expert medical witness who's always being
called in for the defence to explain away a man's having killed some
helpless old woman for the money in the till."

"You prefer your glandular theory?"

He grinned.

"All right.  All right.  I'm a theorist, too.  Admitted.  But there's a
good physical reason behind my theory if I can ever get at it.  But all
this subconcious stuff!  Pah!"

"You don't believe in it?"

"Of course I believe in it.  But these chaps take it much too far.  The
unconscious "death wish" and all that, there's something in it, of
course, but not nearly so much as they make out."

"But there is such a thing," I persisted.

"You'd better go and buy yourself a book on psychology and read all
about it."

"Thyrza Grey claims that she knows all there is to know."

"Thyrza Grey!"  he snorted.  "What does a half-baked spinster in a
country village know about mental psychology?"

"She says she knows a lot."

"As I said before, balderdash!"

"That," I remarked, 'is what people have always said about any
discovery that doesn't accord with recognised ideas.  Frogs twitching
their legs on railings '

He interrupted me.

"So you've swallowed all this, hook, line and sinker?"

"Not at all," I said.  "I just wanted to know if there is any
scientific basis for it."

Corrigan snorted.

"Scientific basis my foot!"

"All right.  I just wanted to know."

"You'll be saying next she's the Woman with the Box."

"What Woman with a box?"

"Just one of the wild stories that turns up from time to time by
Nostradamus out of Mother Shipton.  Some people will swallow anything."
"You might at least tell me how you are getting on with that list of
names."

"The boys have been hard at work, but these things take time and a lot
of routine work.  Names without addresses or Christian names aren't
easy to trace or identify."

"Let's take it from a different angle.  I'd be willing to bet you one
thing.  Within a fairly recent period say a year to a year and a half
every one of those names has appeared on a death certificate.  Am I
right?"

He gave me a queer look.

"You're right for what it's worth."

"That's the thing they all have in common death."

"Yes, but that mayn't mean as much as it sounds, Mark.  Have you any
idea how many people die every day in the British Isles?  And some of
those names are quite common which doesn't help."

"Delafontaine," I said.  "Mary Delafontaine.  That's not a very common
name, is it?  The funeral was last Tuesday, I understand."

He shot me a quick glance.

"How do you know that?  Saw it in the paper.  I suppose."

"I heard it from a friend of hers."

"There was nothing fishy about her death.  I can tell you that.  In
fact, there's been nothing questionable about any of the deaths the
police have been investigating.  If they were "accidents" it might be
suspicious.  But the deaths are all perfectly normal deaths. Pneumonia,
cerebral haemorrhage, tumour on the brain, gall stones, one case of
polio nothing in the' least suspicious."

I nodded.

"Not accident," I said.  "Not poisoning.  Just plain illnesses leading
to death.  Just as Thyrza Grey claims."

"Are you really suggesting that that woman can cause someone she's
never seen, miles away, to catch pneumonia and die of it?"

7'm not suggesting such a thing.  She did.  / think it's fantastic and
I'd like to think it's impossible.  But there are certain curious
factors.  There's the casual mention of a Pale Horse in connection with
the removal of unwanted persons.  There is a place called the Pale
Horse and the woman who lives there practically boasts that such an
operation is possible.  Living in that neighbourhood is a man who is
recognised very positively as the man who was seen following Father
Gorman on the night that he was killed the night when he had been
called to a dying woman who was heard to speak of "great wickedness." 
Rather a lot of coincidences, don't you think?"

"The man couldn't have been Venables, since according to you, he's been
paralysed for years."

"It isn't possible, from the medical point of view, that that paralysis
could be faked?"

"Of course not.  The limbs would be atrophied."

That certainly seems to settle the question," I admitted.  I sighed. "A
pity.  If there is a -1 don't know quite what to call it an
organisation that specialises in "Removals Human" Venables is the kind
of brain I can see running it.  The things he has in that house of his
represent a fantastic amount of money.  Where does that money come
from?"

I paused- and then said:

"All these people who have died tidily in their beds, of this, that and
the other were there people who profited by their deaths?"

"Someone always profits by a death in greater or lesser degree.  There
were no notably suspicious circumstances, if that is what you mean."

"It isn't quite."

"Lady Hesketh-Dubois, as you probably know, left about fifty thousand
net.  A niece and a nephew inherit.  Nephew lives in Canada.  Niece is
married and lives in North of England.  Both could do with the money.
Thomasina Tuckerton was left a very large fortune by her father.  If
she died unmarried before the age of twenty-one, it reverts to her
stepmother.  Stepmother seems quite a blameless creature.  Then there's
your Mrs.  Delafontaine money left to a cousin '

"Ah yes.  And the cousin?"

"In Kenya with her husband."

"All splendidly absent," I commented.

Corrigan threw me an annoyed glance.

"Of the three Sandfords who've kicked the bucket, one left a wife much
younger than himself who has married again rather quickly.  Deceased
Sandford was an R.C."  and wouldn't have given her a divorce.  A fellow
called Sidney Harmondsworth who died of cerebral haemorrhage was
suspected at the Yard of augmenting his income by discreet blackmail.
Several people in high places must be greatly relieved that he is no
more."

"What you're saying in effect is that all these deaths were convenient
deaths.  What about Corrigan?"

Corrigan grinned.

"Corrigan is a common name.  Quite a lot of Corrigans have died but not
to the particular advantage of anyone in particular so far as we can
learn."

"That settles it.  You're the next prospective victim.  Take good care
of yourself."

"I will.  And don't think that your Witch of Endor is going to strike
me down with a duodenal ulcer, or Spanish 'flu.  Not a case-hardened
doctor!"

"Listen, Jim.  I want to investigate this claim of Thyrza Grey's.  Will
you help me?"

"No, I won't!  I can't understand a clever educated fellow like you
being taken in by such balderdash."

I sighed.

"Can't you use another word?  I'm tired of that one."

"Poppycock, if you like it better."

"I don't much."

"Obstinate fellow, aren't you, Mark?"

"As I see it," I said, 'somebody has to be!"

CHAPTER TEN

Glendower Close was very very new.  It swept round in an uneven
semi-circle and at its lower end the builders were still at work. About
half-way along its length was a gate inscribed with the name of
Everest.

Visible, bent over the garden border, planting bulbs, was a rounded
back which Inspector Lejeune recognised without difficulty as that of
Mr.  Zachariah Osborne.  He opened the gate and passed inside.  Mr.
Osborne rose from his stooping position and turned to see who had
entered his domain.  On recognising his visitor, an additional flush of
pleasure rose to his already flushed face.  Mr.  Osborne in the country
was looking very much the same as Mr.  Osborne in his shop in London.
He wore stout country shoes and was in his shirt sleeves, but even this
deshabille detracted little from the dapper neatness of his appearance.
A fine dew of perspiration showed on the shining baldness of his domed
head.  This he carefully wiped with a pocket handkerchief before
advancing to meet his visitor.

"Inspector Lejeune!"  he exclaimed pleasurably.  "I take this as an
honour.  I do indeed, sir.  I received your acknowledgement of my
letter, but I never hoped to see you in person.  Welcome to my little
abode.  Welcome to Everest.  The name surprises you perhaps?  I have
always been deeply interested in the Himalayas.  I followed every
detail of the Everest expedition."  What a triumph for our country. Sir
Edmund Hillary!  What a man!  What endurance!  As one who has never had
to suffer any personal discomfort, I do appreciate the courage of those
who go forth to scale unconquered mountains or sail through ice-bound
seas to discover the secrets of the Pole.  But come inside and partake,
I beg of you, of some simple refreshment."

Leading the way, Mr.  Osborne ushered Lejeune into the small bungalow
which was the acme of neatness, though rather sparsely furnished.

"Not quite settled yet," explained Mr.  Osborne.  "I attend local sales
whenever possible.  There is good stuff to be picked up that way, at a
quarter of the cost one would have to pay in a shop.  Now what can I
offer you?  A glass of sherry?  Beer?  A cup of tea?  I could have the
kettle on in a jiffy-'

Lejeune expressed a preference for beer.

"Here we are, then," said Mr.  Osborne, returning a moment later with
two brimming pewter tankards.  "We will sit and take our rest. Everest.
Ha ha!  The name of my house has a double meaning.  I am always fond
of a little joke."

Those social amenities satisfied, Mr.  Osborne leaned forward
hopefully.

"My information was of service to you?"

Lejeune softened the blow as much as possible.

"Not as much as we hoped, I am afraid."

"Ah, I confess I am disappointed.  Though, really, there is, I realise,
no reason to suppose that a gentleman proceeding in the same direction
as Father Gorman should necessarily be his murderer.  That was really
too much to hope for.  And this Mr.  Venables is well-to-do and much
respected locally, I understand, moving in the best social circles."

"The point is," said Lejeune, 'that it could not have been Mr. Venables
that you saw on that particular evening."

"Oh, but it was.  I have absolutely no doubt in my own mind.  I am
never mistaken about a face."

Tm afraid you must have been this time," said Lejeune gently.  "You
see, Mr.  Venables is a victim of polio.  For over three years he has
been paralysed from the waist down, and is unable to use his legs."

"Polio!"  ejaculated Mr.  Osborne.  "Oh dear, dear .. . That does seem
to settle the matter.  And yet You'll excuse me, Inspector Lejeune.  I
hope you won't take offence.  But that really is so?  I mean you have
definite medical evidence as to that?"

"Yes, Mr.  Osborne.  We have.  Mr.  Venables is a patient of Sir
William Dugdale of Harley Street, a most eminent member of the medical
profession."

"Of course, of course.  F.R.C.P. A very well known name!  Oh dear, I
seem to have fallen down badly.  I was so very sure.  And to trouble
you for nothing."

"You mustn't take it like that," said Lejeune quickly.  "Your
information is still very valuable.  It is clear that the man you saw
must bear a very close resemblance to Mr.  Venables and since Mr.
Venables is a man of distinctly unusual appearance, that is extremely
valuable knowledge to have.  There cannot be many persons answering to
that description."  "True, true."  Mr.  Osborne cheered up a little. 
"A man of the criminal classes resembling Mr.  Venables in appearance.
There certainly cannot be many such.  In the files at Scotland Yard-'

He looked hopefully at the inspector.

"It may not be quite so simple as that," said Lejeune slowly.  "The man
may not have a record.  And in any case, as you said just now there is
as yet no reason to assume that this particular man had anything to do
with the attack on Father Gorman."

Mr.  Osborne looked depressed again.

"You must forgive me.  Wishful thinking, I am afraid, on my part ... I
should so like to have been able to give evidence at a murder trial ..
. And they would not have been able to shake me, I assure you of that.
Oh no, I should have stuck to my guns!"

Lejeune was silent, considering his host thoughtfully.  Mr.  Osborne
responded to the silent scrutiny.

"Yes?"

"Mr.  Osborne, why would you have stuck to your guns, as you put it?"

Mr.  Osborne looked astonished.

"Because I am so certain oh oh yes, I see what you mean.  The man was
not the man.  So I have no business to feel certain.  And yet I do'

Lejeune leaned forward.  "You may have wondered why I have come to see
you today.  Having received medical evidence that the man seen by you
could not have been Mr.  Venables, why am I here?"

"Quite.  Quite.  Well, then, Inspector Lejeune, why did you come?"

"I came," said Lejeune, 'because the very positiveness of your
identification impressed me.  I wanted to know on what grounds your
certainty was based.  It was a foggy night, remember.  I have been to
your shop.  I have stood where you stood in your doorway and looked
across the street.  On a foggy night it seemed to me that a figure at
that distance would be very insubstantial, that it would be almost
impossible to distinguish features clearly."  "Up to a point, of
course, you are quite right.  Fog was setting in.  But it came, if you
understand me, in patches.  It cleared for a short space every now and
then.  It did so at the moment that I saw Father Gorman walking fast
along the opposite pavement.  That is why I saw him and the man who
followed shortly after him so clearly.  Moreover, just when the second
man was abreast of me, he flicked on a lighter to relight his
cigarette.  His profile at that moment was very clear the nose, the
chin, the pronounced Adam's apple.  That's a striking-looking man, I
thought.  I've never seen him about before.  If he'd ever been into my
shop I'd have remembered him, I thought.  So, you see-' Mr.  Osborne
broke off.

"Yes, I see," said Lejeune thoughtfully.

"A brother," suggested Mr.  Osborne hopefully.  "A twin brother,
perhaps?  Now that would be a solution."

"The identical twin solution?"  Lejeune smiled and shook his head.  "So
very convenient in fiction.  But in real life' he shook his head.  "It
doesn't happen, you know.  It really doesn't happen."

"No .. . No, I suppose not.  But possibly an ordinary brother.  A close
family resemblance' Mr.  Osborne looked wistful.

"As far as we can ascertain," Lejeune spoke carefully, "Mr.  Venables
has not got a brother."

"As far as you can ascertain?"  Mr.  Osborne repeated the words.

"Though of British nationality, he was born abroad, his parents only
brought him to England when he was eleven years old."

"You don't know very much about him really, then?  About his family, I
mean?"

"No," said Lejeune, thoughtfully.  "It isn't easy to find out very much
about Mr.  Venables -without, that is to say, going and asking him and
we've no grounds for doing that."

He spoke deliberately.  There were ways of finding out things without
going and asking, but he had no in tenting of telling Mr.  Osborne
so.

"So if it wasn't for the medical evidence," he said, getting to his
feet, 'you'd be sure about the identification?"

"Oh yes," said Mr.  Osborne, following suit.  "It's quite a hobby of
mine, you know, memo rising faces."  He chuckled.  "Many a customer
I've surprised that way.  "How's the asthma?"  I'd say to someone and
she'd look quite surprised.  "You came in last March," I'd say, "with a
prescription.  One of Dr.  Hargreaves's."  And wouldn't she look
surprised!  Did me a lot of good in business.  It pleases people to be
remembered, though I wasn't as good with names as with faces.  I
started making a hobby of the thing quite young.  If Royalty can do it,
I used to say to myself, you can do it, Zachariah Osborne!  After a
while it becomes automatic.  You hardly have to make an effort."

Lejeune sighed.

"I'd like to have a witness like you in the box," he said.
"Identification is always a tricky business.  Most people can't tell
you anything at all.  They'll say things like: "Oh, tallish, I think.
Fair-haired well, not very fair, sort of middling.  Ordinary sort of
face.  Eyes blue or grey or perhaps brown.  Grey mackintosh or it may
have been dark blue.""

Mr.  Osborne laughed.

"Not much good to you, that sort of thing."

"Frankly, a witness like you would be a godsend!"  Mr.  Osborne looked
pleased.

"It's a gift," he said modestly.  "But mind you, I've cultivated my
gift.  You know the game they play at children's parties a lot of
objects brought in on a tray and a few minutes given to memo rise them.
I can score a hundred per cent every time.  Quite surprises people. How
wonderful, they say.  It's not wonderful.  It's a knack.  Comes with
practice."  He chuckled.  "I'm not a bad conjurer either.  I do a bit
to amuse the kiddies at Christmastime.  Excuse me, Mr.  Lejeune, what
have you got in your breast pocket?"

He leaned forward and extracted a small ashtray.

"Tut, tut, sir, and you in the police force!"

He laughed heartily and Lejeune laughed with him.  Then Mr.  Osborne
sighed.

"It's a nice little place I've got here, sir.  The neighbours seem
pleasant and friendly.  It's the life I've been looking forward to for
years, but I'll admit to you, Mr.  Lejeune, that I miss the interest
of my own business.  Always someone coming in and out.  Types, you
know, lots of types to study.  I've looked forward to having my little
bit of garden, and I've got quite a lot of interests.  Butterflies, as
I told you, and a bit of bird watching now and again.  I didn't realise
that I'd miss what I might call the human element so much.

"I'd looked forward to going abroad in a small way.  Well, I've taken
one week-end trip to France.  Quite nice, I must say but I felt, very
strongly, that England's really good enough for me.  I didn't care for
the foreign cooking, for one thing.  They haven't the least idea, as
far as I can see, how to do eggs and bacon."

He sighed again.

"Just shows you what human nature is.  Looked forward no end to
retiring, I did.  And now do you know I've actually played with the
idea of buying a small share in a pharmaceutical business here in
Bournemouth just enough to give me an interest, no need to be tied to
the shop all the time.  But I'd feel in the middle of things again.  It
will be the same with you, I expect.  You'll make plans ahead, but when
the time comes, you'll miss the excitement of your present life."

Lejeune smiled.

"A policeman's life is not such a romantically exciting one as you
think, Mr.  Osborne.  You've got the amateur's view of crime.  Most of
it is dull routine.  We're not always chasing down criminals, and
following up mysterious clues.  It can be quite a dull business,
really."

Mr.  Osborne looked unconvinced.

"You know best," he said.  "Good-bye, Mr.  Lejeune, and I'm sorry
indeed that I haven't been able to help you.  If there was anything
anytime'

I'll let you know," Lejeune promised him.

"That day at the fete, it seemed such a chance," Osborne murmured
sadly.

"I know.  A pity the medical evidence is so definite, but one can't
get over that sort of thing, can one?"

"Well' Mr.  Osborne let the word linger, but Lejeune did not notice it.
He strode away briskly.  Mr.  Osborne stood by the gate looking after
him.

"Medical evidence," he said.  "Doctors indeed!  If he knew half what I
know about doctors innocents, that's what they are!  Doctors indeed!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

First Hermia.  Now Corrigan.

All right, then, I was making a fool of myself!

I was accepting balderdash as solid truth.  I had been hypnotised by
that phony woman Thyrza Grey into accepting a farrago of nonsense.  I
was a credulous, superstitious ass.

I decided to forget the whole damned business.  What was it to do with
me anyway?

Through the mist of disillusionment, I heard the echoes of Mrs.  Dane
Calthrop's urgent tones.

"You've got to DO something!"

All very well to say things like that.

"You need someone to help you .. ."

I had needed Hermia.  I had needed Corrigan.  But neither of them would
play.  There was no one else.

Unless I sat considering the idea.

On an impulse I went to the telephone and rang Mrs.  Oliver.

"Hallo.  Mark Easterbrook here."

"Yes?"

"Can you tell me the name of that girl who was staying in the house for
the fete?"

"I expect so.  Let me see ... Yes, of course, Ginger.  That was her
name."

"I know that.  But her other name."

"What other name?"

"I doubt if she was christened Ginger.  And she must have a
surname."

"Well, of course.  But I've no idea what it is.  One never seems to
hear any surnames nowadays.  It's the first time I'd ever met her."
There was a slight pause and then Mrs.  Oliver said, "You'll have to
ring up Rhoda and ask her."

I didn't like that idea.  Somehow I felt shy about it.

"Oh, I can't do that," I said.

"It's perfectly simple," said Mrs.  Oliver encouragingly.  "Just say
you've lost her address and can't remember her name and you'd promised
to send her one of your books, or the name of a shop that sells cheap
caviare, or to return a handkerchief which she lent you when your nose
bled one day, or the address of a rich friend who wants a picture
restored.  Any of those do?  I can think of lots more if you'd like."

"One of those will do beautifully," I assured her.

I rang off, dialled 100 and presently was speaking to Rhoda.

"Ginger?"  said Rhoda.  "Oh, she lives in a Mews.  Calgary Place.
Forty-five.  Wait a minute.  I'll give you her telephone number."  She
went away and returned a minute later.  "It's Capricorn 35987.  Got
it?"

"Yes, thanks.  But I haven't got her name.  I never heard it."

"Her name?  Oh, her surname, you mean.  Corrigan.  Katherine Corrigan.
What did you say?"

"Nothing.  Thanks, Rhoda."

It seemed to me an odd coincidence.  Corrigan.  Two Corrigans.  Perhaps
it was an omen.  I dialled Capricorn 35987.

II

Ginger sat opposite me at a table in the White Cockatoo where we had
met for a drink.  She looked refreshingly the same as she had looked at
Much Deeping - a tousled mop of red hair, an engaging freckled face and
alert green eyes.  She was wearing her London artistic livery of
skin-tight pants, a Sloppy Joe jersey and black woollen stockings but
otherwise she was the same Ginger.  I liked her very much.

"I've had to do a lot of work to track you down," I said.  "Your
surname and your address and your telephone number all unknown.  I've
got a problem."

"That's what my daily always says.  It usually means that I have to buy
her a new saucepan scourer or a carpet brush, or something dull."

"You don't have to buy anything," I assured her.

Then I told her.  It didn't take quite so long as the story I had told
to Hermia, because she was already familiar with the Pale Horse and its
occupants.  I averted my eyes from her as I finished the tale.  I
didn't want to see her reaction.  I didn't want to see indulgent
amusement, or stark incredulity.  The whole thing sounded more idiotic
than ever.  No one (except Mrs.  Dane Calthrop) could possibly feel
about it as I felt.  I drew patterns on the plastic table top with a
stray fork.

Ginger's voice came briskly.

"That's all, is it?"

That's all," I admitted.

"What are you going to do about it?"

"You think I should do something about it?"

"Well, of course!  Someone's got to do something!  You can't have an
organisation going about bumping people off and not do anything."

"But what can I do?"

I could have fallen on her neck and hugged her.

She was sipping Pernod and frowning.  Warmth spread over me.  I was no
longer alone.  Presently she said musingly:

"You'll have to find out what it all means."

"I agree.  But how?"

"There seem to be one or two leads.  Perhaps I can help."

"Would you?  But there's your job."

"Plenty could be done out of office hours."  She frowned again as she
thought.

"That girl," she said at last.  "The one at supper after the Old Vic.
Poppy or something.  She knows about it she must do to say what she
did."

"Yes, but she got frightened, and sheered off when I tried to ask her
questions.  She was scared.  She definitely wouldn't talk."

"That's where I can help," said Ginger confidently.  "She'd tell me
things she wouldn't tell you.  Can you arrange for us to meet?  Your
friend and her and you and me?  A show, or dinner or something?"  Then
she looked doubtful.  "Or is that too expensive?"

I assured her that I could support the expense.

"As for you' Ginger thought a minute.  "I believe," she said slowly,
'that your best bet would be the Thomasina Tuckerton angle."

"But how?  She's dead."

"And somebody wanted her dead, if your ideas are correct!  And arranged
it with the Pale Horse.  There seem two possibilities.  The stepmother,
or else the girl she had the fight with at Luigi's and whose young man
she had pinched.  She was going to marry him, perhaps.  That wouldn't
suit the stepmother's book or the girl's if she was crazy enough about
the young man.  Either of them might have gone to the Pale Horse.  We
might get a lead there.  What was the girl's name, or don't you
know?"

"I think it was Lou."

"Ash blonde lank hair, medium height, rather bosomy?"

I agreed with the description.  "I think I've met her about.  Lou
Ellis. She's got a bit of money herself '

"She didn't look like it."

"They don't but she has, all right.  Anyway, she could afford to pay
the Pale Horse's fees.  They don't do it for nothing, I suppose."

"One would hardly imagine so."

"You'll have to tackle the stepmother.  It's more up your street than
mine.  Go and see her '

"I don't know where she lives or anything."

"Luigi knows something about Tommy's home.  He'll know what county she
lives in, I should imagine.  A few books of reference ought to do the
rest.  But what idiots we are!  You saw the notice in The Times of her
death.  You've only got to go and look in their files."

I'll have to have a pretext for tackling the stepmother," I said
thoughtfully.

Ginger said that that would be easy.

"You're someone, you see," she pointed out.  "A historian, and you
lecture and you've got letters after your name.  Mrs.  Tuckerton will
be impressed, and probably tickled to death to see you."

"And the pretext?"

"Some feature of interest about her house?"  suggested Ginger vaguely.
"Sure to have something if it's an old one."

"Nothing to do with my period," I objected.

"She won't know that," said Ginger.  "People always think that anything
over a hundred years old must interest a historian or an archaeologist.
Or how about a picture?  There must be some old pictures of some kind.
Anyway, you make an appointment and you arrive and you butter her up
and be charming, and then you say you once met her daughter her
stepdaughter and say how sad etc.... And then, bring in, quite
suddenly, a reference to the Pale Horse.  Be a little sinister if you
like."

"And then?"

"And then you observe the reaction.  If you mention the Pale Horse out
of the blue, and she has a guilty conscience, I defy anyone not to show
some sign."

"And if she does what next?"

"The important thing is, that we'll know we're on the right track. Once
we're sure, we can go full steam ahead."

She nodded thoughtfully.

"There's something else.  Why do you think the Grey woman told you all
she did tell you?  Why was she so forthcoming?"

"The common-sense answer is because she's potty."

"I don't mean that.  I mean why you?  You in particular?  I just
wondered if there might be some kind of tie up?"

"Tie up with what?"

"Wait just a minute while I get my ideas in order."

I waited.  Ginger nodded twice emphatically and then spoke.

"Supposing just supposing it went like this.  The Poppy girl knows all
about the Pale Horse in a vague kind of way not through personal
knowledge, but by hearing it talked about.  She sounds the sort of girl
that wouldn't be noticed much by anyone when they were talking but
she'd quite likely take in a lot more than they thought she did. 
Rather silly people are often like that.  Say she was overheard talking
to you about it that night, and someone ticks her off.  Next day you
come and ask her questions, and she's been scared, so she won't talk. 
But the fact that you've come and asked her also gets around.  Now what
would be the reason for your asking questions?  You're not the police. 
The likely reason would be that you're a possible client."

"But surely '

"It's logical, I tell you.  You've heard rumours of this thing you want
to find out about it for your own purposes.

Presently you appear at the fete in Much Deeping.  You are brought to
the Pale Horse presumably because you've asked to be taken there and
what happens?  Thyrza Grey goes straight into her sales talk."

"I suppose it's a possibility."  I considered .. . "Do you think she
can do what she claims to do, Ginger?"

"Personally I'd be inclined to say of course she can't!  But odd things
can happen.  Especially with things like hypnotism.  Telling someone to
go and take a bite out of a candle the next afternoon at four o'clock,
and they do it without having any idea why.  That sort of thing.  And
electric boxes where you put in a drop of blood and it tells you if
you're going to have cancer in two years' time.  It all sounds rather
bogus but perhaps not entirely bogus.  About Thyrza - I don't think
it's true but I'm terribly afraid it might be!"

"Yes," I said sombrely, 'that explains it very well."

"I might put in a bit of work on Lou," said Ginger thoughtfully.  "I
know lots of places where I can run across her.  Luigi might know a few
things too.

"But the first thing," she added, 'is to get in touch with Poppy."

The latter was arranged fairly easily.  David was free three nights
ahead, we settled on a musical show, and he arrived, with Poppy in tow.
We went to the Fantasie for supper and I noticed that Ginger and Poppy
after a prolonged retirement to powder their noses, reappeared on
excellent terms with each other.  No controversial subjects were raised
during the party on Ginger's instructions.  We finally parted and I
drove Ginger home.

"Not much to report," she said cheerfully.  "I've been on to Lou.  The
man they quarrelled about was Gene Pleydon, by the way.  A nasty bit of
goods, if you ask me.  Very much on the make.  The girls all adore him.
He was making quite a play for Lou and then Tommy came along.  Lou
says he didn't care for her a bit, he was after her money but she'd
probably want to think that.  Anyway, he dropped Lou like a hot coal
and she was naturally sore about it.  According to her, it wasn't much
of a row just a few girlish high spirits."

"Girlish high spirits!  She tugged Tommy's hair out by the roots."

"I'm just telling you what Lou told me."

"She seems to have been very forthcoming."

"Oh, they all like talking about their affairs.  They'll talk to anyone
who will listen.  Anyway, Lou has got another boy friend now another
dud, I'd say, but she's already crazy about him.  So it doesn't look to
me as though she'd been a client of the Pale Horse.  I brought the term
up, but it didn't register.  I think we can wash her out.  Luigi
doesn't think there was much in it, either.  On the other hand, he
thinks Tommy was serious about Gene.  And Gene was going for her in a
big way.  What have you done about the stepmother?"

"She was abroad.  She comes back tomorrow.  I've written her a letter
or rather I got my secretary to write it, asking for an appointment."

"Good.  We're getting things moving.  I hope everything doesn't peter
out."

"If it gets us anywhere!"

"Something will," said Ginger enthusiastically.  "That reminds me.  To
go back to the beginning of all this, the theory is that Father Gorman
was killed after being called out to a dying woman, and that he was
murdered because of something she told him or confessed to him.  What
happened to that woman?  Did she die?  And who was she?  There ought to
be some lead there."

"She died.  I don't really know much about her.  I think her name was
Davis."

"Well, couldn't you find out more?"

"I'll see what I can do."

"If we could get at her background, we might find out how she knew
what she did know."

"I see your point."

I got Jim Corrigan on the telephone early the next morning and put my
query to him.

"Let me see now.  We did get a bit further, but not much.  Davis wasn't
her real name, that's why it took a little time to check up on her.
Half a moment, I jotted down a few things ... Oh yes, here we are.  Her
real name was Archer, and her husband had been a small-time crook.  She
left him and went back to her maiden name."

"What sort of a crook was Archer?  And where is he now?"

"Oh, very small stuff.  Pinched things from department stores.
Unconsidered trifles here and there.  He had a few convictions.  As to
where he is now, he's dead."

"Not much there."

"No, there isn't.  The firm Mrs.  Davis was working for at the time of
her death, the CRC.  (Customers' Reactions Classified), apparently
didn't know anything about her, or her background."

I thanked him and rang off.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

Three days later Ginger rang me up.

"I've got something for you," she said.  "A name and address.  Write it
down."

I took out my notebook.

"Go ahead."

"Bradley is the name and the address is Seventy-eight Municipal Square
Buildings, Birmingham."

"Well, I'm damned, what is all this?"

"Goodness knows!  I don't.  I doubt if Poppy does really!"

"Poppy?  Is this '

"Yes.  I've been working on Poppy in a big way.  I told you I could get
something out of her if I tried.  Once I got her softened up, it was
easy."

"How did you set about it?"  I asked curiously.

Ginger laughed.

"Girls-together stuff.  You wouldn't understand.  The point is that if
a girl tells things to another girl it doesn't really count.  She
doesn't think it matters."

"All in the trade union so to speak?"

"You could put it like that.  Anyway, we lunched together, and I yapped
a bit about my love life and various obstacles married man with
impossible wife Catholic wouldn't divorce him made his life hell.  And
how she was an invalid, always in pain, but not likely to die for
years.  Really much better for her if she could die.  Said I'd a good
mind to try the Pale Horse, but I didn't really know how to set about
it and would it be terribly expensive?  And Poppy said yes, she thought
it would.  She'd heard they charged the earth.  And I said "Well, I
have expectations."  Which I have, you know a great-uncle a poppet and
I'd hate him to die, but the fact came in useful.  Perhaps, I said,
they'd take something on account?  But how did one set about it?  And
then Poppy came across with that name and address.  You had to go to
him first, she said, to settle the business side."

"It's fantastic!"  I said.

"It is, rather."

We were both silent for a moment.

I said incredulously: "She told you quite openly?  She didn't seem
scared?"

Ginger said impatiently: "You don't understand.  Telling me didn't
count.  And after all, Mark, if what we think is true the business has
to be more or less advertised, hasn't it?  I mean they must want new
"clients" all the time."

"We're mad to believe anything of the kind."

"All right.  We're mad.  Are you going to Birmingham to see Mr.
Bradley?"

"Yes," I said.  Tm going to see Mr.  Bradley.  If he exists."

I hardly believed that he did.  But I was wrong.  Mr.  Bradley did
exist.

Municipal Square Buildings was an enormous honeycomb of offices.
Seventy-eight was on the third floor.  On the ground-glass door was
neatly printed in black: C. R. Bradley, COMMISSION AGENT.  And below,
in smaller letters: Please enter.

I entered.

There was a small outer office, empty, and a door marked PRIVATE, half
ajar.  A voice from behind it said:

"Come in, please."

The inner office was larger.  It had a desk, one or two comfortable
chairs, a telephone, a stack of box files, and Mr.  Bradley sitting
behind the desk.

He was a small dark man, with shrewd dark eyes.  He wore a dark
business suit and looked the acme of respectability.

"Just shut the door, will you?"  he said pleasantly.  "And sit down.
That chair's quite comfortable.  Cigarette?  No?  Well now, what can I
do for you?"

I looked at him.  I didn't know how to begin.  I hadn't the least idea
what to say.  It was, I think, sheer desperation that led me to attack
with the phrase I did.  Or it may have been the small beady eyes.

"How much?"  I said.

It startled him a little, I was glad to note, but not in the way that
he ought to have been startled.  He did not assume, as I would have
assumed in his place, that someone not quite right in the head had come
into his office.

His eyebrows rose.

"Well, well, well," he said.  "You don't waste much time, do you?"

I held to my line.

"What's the answer?"

He shook his head gently in a slightly reproving manner.

"That's not the way to go about things.  We must proceed in the proper
manner."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"As you like.  What's the proper manner?"

"We haven't introduced ourselves yet, have we?  I don't know your
name."

"At the moment," I said, "I don't really think I feel inclined to tell
it to you."  "Cautious."

"Cautious."

"An admirable quality though not always practicable.  Now who sent you
to me?  Who's our mutual friend?"

"Again I can't tell you.  A friend of mine has a friend who knows a
friend of yours."

Mr.  Bradley nodded his head.

"That's the way a lot of my clients come," he said.  "Some of the
problems are rather delicate.  You know my profession, I presume?"

He had no intention of waiting for my reply.  He hastened to give me
the answer.

"Turf Commission Agent," he said.  "You're interested, perhaps, in
horses?"

There was just the faintest pause before the last word.

"I'm not a racing man," I said noncommittally.

"There are many aspects of the horse.  Racing, hunting, hacking.  It's
the sporting aspect that interests me.  Betting."  He paused for a
moment and then asked casually almost too casually:

"Any particular horse you had in mind?"

I shrugged my shoulders and burnt my boats.

"A pale horse .. ."

"Ah, very good, excellent.  You yourself, if I may say so, seem to be
rather a dark horse.  Ha ha!  You mustn't be nervous.  There really is
no need to be nervous."

"That's what you say," I said rather rudely.

Mr.  Bradley's manner became more bland and soothing.

"I can quite understand your feelings.  But I can assure you that you
needn't have any anxiety.  I'm a lawyer myself disbarred, of course,"
he added parenthetically, in what was really almost an engaging way.
"Otherwise I shouldn't be here.  But I can assure you that I know my
law.  Everything I recommend is perfectly legal and above board.  It's
just a question of a bet.  A man can bet on anything he pleases,
whether it will rain tomorrow, whether the Russians can send a man to
the moon, or whether your wife's going to have twins.  You can bet
whether Mrs.  B. will die before Christmas, or whether Mrs.  C. will
live to be a hundred.  You back your judgement or your intuition or
whatever you like to call it.  It's as simple as that."

I felt exactly as though I were being reassured by a surgeon before an
operation.  Mr.  Bradley's consulting-room manner was perfect.

I said slowly:

"I don't really understand this business of the Pale Horse."  "And that
worries you?  Yes, it worries a lot of people.  More things in heaven
and earth, Horatio, and so on and so on.  Frankly, I don't understand
it myself.  But it gets results.  It gets results in the most marvelous
way."

"If you could tell me more about it '

I had settled on my role now cautious, eager but scared.  It was
obviously an attitude with which Mr.  Bradley had frequently had to
cope.

"Do you know the place at all?"

I made a quick decision.  It would be unwise to lie.

"I well yes I was with some friends.  They took me there '

"Charming old pub.  Full of historical interest.  And they've done
wonders in restoring it.  You met her, then.  My friend, Miss Grey, I
mean?"

"Yes yes, of course.  An extraordinary woman."

"Isn't she?  Yes, isn't she?  You've hit it exactly.  An extraordinary
woman.  And with extraordinary powers."

"The things she claims!  Surely quite well impossible?"

"Exactly.  That's the whole point.  The things she claims to be able to
know and do are impossible!  Everybody would say so.  In a court of
law, for instance '

The black beady eyes were boring into mine.  Mr.  Bradley repeated the
words with designed emphasis.

"In a court of law, for instance the whole thing would be ridiculed! If
that woman stood up and confessed to murder, murder by remote control
or "will power" or whatever nonsensical name she likes to use, that
confession couldn't be acted upon!  Even if her statement was true
(which of course sensible men like you and I don't believe for one
moment!) it couldn't be admitted legally.  Murder by remote control
isn't murder in the eyes of the law.  It's just nonsense.  That's the
whole beauty of the thing as you'll appreciate if you think for a
moment."

I understood that I was being reassured.  Murder committed by occult
powers was not murder in an English court of law.  If I were to hire a
gangster to commit murder with a cosh or a knife, I was committed with
him an accomplice before the fact1 had conspired with him.  But if I
commissioned Thyrza Grey to use her black arts those black arts were
not admissible.  That was what, according to Mr.  Bradley, was the
beauty of the thing.

All my natural scepticism rose up in protest.  I burst out heatedly:

"But damn it all, it's fantastic," I shouted.  "I don't believe it.
It's impossible."

"I agree with you.  I really do.  Thyrza Grey is an extraordinary
woman, and she certainly has some extraordinary powers, but one can't
believe all the things she claims for herself.  As you say, it's too
fantastic.  In this age, one really can't credit that someone can send
out thought-waves or whatever it is, either oneself or through a
medium, sitting in a cottage in England and cause someone to sicken and
die of a convenient disease out in Capri or somewhere like that."  "But
that is what she claims?"

"Oh yes.  Oh course she has powers she is Scottish and what is called
second sight is a peculiarity of that race.  It really does exist. What
I do believe, and believe without a doubt, is this': he leaned forward,
wagging a forefinger impressively, "Thyrza Grey does know beforehand
when someone is going to die.  It's a gift.  And she has it."

He leaned back, studying me.  I waited.

"Let's assume a hypothetical case.  Someone, yourself or another,
would like very much to know when let's say Great-Aunt Eliza is going
to die.  It's useful, you must admit, to know something like that.
Nothing unkind in it, nothing wrong just a matter of business
convenience.  What plans to make?  Will there be, shall we say, a
useful sum of money coming in by next November?  If you knew that,
definitely, you might take up some valuable option.  Death is such a
chancy matter. Dear old Eliza might live, pepped up by doctors, for
another ten years. You'd be delighted, of course, you're fond of the
dear old girl, but how useful it would be to know."

He paused and then leaned a little farther forward.

"Now that's where 7 come in.  I'm a betting man.  I'll bet on anything
naturally on my own terms.  You come to see me.  Naturally you wouldn't
want to bet on the old girl's passing out.  That would be repulsive to
your finer feelings.  So we put it this way.  You bet me a certain sum
that Aunt Eliza will be hale and hearty still next Christmas, I bet you
that she won't."

The beady eyes were on me, watching .. .

"Nothing against that, is there?  Simple.  We have an argument on the
subject.  I say Aunt E. is lined up for death, you say she isn't.  We
draw up a contract and sign it.  I give you a date.  I say that a
fortnight either way from that date Auntie E."s funeral service will be
read.  You say it won't.  If you're right / pay you.  If you're wrong,
you pay me!"

I looked at him.  I tried to summon up the feelings of a man who wants
a rich old lady out of the way.  I shifted it to a blackmailer.  Easier
to throw oneself into that part.  Some man had been bleeding me for
years.  I couldn't bear it any longer.  I wanted him dead.  I hadn't
the nerve to kill him myself, but I'd give anything yes, anything '

I spoke my voice was hoarse.  I was acting the part with some
confidence.

"What terms?"

Mr.  Bradley's manner underwent a rapid change.  It was gay, almost
facetious.

"That's where we came in, isn't it?  Or rather where you came in, ha
ha.  "How much?"  you said.  Really quite startled me.  Never heard
anyone come to the point so soon."

"What terms?"

"That depends.  It depends on several different factors.  Roughly it
depends on the amount there is at stake.  In some cases it depends on
the funds available to the client.  An inconvenient husband or a
blackmailer or something of that kind would depend on how much my
client could afford to pay.  I don't let me make that clear bet with
poor clients except in the kind of case I have just been outlining.  In
that case it would depend on the amount of Aunt Eliza's estate.  Terms
are by mutual agreement.  We both want something out of it, don't we?
The odds, however, work out usually at five hundred to one."

"Five hundred to one?  That's pretty steep."

"My wag eris pretty steep.  If Aunt Eliza were pretty well booked for
the tomb, you'd know it already, and you wouldn't come to me.  To
prophesy somebody's death to within two weeks means pretty long odds.
Five thousand pounds to one hundred isn't at all out of the way."

"Supposing you lose?"

Mr.  Bradley shrugged his shoulders.

"That's just too bad.  I pay up."

"And if I lose, I pay up.  Supposing I don't?"

Mr.  Bradley leaned back in his chair.  He half closed his eyes.

"I shouldn't advise that," he said softly.  "I really shouldn't."

Despite the soft tone, I felt a faint shiver pass over me.  He had
uttered no direct menace.  But the menace was there.

I got up.  I said:

"I - I must think it over."

Mr.  Bradley was once more his pleasant and urbane self.

"Certainly think it over.  Never rush into anything.  If you decide to
do business, come back, and we will go into the matter fully.  Take
your time.  No hurry in the world.  Take your time."

I went out with those words echoing in my ears.

"Take your time .. ."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

I approached my task of interviewing Mrs.  Tuckerton with the utmost
reluctance.  Goaded to it by Ginger, I was still far from convinced of
its wisdom.  To begin with I felt myself unfitted for the task I had
set myself.  I was doubtful of my ability to produce the needed
reaction, and I was acutely conscious of masquerading under false
colours.

Ginger, with the almost terrifying efficiency which she was able to
display when it suited her, had briefed me by telephone.

"It will be quite simple.  It's a Nash house.  Not the usual style one
associates with him.  One of his near-Gothic flights of fancy."

"And why should I want to see it?"

"You're considering writing an article or a book on the influences that
cause fluctuation of an architect's style.  That sort of thing."

"Sounds very bogus to me," I said.

"Nonsense," said Ginger robustly.  "When you get on to learned
subjects, or arty ones, the most incredible theories are propounded and
written about, in the utmost seriousness, by the most unlikely people.
I could quote you chapters of tosh."

"That's why you would really be a much better person to do this than I
am."

"That's where you are wrong," Ginger told me.  "Mrs.  T. can look you
up in Who's Who and be properly impressed.  She can't look me up
there."

I remained unconvinced, though temporarily defeated.

On my return from my incredible interview with Mr.  Bradley, Ginger and
I had put our heads together.  It was less incredible to her than it
was to me.  It afforded her, indeed, a distinct satisfaction.

"It puts an end to whether we're imagining things or not," she pointed
out.  "Now we know that an organisation does exist for getting unwanted
people out of the way."

"By supernatural means!"

"You're so hidebound in your thinking.  It's all that wispiness and the
false scarabs that Sybil wears.  It puts you off.  And if Mr.  Bradley
had turned out to be a quack practitioner, or a pseudo-astrologer,
you'd still be unconvinced.  But since he turns out to be a nasty
down-to-earth little legal crook or that's the impression you give me
'

"Near enough," I said.

"Then that makes the whole thing come into line.  However phony it may
sound, those three women at the Pale Horse have got hold of something
that works."

"If you're so convinced, then why Mrs.  Tuckerton?"

"Extra check," said Ginger.  "We know what Thyrza Grey says she can do.
We know how the financial side is worked.  We know a little about three
of the victims.  We want to know more about the client angle."

"And suppose Mrs.  Tuckerton shows no signs of having been a client?"

"Then we'll have to investigate elsewhere."

"Of course, I may boob it," I said gloomily.

Ginger said that I must think better of myself than that.

So here I was, arriving at the front door of Carraway Park.  It
certainly did not look like my preconceived idea of a Nash house.  In
many ways it was a near castle of modest proportions.  Ginger had
promised to supply me with a recent book on Nash architecture, but it
had not arrived in time, so I was here somewhat inadequately briefed.

I rang the bell, and a rather seedy-looking man in an alpaca coat
opened the door.

"Mr.  Easterbrook?"  he said.  "Mrs.  Tuckerton's expecting you."

He showed me into an elaborately furnished drawing room.  The room made
a disagreeable impression upon me.  Everything in it was expensive, but
chosen without taste.  Left to itself, it could have been a room of
pleasant proportions.  There were one or two good pictures, and a great
many bad ones.  There was a great deal of yellow brocade.  Further
cogitations were interrupted by the arrival of Mrs.  Tuckerton herself.
I arose with difficulty from the depths of a bright yellow brocade
sofa.

I don't know what I had expected, but I suffered a complete reversal of
feeling.  There was nothing sinister here; merely a completely ordinary
young to middle-aged woman.  Not a very interesting woman, and not, I
thought, a particularly nice woman.  The lips, in spite of a generous
application of lipstick, were thin and bad-tempered.  The chin receded
a little.  The eyes were pale blue and gave the impression that she was
appraising the price of everything.  She was the sort of woman who
under tipped porters and cloakroom attendants.  There are a lot of
women of her type to be met in the world, though mainly less
expensively dressed, and not so well made-up.

"Mr.  Easterbrook?"  She was clearly delighted by my visit.  She even
gushed a little.  "I'm so pleased to meet you.  Fancy your being
interested in this house.  Of course I knew it was built by John Nash,
my husband told me so, but I never realised that it would be
interesting to a person like youl'

"Well, you see, Mrs.  Tuckerton, it's not quite his usual style, and
that makes it interesting toer '

She saved me the trouble of continuing.

"I'm afraid I'm terribly stupid about that sort of thing
-architecture, I mean, and archaeology and all that.  But you mustn't
mind my ignorance."

I didn't mind at all.  I preferred it.

"Of course all that sort of thing is terribly interesting," said Mrs.
Tuckerton.

I said that we specialists, on the contrary, were usually terribly dull
and very boring on our own particular subject.

Mrs.  Tuckerton said she was sure that that wasn't true, and would I
like to have tea first and see the house afterwards, or see round the
house and then have tea.

I hadn't bargained for tea my appointment had been for three-thirty,
but I said that perhaps the house first.

She showed me round, chatting vivaciously most of the time, and thus
relieving me of uttering any architectural judgements.

It was lucky, she said, that I'd come now.  The house was up for sale
"It's too big for me since my husband's death' and she believed there
was a purchaser already, though the agents had only had it on their
books for just over a week.

"I wouldn't have liked you to see it when it was empty.  I think a
house needs to be lived in, if one is really to appreciate it, don't
you, Mr.  Easterbrook?"

I would have preferred this house unlived in, and unfurnished, but
naturally I could not say so.  I asked her if she was going to remain
in the neighbourhood.

"Really, I'm not quite sure.  I shall travel a little first.  Get into
the sunshine.  I hate this miserable climate.  Actually I think I shall
winter in Egypt.  I was there two years ago.  Such a wonderful country,
but I expect you know all about it."

I knew nothing about Egypt and said so.

"I expect you're just being modest," she said gaily and vaguely.  "This
is the dining-room.  It's octagonal.  That's right, isn't it?  No
corners."

I said she was quite right and praised the proportions.

Presently, the tour was completed, we returned to the drawing-room and
Mrs.  Tuckerton rang for tea.  It was brought in by the seedy-looking
manservant.  There was a vast Victorian silver teapot which could have
done with a clean.  Mrs.  Tuckerton sighed as he left the room.

"After my husband died, the married couple he had had for nearly twenty
years insisted on leaving.  They said they were retiring, but I heard
afterwards that they took another post.  A very highly-paid one.  I
think it's absurd, myself, to pay these high wages.  When you think
what servants' board and lodging costs to say nothing of their
laundry."

Yes, I thought, mean.  The pale eyes, the tight mouth avarice was
there.

There was no difficulty in getting Mrs.  Tuckerton to talk.  She liked
talking.  She liked, in particular, talking about herself.  Presently,
by listening with close attention, and uttering an encouraging word now
and then, I knew a good deal about Mrs.  Tuckerton.  I knew, too, more
than she was conscious of telling me.

I knew that she had married Thomas Tuckerton, a widower, five years
ago.  She had been 'much, much younger than he was."  She had met him
at a big seaside hotel where she had been a bridge hostess.  She was
not aware that that last fact had slipped out.  He had had a daughter
at school near there 'so difficult for a man to know what to do with a
girl when he takes her out.

"Poor Thomas, he was so lonely .. . His first wife had died some years
back and he missed her very much."

Mrs.  Tuckerton's picture of herself continued.  A gracious kindly
woman taking pity on this ageing lonely man.  His deteriorating health
and her devotion.

Though, of course, in the last stages of his illness I couldn't really
have any friends of my own."

Had there been, I wondered, some men friends whom Thomas Tuckerton had
thought undesirable?  It might explain the terms of his will.

Ginger had looked up the terms of his will for me at Somerset House.

Bequests to old servants, to a couple of godchildren, and then
provision for his wife sufficient, but not unduly generous.  A sum in
trust, the income to be enjoyed during her lifetime.  The residue of
his estate, which ran into a sum of six figures, to his daughter
Thomasina Ann, to be hers absolutely at the age of twenty-one, or on
her marriage.  If she died before twenty-one unmarried, the money was
to go to her stepmother.  There had been, it seemed, no other members
of the family.

The prize, I thought, had been a big one.  And Mrs.  Tuckerton liked
money ... It stuck out all over her.  She had never had any money of
her own, I was sure, till she married her elderly widower.  And then,
perhaps, it had gone to her head.  Hampered, in her life with an
invalid husband, she had looked forward to the time when she would be
free, still young, and rich beyond her wildest dreams.

The will, perhaps, had been a disappointment.  She had dreamed of
something better than a moderate income.  She had looked forward to
expensive travel, to luxury cruises, to clothes, jewels or possibly to
the sheer pleasure of money itself mounting up in the bank.

Instead the girl was to have all that money!  The girl was to be a
wealthy heiress.  The girl who, very likely, had disliked her
stepmother and shown it with the careless ruthlessness of youth.  The
girl was to be the rich one unless .. .

Unless .. .?  Was that enough?  Could I really believe that the
blonde-haired meretricious creature talking platitudes so glibly was
capable of seeking out the Pale Horse, and arranging for a young girl
to die?

No, I couldn't believe it ... Nevertheless, I must do my stuff.  I
said, rather abruptly:

"I believe, you know, I met your daughter stepdaughter once."

She looked at me in mild surprise, though without much interest.

Thomasina?  Did you?"

"Yes, in Chelsea."

"Oh, Chelsea!  Yes, it would be ..."  She sighed.  "These girls
nowadays.  So difficult.  One doesn't seem to have any control over
them.  It upset her father very much.  / couldn't do anything about it,
of course.  She never listened to anything / said."  She sighed again.
"She was nearly grown-up, you know, when we married.  A stepmother' she
shook her head.

"Always a difficult position," I said sympathetically.

"I made allowances did my best in every way."

"I'm sure you did."

"But it was absolutely no use.  Of course Tom wouldn't allow her to be
actually rude to me, but she sailed as near to the wind as she could.
She really made life quite impossible.  In a way it was a relief to me
when she insisted on leaving home, but I could quite understand how Tom
felt about it.  She got in with a most undesirable set."

"I rather gathered that," I said.

"Poor Thomasina," said Mrs.  Tuckerton.  She adjusted a stray lock of
blonde hair.  Then she looked at me.  "Oh, but perhaps you don't know.
She died about a month ago.  Encephalitis very sudden.  It's a disease
that attacks young people, I believe so sad."

"I did know she was dead," I said.

I got up.

"Thank you, Mrs.  Tuckerton, very much indeed for showing me your
house."  I shook hands.

Then as I moved away, I turned back.

"By the way," I said, "I think you know the Pale Horse, don't you?"

There wasn't any doubt of the reaction.  Panic, sheer panic, showed in
those pale eyes.  Beneath the make-up, her face was suddenly white and
afraid.

Her voice came shrill and high:

Tale Horse?  What do you mean by the Pale Horse?  I don't know anything
about the Pale Horse."

I let mild surprise show in my eyes.

"Oh my mistake.  There's a very interesting old pub in Much Deeping.  I
was down there the other day and was taken to see it.  It's been
charmingly converted, keeping all the atmosphere.  I certainly thought
your name was mentioned but perhaps it was your stepdaughter who had
been down there or someone else of the same name."  I paused.  "The
place has got quite a reputation."

I enjoyed my exit line.  In one of the mirrors on the wall I saw Mrs.
Tuckerton's face reflected.  She was staring after me.  She was very,
very frightened and I saw just how she would look in years to come ...
It was not a pleasant sight.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

"So now we're quite sure," said Ginger.

"We were sure before."

"Yes reasonably so.  But this does clinch it."

I was silent for a moment or two.  I was visualising Mrs.  Tuckerton
journeying to Birmingham.  Entering the Municipal Square Buildings
meeting Mr.  Bradley.  Her nervous apprehension ... his reassuring
bonhomie.  His skilful underlining of the lack of risk.  (He would have
had to underline that very hard with Mrs.  Tuckerton.) I could see her
going away, not committing herself.  Letting the idea take root in her
mind.  Perhaps she went to see her stepdaughter, or her stepdaughter
came home for a weekend.  There could have been talk, hints of
marriage. And all the time the thought of the MONEY not just a little
money, not a miserly pittance but lots of money, big money, money that
enabled you to do everything you had ever wanted!  And all going to
this degenerate, ill-mannered girl, slouching about in the coffee bars
of Chelsea in her jeans and her sloppy jumpers, with her undesirable
degenerate friends.  Why should a girl like that, a girl who was no
good and would never be any good, have all that beautiful money?

And so another visit to Birmingham.  More caution, more reassurance.
Finally, a discussion on terms.  I smiled involuntarily.  Mr.  Bradley
would not have had it all his own way.  She would have been a hard
bargainer.  But in the end, the terms had been agreed, some document
duly signed, and then what?

That was where imagination stopped.  That was what we didn't know.

I came out of my meditation to see Ginger watching me.

She asked: "Got it all worked out?"

"How did you know what I was doing?"

"I'm beginning to know the way your mind works.  You were working it
out, weren't you, following her to Birmingham and all the rest of
it?"

"Yes.  But I was brought up short.  At the moment when she had settled
things in Birmingham What happens next?"

We looked at each other.

"Sooner or later," said Ginger, 'someone has got to find out exactly
what happens at the Pale Horse."

"How?"

"I don't know ... It won't be easy.  Nobody who's actually been there,
who's actually done it, will ever tell.  At the same time, they're the
only people who can tell.  It's difficult ... I wonder .. ."

"We could go to the police?"  I suggested.

"Yes.  After all, we've got something fairly definite now.  Enough to
act upon, do you think?"

I shook my head doubtfully.

"Evidence of intent.  But is that enough?  It's this death wish
nonsense.  Oh," I forestalled her interruption, 'it mayn't be nonsense
but it would sound like it in court.  We've no idea, even, of what the
actual procedure is."

"Well, then, we've got to know.  But how?"

"One would have to see or hear with one's own eyes and ears.  But
there's absolutely no place one could hide oneself in that great barn
of a room and I suppose that's where it whatever "it" is must take
place."

Ginger sat up very straight, gave her head a kind of toss, rather like
an energetic terrier, and said:

"There's only one way to find out what does really happen.  You've got
to be a genuine client."

I stared at her.

"A genuine client?"

"Yes.  You or I, it doesn't matter which, has got to want somebody put
out of the way.  One of us has got to go to Bradley and fix it up."  "I
don't like it," I said sharply.

"Why?"

"Well it opens up dangerous possibilities."

"For us?"

"Perhaps.  But I was really thinking about the victim.  We've got to
have a victim we've got to give him a name.  It can't be just
invention. They might check up in fact, they'd almost certainly check
up, don't you agree?"

Ginger thought a minute and then nodded.

"Yes.  The victim's got to be a real person with a real address."
"That's what I don't like," I said.

"And we've got to have a real reason for getting rid of him."

We were silent for a moment, considering this aspect of the
situation.

"The person, whoever it was, would have to agree," I said slowly. "It's
a lot to ask."

"The whole set-up has got to be good," said Ginger, thinking it out.
"But there's one thing, you were absolutely right in what you were
saying the other day.  The weakness of the whole thing is that they're
in a cleft stick.  The business has got to be secret but not too
secret.  Possible clients have got to be able to hear about it."

"What puzzles me," I said, 'is that the police don't seem to have heard
about it.  After all, they're usually aware of what kind of criminal
activities are going on."

"Yes, but I think that the reason for that is, that this is in every
sense of the word, an amateur show.  It's not professional.  No
professional criminals are employed or involved  It's not like hiring
gangsters to bump people off.  It's all private."

I said that I thought she had something there.

Ginger went on:

"Suppose now that you, or I (we'll examine both possibilities), are
desperate to get rid of someone.  Now who is there that you and I could
want to do away with?  There's my dear old Uncle Mervyn I'll come into
a very nice packet when he pops off.  I and some cousin in Australia
are the only ones left of the family.  So there's a motive there.  But
he's over seventy and more or less ga-ga, so it would really seem more
sensible for me to wait for natural causes unless I was in some
terrible hole for money and that really would be quite difficult to
fake.  Besides, he's a pet, and I'm very fond of him, and ga-ga or not
ga-ga, he quite enjoys life, and I wouldn't want to deprive him of a
minute of it or even risk such a thing!  What about you?  Have you got
any relatives who are going to leave you money?"

I shook my head.

"No one at all."

"Bother.  It could be blackmail, perhaps?  That would take a lot of
fixing, though.  You're not really vulnerable enough.  If you were an
MP."  or in the Foreign Office, or an up and coming Minister it would
be different.  The same with me.  Fifty years ago it would have been
easy.  Compromising letters, or photographs in the altogether, but
really nowadays, who cares?  One can be like the Duke of Wellington and
say "Publish and be damned!"  Well, now, what else is there?  Bigamy?"
She fixed me with a reproachful stare.  "What a pity it is you've never
been married.  We could have cooked something up if you had."

Some expression on my face must have given me away.  Ginger was
quick.

"I'm sorry," she said.  "Have I raked up something that hurts?"

"No," I said.  "It doesn't hurt.  It was a long time ago, I rather
doubt if there's anyone now who knows about it."

"You married someone?"

"Yes.  Whilst I was at the University.  We kept it dark.  She wasn't
well, my people would have cut up rough.  I wasn't even of age.  We
lied about our ages."

I was silent a moment or two, reliving the past.

"It wouldn't have lasted," I said slowly.  "I know that now.  She was
pretty and she could be very sweet .. . but .. ."

"What happened?"

"We went to Italy in the long vacation.  There was an accident a car
accident.  She was killed outright."

"And you?"

"I wasn't in the car.  She was with a friend."

Ginger gave me a quick glance.  I think she understood the way it had
been.  The shock of my discovery that the girl I had married was not
the kind that makes a faithful wife.

Ginger reverted to practical matters.

"You were married in England?"

"Yes.  Registry office in Peterborough."

"But she died in Italy?"

"Yes."

"So there will be no record of her death in England?"

"No."

"Then what more do you want?  It's an answer to prayer!  Nothing could
be simpler!  You're desperately in love with someone and you want to
marry her but you don't know whether your wife is still alive.  You've
parted years ago and never heard from her since.  Dare you risk it?
While you're thinking it out, sudden reappearance of the wife!  She
turns up out of the blue, refuses to give you a divorce, and threatens
to go to your young woman and spill the beans."

"Who's my young woman?"  I asked, slightly confused.  "You?"

Ginger looked shocked.

"Certainly not.  I'm quite the wrong type I'd probably go and live in
sin with you.  No, you know quite well who I mean and she'll be exactly
right, I should say.  The statuesque brunette you go around with.  Very
highbrow and serious."

"Hermia Redcliffe?"

That's right.  Your steady."

"Who told you about her?"

"Poppy, of course.  She's rich, too, isn't she?"

"She's extremely well off.  But really '

"All right, all right.  I'm not saying you're marrying her for her
money.  You're not the kind.  But nasty minds like Bradley's could
easily think so ... Very well then.  Here's the position.  You are
about to pop the question to Hermia when up turns the unwanted wife
from the past.  She arrives in London and the fat's in the fire.  You
urge a divorce she won't play.  She's vindictive.  And then you hear of
the Pale Horse.  I'll bet anything you like that Thyrza, and that
half-witted peasant Bella, thought that that was why you came that day.
They took it as a tentative approach, and that's why Thyrza was so
forthcoming.  It was a sales talk they were giving you."

"It could have been, I suppose."  I went over that day in my mind.

"And your going to Bradley soon after fits in perfectly.  You're
hooked! You're a prospect '

She paused triumphantly.  There was something in what she said but I
didn't quite see ... "I still think," I said, 'that they'll investigate
very carefully."

"Sure to," Ginger agreed.

"It's all very well to invent a fictitious wife, resurrected from the
past but they'll want details- where she lives- all that.  And when I
try to hedge '

"You won't need to hedge.  To do the thing properly the wife has got to
be there and she will be there!"

"Brace yourself," said Ginger.  "I'm your wife!"

I stared at her.  Goggled, I suppose, would be a better term.  I
wonder, really, that she didn't burst out laughing.

I was just recovering myself when she spoke again.

"There's no need to be so taken aback," she said.  "It's not a
proposal."

I found my tongue.

"You don't know what you're saying."

"Of course I do.  What I'm suggesting is perfectly feasible and it has
the advantage of not dragging some innocent person into possible
danger."

"It's putting yourself in danger."

"That's my lookout."

"No, it isn't.  And anyway, it wouldn't hold water for a moment."

"Oh yes, it would.  I've been thinking it out.  I arrive at a furnished
flat, with a suitcase or two with foreign labels.  I take the flat in
the name of Mrs.  Easterbrook and who on earth is to say I'm not Mrs.
Easterbrook?"

"Anyone who knows you."

"Anyone who knows me won't see me.  I'm away from my job, ill.  A spot
of hair dye what was your wife, by the way, dark or blonde?  not that
it really matters."

"Dark," I said mechanically.

"Good, I'd hate a bleach.  Different clothes and lots of make-up, and
my best friend wouldn't look at me twice!  And since you haven't had a
wife in evidence for the last fifteen years or so no one's likely to
spot that I'm not her.  Why should anyone in the Pale Horse doubt that
I'm who I say I am?  If you're prepared to sign papers wagering large
sums of money that I'll stay alive, there's not likely to be any doubt
as to my being the bona fide article.  You're not connected with the
police in any way you're a genuine client.  They can verify the
marriage by looking up old records in Somerset House.  They can check
up on your friendship with Hermia and all that so why should there by
any doubts?"

"You don't realise the difficulties the risk."

"Risk Hell!"  said Ginger.  "I'd love to help you win a miserly hundred
pounds or whatever it is from that shark Bradley."

I looked at her.  I liked her very much .. . Her red hair, her
freckles, her gallant spirit.  But I couldn't let her take the risks
she wanted to take.

"I can't stand for it, Ginger," I said.  "Suppose something
happened."

"To me?"

"Yes."

"Isn't that my affair?"

"No.  I got you in on all this."

She nodded thoughtfully.

"Yes, perhaps you did.  But who got there first doesn't matter much.
We're both in it now and we've got to do something.  I'm being serious
now, Mark.  I'm not pretending this is all just fun.  If what we
believe to be true is true, it's a sickening beastly thing.  And it's
got to be stopped.  You see, it's not hot-blooded murder, from hate or
jealousy; it's not even murder from cupidity, the human frailty of
murder for gain but taking the risk yourself.  It's murder as a
business murder that takes no account of who or what the victim may
be.

"That is," she added, 'if the whole thing is true?"

She looked at me in momentary doubt.  "It is true," I said.  "That's
why I'm afraid for you."

Ginger put both elbows on the table, and began to argue.

We thrashed it out, to and fro, ding dong, repeating ourselves whilst
the hands of the clock on my mantelpiece moved slowly round.  Finally
Ginger summed up.

"It's like this.  I'm forewarned and forearmed.  I know what someone is
trying to do to me.  And I don't believe for one moment she can do it!
If everyone's got a "desire for death" mine isn't well developed!  I've
good health.  And I simply cannot believe that I'll develop gallstones,
or meningitis just because old Thyrza draws penta grams on the floor,
or Sybil throws a trance or whatever it is those women do do."

"Bella sacrifices a white cock, I should imagine," I said
thoughtfully.

"You must admit it's all terribly bogus!"

"We don't know what actually does happen," I pointed out.

"No.  Thai's why it's important to find out.  But do you believe,
really believe, that because of what three woman can do in the barn of
the Pale Horse, I, in a flat in London, will develop some fatal
disease?  You can't!"

"No," I said.  "I can't believe it.

"But," I added.  "I do .. ."

We looked at each other.

"Yes," said Ginger.  "That's our weakness."  "Look here," I said.
"Let's make it the other way round.  Let me be the one in London.  You
be the client.  We can cook up something '

But Ginger was vigorously shaking her head.

"No, Mark," she said.  "It won't work that way.  For several reasons.
The most important is that I'm known at the Pale Horse already as my
carefree self.  They could get all the dope about my life from Rhoda
and there's nothing there.  But you are in the ideal position already
you're a nervous client, sniffing around, not able yet to commit
yourself.  No, it's got to be this way."

"I don't like it.  I don't like to think of you alone in some place
under a false name with nobody to keep an eye on you.  I think, before
we embark on this, we ought to go to the police now before we try
anything else."

"I'm agreeable to that," said Ginger slowly.  "In fact I think it's
what you ought to do.  You've got something to go on.  What police?
Scotland Yard?"

"No," I said.  "I think Divisional Detective-Inspector Lejeune is the
best bet."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

I liked Divisional Detective-Inspector Lejeune at first sight.  He had
an air of quiet ability.  I thought, too, that he was an imaginative
man the kind of man who would be willing to consider possibilities that
were not orthodox.

He said:

"Dr.  Corrigan has told me of his meeting with you.  He's taken a great
interest in this business from the first.  Father Gorman, of course,
was very well known and respected in the district.  Now you say you
have some special information for us?"

"It concerns," I said, 'a place called the Pale Horse."

"In, I understand, a village called Much Deeping?"

"Yes."

Tell me about it."

I told him of the first mention of the Pale Horse at the Fantasie. Then
I described my visit to Rhoda, and my introduction to the 'three weird
sisters'.  I related, as accurately as I could, Thyrza Grey's
conversation on that particular afternoon.  "And you were impressed by
what she said?"

I felt embarrassed.

"Well, not really.  I mean, I didn't seriously believe'

"Didn't you, Mr.  Easterbrook?  I rather think you did."

"I suppose you're right.  One just doesn't like admitting how credulous
one is."

Lejeune smiled.

"But you've left something out, haven't you?  You were already
interested when you came to Much Deeping why?"

"I think it was the girl looking so scared."

"The young lady in the flower shop?"

"Yes.  She'd thrown out her remark about the Pale Horse so casually.
Her being so scared seemed to underline the fact that there was well,
something to be scared about.  And then I met Dr.  Corrigan and he told
me about the list of names.  Two of them I already knew.  Both were
dead.  A third name seemed familiar.  Afterwards I found that she, too,
had died."

"That would be Mrs.  Delafontaine?"

"Yes."

"Goon."

"I made up my mind that I'd got to find out more about this
business."

"And you set about it.  How?"

I told him of my call on Mrs.  Tuckerton.  Finally I came to Mr.
Bradley and the Municipal Square Buildings in Birmingham.

I had his full interest now.  He repeated the name.

"Bradley," he said.  "So Bradley's in this?"

"You know him?"

"Oh yes, we know all about Mr.  Bradley.  He's given us a lot of
trouble.  He's a smooth dealer, an adept at never doing anything that
we can pin on him.  He knows every trick and dodge of the legal game.
He's always just on the right side of the line.  He's the kind of man
who could write a book like those old cookery books, "A hundred ways of
evading the law."  But murder, such a thing as organised murder I
should have said that that was right off his beat.  Yes right off his
beat '

"Now that I've told you about our conversation, could you act upon
it?"

Lejeune slowly shook his head.

"No, we couldn't act on it.  To begin with, there were no witnesses to
your conversation.  It was just between the two of you and he could
deny the whole thing if he wanted to!  Apart from that, he was quite
right when he told you that a man can bet on anything.  He bets
somebody won't die and he loses.  What is there criminal about that?
Unless we can connect Bradley in some way with the actual crime in
question and that, I imagine, will not be easy."

He left it with a shrug of his shoulders.  He paused a minute and then
said,

"Did you, by any chance, come across a man called Venables when you
were down in Much Deeping?"

"Yes," I said, "I did.  I was taken over to lunch with him one day."

"Ah!  What impression, if I may ask, did he make upon you?"

"A very powerful impression.  He's a man of great personality.  An
invalid."

"Yes.  Crippled by polio."

"He can only move about in a wheeled chair.  But his disability seems
to have heightened his determination to live and enjoy living."

"Tell me all you can about him."

I described Venables's house, his art treasures, the range and sweep of
his interests.

Lejeune said:

"It's a pity."

"What is a pity?"

He said drily: "That Venables is a cripple."

"Excuse me, but you are quite certain he really is a cripple?  He
couldn't be well faking the whole thing?"

"We're as sure of his being a cripple as one can be sure of anything.
His doctor is Sir William Dugdale of Harley Street, a man absolutely
above suspicion.  We have Sir William's assurance that the limbs are
atrophied.  Our little Mr.  Osborne may be certain that Venables was
the man he saw walking along Barton Street that night.  But he's
wrong."

"I see."

"As I say, it's a pity, because if there is such a thing as an
organisation for private murder, Venables is the kind of man who would
be capable of planning it."

"Yes; that's what I thought."

With his forefinger Lejeune traced interlacing circles on the table in
front of him.  Then he looked up sharply.

"Let's assemble what we've got; adding to our own knowledge the
knowledge you've brought us.  It seems reasonably certain that there is
some agency or organisation that specialises in what one might call the
removal of unwanted persons.  There's nothing crude about the
organisation.  It doesn't employ ordinary thugs or gunmen .. . There's
nothing to show that the victims haven't died a perfectly natural
death.  I may say that in addition to the three deaths you've
mentioned, we've got a certain amount of rather indefinite information
about some of the others deaths were from natural causes in each
instance, but there were those who profited by these deaths.  No
evidence, mind you.

"It's clever, damnably clever, Mr.  Easterbrook.  Whoever thought it
out and it's been thought out in great detail has brains.  We've only
got hold of a few scattered names.  Heaven knows how many more of them
there are how widespread the whole thing may be.  And we've only got
the few names we have got, by the accident of a woman knowing herself
to be dying, and wanting to make her peace with heaven."

He shook his head angrily, and then went on:

"This woman, Thyrza Grey; you say she boasted to you about her powers!
Well, she can do so with impunity.  Charge her with murder, put her in
the dock, let her trumpet to heaven and a jury that she has released
people from the toils of this world by will power or weaving spells or
what have you.  She wouldn't be guilty according to the law.  She's
never been near the people who died, we've checked on that, she hasn't
sent them poisoned chocolates through the post or anything of that
kind.  According to her own account, she just sits in a room and
employs telepathy!  Why, the whole thing would be laughed out of
Court!"

I murmured:

"But Lu and Aengus laugh not.  Nor any in the high celestial House."

"What's that?"

"Sorry.  A quotation from the "Immortal Hour"."

"Well, it's true enough.  The devils in Hell are laughing but not the
Host of Heaven.  It's an an evil business, Mr.  Easterbrook."

"Yes," I said.  "It's a word that we don't use very much nowadays.  But
it's the only word applicable here.  That's why '

"Yes?"

Lejeune looked at me inquiringly.

I spoke.in a rush.  "I think there's a chance a possible chance of
getting to know a bit more about all this.  I and a friend of mine have
worked out a plan.  You may think it very silly'

I'll be the judge of that."

"First of all, I take it from what you've said, that you are sure in
your mind that there is such an organisation as the one we've been
discussing, and that it works?"

"It certainly works."  "But you don't know how it works?  The first
steps are already formulated.  The individual I call the client hears
vaguely about this organisation, gets to know more about it, is sent to
Mr.  Bradley in Birmingham, and decides that he will go ahead.  He
enters into some agreement with Bradley, and then is, or so I presume,
sent to the Pale Horse.  But what happens after that, we don't know!
What, exactly, happens at the Pale Horse?  Somebody's got to go and
find out."

"Go on."

"Because until we do know, exactly, what Thyrza Grey actually does, we
can't get any further Your police doctor, Jim Corrigan, says the whole
idea is poppycock but is it?  Inspector Lejeune, is it?"

Lejeune sighed.

"You know what I'd answer what any sane person would answer the answer
would be "Yes, of course it is!"  but I'm speaking now unofficially.
Very odd things have happened during the last hundred years.  Would
anyone have believed seventy years ago that a person could hear Big Ben
strike twelve on a little box and, after it had finished striking, hear
it again with his own ears through the window, from the actual clock
itself and no jiggery pokery.  But Big Ben struck once not twice the
sound was brought to the ears of the person by two different kinds of
waves!  Would you believe you could hear a man speaking in New York in
your own drawing-room, without so much as a connecting wire?  Would you
have believed ?  Oh!  a dozen other things things that are now everyday
knowledge that a child gabbles off!"

"In other words, anything's possible?"

"That's what I mean.  If you ask me if Thyrza Grey can kill someone by
rolling her eyes or going into a trance, or projecting her will, I
still say "No."  But I'm not sure How can I be?  If she's stumbled on
something '

"Yes," I said.  "The supernatural seems supernatural.  But the science
of tomorrow is the supernatural of today."

"I'm not talking officially, mind," Lejeune warned me.

"Man, you're talking sense.  And the answer is someone has got to go
and see what actually happens.  That's what I propose to do go and
see."

Lejeune stared at me.

"The way's already paved," I said.

I settled down then, and told him about it.  I told him exactly what I
and a friend of mine planned to do.

He listened, frowning and pulling at his lower lip.

"Mr.  Easterbrook, I see your point.  Circumstances have, so to speak,
given you the entree.  But I don't know whether you fully realise that
what you are proposing to do may be dangerous these are dangerous
people.  It may be dangerous for you but it will certainly be dangerous
for your friend."

"I know," I said, "I know .. . We've been over it a hundred times.  I
don't like her playing the part she's going to play.  But she's
determined absolutely determined.  Damn it all, she wants to!"

Lejeune said unexpectedly:

"She's a red-head, didn't you say?"

"Yes," I said, startled.

"You can never argue with a red-head," said Lejeune.  "Don't I know
it!"

I wondered if his wife was one.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

I felt absolutely no nervousness on my second visit to Bradley.  In
fact, I enjoyed it.

"Think yourself into the part," Ginger urged me, before I set off, and
that was exactly what I tried to do.

Mr.  Bradley greeted me with a welcoming smile.

"Very pleased to see you," he said, advancing a podgy hand.  "So you've
been thinking your little problem over, have you?  Well, as I said, no
hurry.  Take your time."

I said, "That's just what I can't do.  It's well it's rather urgent ..
."

Bradley looked me over.  He noted my nervous manner, the way I avoided
his eyes, the clumsiness of my hands as I dropped my hat.

"Well, well," he said.  "Let's see what we can do about things.  You
want to have a little bet on something, is that it?  Nothing like a
sporting flutter to take one's mind off one's er troubles."

"It's like this' I said, and came to a dead stop.

I left it to Bradley to do his stuff.  He did it.

"I see you're a bit nervous," he said.  "Cautious.  I approve of
caution.  Never say anything your mother shouldn't hear about!  Now,
perhaps you have some idea that this office of mine might have a bug in
it?"

I didn't understand and my face showed it.

"Slang term for a microphone," he explained.  "Tape recorders.  All
that sort of thing.  No, I give you my personal word of honour that
there's nothing of that sort here.  Our conversation will not be
recorded in any way.  And if you don't believe me," his candour was
quite engaging 'and why should you?  you've a perfect right to name a
place of your own, a restaurant, the waiting-room in one of our dear
English railway stations; and we'll discuss the matter there
instead."

I said that I was sure it was quite all right here.

"Sensible!  That sort of thing wouldn't pay us, I assure you.  Neither
you nor I is going to say a word that, in legal parlance, could be
"used against us".  Now let's start this way.  There's something
worrying you.  You find me sympathetic and you feel you'd like to tell
me about it.  I'm a man of experience and I might be able to advise
you.  A trouble shared is a trouble halved, as they say.  Suppose we
put it like that?"

We put it like that, and I stumbled into my story.

Mr.  Bradley was very adroit.  He prompted; eased over difficult words
and phrases.  So good was he, that I felt no difficulty at all in
telling him about my youthful infatuation for Doreen and our secretive
marriage.

"Happens so often," he said, shaking his head.  "So often.
Understandable!  Young man with ideals.  Genuinely pretty girl.  And
there you are.  Man and wife before you can say Jack Robinson.  And
what comes of it?"

I went on to tell him what came of it.

Here I was purposefully vague over details.  The man I was trying to
present would not have gone into sordid details.  I presented only a
picture of disillusionment a young fool realising that he had been a
young fool.

I let it be assumed that there had been a final quarrel.  If Bradley
took it that my young wife had gone off with another man, or that there
had been another man in the offing all along that was good enough.

"But you know," I said anxiously, 'although she wasn't well, wasn't
quite what I thought her, she was really a very sweet girl.  I'd never
have thought that she'd be like this that she'd behave like this, I
mean."

"What exactly has she been doing to you?"

What my 'wife' had done to me, I explained, was to come back.

"What did you think happened to her?"

"I suppose it seems extraordinary but I really didn't think.  Actually,
I suppose, I assumed she must be dead."

Bradley shook his head at me.

"Wishful thinking.  Wishful thinking.  Why should she be dead?"

"She never wrote or anything.  I never heard from her."

The truth is you wanted to forget all about her."

He was a psychologist in his way, this beady-eyed little lawyer.

"Yes," I said gratefully.  "You see, it wasn't as though I wanted to
marry someone else."

"But you do now, eh, is that it?"

"Well' I showed reluctance.

"Come now, tell Papa," said the odious Bradley.

I admitted, shamefacedly, that, yes, lately, I had considered marrying
.. . But I stuck my toes in and refused firmly to give him any details
about the girl in question.  I wasn't going to have her brought into
this.  I wasn't going to tell him a thing about her.

Again, I think my reaction here was the correct one.  He did not
insist.  Instead he said:

"Quite natural, my dear sir.  You've got over your nasty experience in
the past.  You've found someone, no doubt, thoroughly suited to you.
Able to share your literary tastes and your way of life.  A true
companion."

I saw then that he knew about Hermia.  It would have been easy.  Any
inquiries made about me would have revealed the fact that I had only
one close woman friend.  Bradley, since receiving my letter making the
appointment, must have found out all about me, all about Hermia.  He
was fully briefed.

"What about divorce?"  he asked.  "Isn't that the natural solution?"

I said: "There's no question of divorce.  She my wife won't hear of
it!"

"Dear, dear.  What is her attitude towards you, if I may ask?"

"Sheer she wants to come back to me.  She she's utterly unreasonable.
She knows there's someone, and and '

"Acting nasty ... I see ... Doesn't look as though there's any way out,
unless of course .. . But she's quite young .. ."

"She'll live for years," I said bitterly.  "Oh, but you never know, Mr.
Easterbrook.  She's been living abroad, you say?"

"So she tells me.  I don't know where she's been."

"May have been out East.  Sometimes, you know, you pick up a germ out
in those parts dormant for years!  And then you came back home, and
suddenly it blows up.  I've known two or three cases like that.  Might
happen in this case.  If it will cheer you up," he paused, "I'd bet a
small amount on it."

I shook my head.

"She'll live for years."

"Well, the odds are on your side, I admit .. . But let's have a wager
on it.  Fifteen hundred to one the lady dies between now and Christmas:
how's that?"  "Sooner!  It will have to be sooner.  I can't wait. 
There are things '

I was purposely incoherent.  I don't know whether he thought that
matters between Hermia and myself had gone so far that I couldn't stall
for time or that my 'wife' threatened to go to Hermia and make trouble.
He may have thought that there was another man making a play for
Hermia.  I didn't mind what he thought.  I wanted to stress urgency.

"Alter the odds a bit," he said.  "We'll say eighteen hundred to one
your wife's a goner in under a month.  I've got a sort of feeling about
it."

I thought it was time to bargain and I bargained.  Protested that I
hadn't got that amount of money.  Bradley was skilful.  He knew, by
some means or other, just what sum I could raise in an emergency.  He
knew that Hermia had money.  His delicate hint that later, when I was
married, I wouldn't feel the loss of my bet, was proof of that.
Moreover, my urgency put him in a fine position.  He wouldn't come
down.  When I left him the fantastic wager was laid and accepted.

I signed some form of IOU.  The phraseology was too full of legal
phrases for me to understand.  Actually I very much doubted that it had
any legal significance whatever.

"Is this legally binding?"  I asked him.

"I don't think," said Mr.  Bradley, showing his excellent dentures,
'that it will ever be put to the test."  His smile was not a very nice
one.  "A bet's a bet.  If a man doesn't pay up '

I looked at him.

"I shouldn't advise it," he said softly.  "No, I shouldn't advise it.
We don't like welshers."

"I shan't welsh," I said.

"I'm sure you won't, Mr.  Easterbrook.  Now for the er arrangements.
Mrs.  Easterbrook, you say, is in London.  Where, exactly?"

"Do you have to know?"

"I have to have full details the next thing to do is to arrange an
appointment with Miss Grey you remember Miss Grey?"

I said of course I remembered Miss Grey.

"An amazing woman.  Really an amazing woman.  Most gifted.  She'll want
something your wife has worn a glove handkerchief anything like that
'

"But why?  In the name of '

"I know, I know.  Don't ask me why.  I've not the least idea.  Miss
Grey keeps her secrets to herself."

"But what happens?  What does she do?

"You really must believe me, Mr.  Easterbrook, when I tell you that
honestly I haven't the least idea!  I don't know and what is more, /
don't want to know let's leave it at that."

He paused, and then went on in an almost fatherly tone.

"My advice is as follows, Mr.  Easterbrook.  Pay a visit to your wife.
Soothe her down, let her think that you're coming round to the idea of
a reconciliation.  I should suggest that you have to go abroad for a
few weeks, but that on your return etc."  etc..  .."  "And then?"

"Having purloined a trifle of daily wear in an unobtrusive manner, you
will go down to Much Deeping."  He paused thoughtfully.  "Let me see. I
think you mentioned on your previous visit that you had friends
relations- in the neighbourhood?"

"A cousin."

"That makes it very simple.  This cousin will doubtless put you up for
a day or so."

"What do most people do?  Stay at the local inn?"

"Sometimes, I believe or they motor over from Bournemouth.  Something
of that kind but I know very little about the matter."

"What eris my cousin likely to think?"

"You express yourself as intrigued by the inhabitants of the Pale
Horse.  You want to participate in a seance there.  Nothing can sound
simpler.  Miss Grey and her medium friend often indulge in seances. You
know what spiritualists are.  You go protesting that of course it's
nonsense, but that it will interest you.  That is all, Mr. Easterbrook.
 As you see, nothing can be simpler '

"And and, after that?"

He shook his head smiling.

"That's all I can tell you.  All, in fact, that I know.  Miss Thyrza
Grey will then be in charge.  Don't forget to take the glove, or
handkerchief, or whatever it is with you.

Afterwards, I would suggest that you take a little trip abroad.  The
Italian Riviera is very pleasant at this time of year.  Just for a week
or two, say."

I said that I didn't want to go abroad.  I said I wanted to stay in
England.

"Very well, then, but definitely not London.  No, I must strongly
advise, not London."

"Why not?"

Mr.  Bradley looked at me reprovingly.

"Clients are guaranteed complete er safety," he said.  '// they obey
orders."

"What about Bournemouth?  Would Bournemouth do?"

"Yes, Bournemouth would be adequate.  Stay at a hotel, make a few
acquaintances, be seen in their company.  The blameless life that is
what we aim at.  You can always go on to Torquay if you get tired of
Bournemouth."

He spoke with the affability of a travel agent.

Once again I had to shake his podgy hand.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

"Are you really going to a seance at Thyrza's?"  Rhoda demanded.

"Why not?"

"I never knew you were interested in that sort of thing, Mark."

"I'm not really," I said truthfully.  "But it's such a queer set-up,
those three.  I'm curious to see what sort of a show they put on."

I did not find it really easy to put on a light manner.  Out of the
tail of my eye, I saw Hugh Despard looking at me thoughtfully.  He was
a shrewd man, with an adventurous life behind him.  One of those men
who have a kind of sixth sense where dang eris concerned.  I think he
scented its presence now realised that something more important than
idle curiosity was at stake.

"Then I shall come with you," said Rhoda gleefully.  "I've always
wanted to go."

"You'll do nothing of the sort, Rhoda," growled Despard.

"But I don't really believe in spirits and all that, Hugh.  You know I
don't.  I just want to go for the fun of it!"

"That sort of business isn't fun," said Despard.  "There may be
something genuine to it, there probably is.  But it doesn't have a good
effect on people who go out of "idle curiosity"."

"Then you ought to dissuade Mark, too."

"Mark's not my responsibility," said Despard.

But again he gave me that quick sidelong look.  He knew, I was quite
sure, that I had a purpose.

Rhoda was annoyed, but she got over it, and when we chanced to meet
Thyrza Grey in the village a little later that morning, Thyrza herself
was blunt upon the matter.

"Hallo, Mr.  Easterbrook, we're expecting you this evening.  Hope we
can put on a good show for you.  Sybil's a wonderful medium, but one
never knows beforehand what results one will get.  So you mustn't be
disappointed.  One thing I do ask you.  Keep an open mind.  An honest
inquirer is always welcome but a frivolous, scoffing approach is
bad."

"I wanted to come too," said Rhoda.  "But Hugh is so frightfully
prejudiced.  You know what he's like."

"I wouldn't have had you, anyway," said Thyrza.  "One outsider is quite
enough."

She turned to me.

"Suppose you come and have a light meal with us first," she said.  "We
never eat much before a seance.  About seven o'clock?  Good, we'll be
expecting you."

She nodded, smiled, and strode briskly away.  I stared after her, so
engrossed in my surmises, that I entirely missed what Rhoda was saying
to me.  "What did you say?  I'm sorry."

"You've been very odd lately, Mark.  Ever since you arrived.  Is
anything the matter?"

"No, of course not.  What should be the matter?"  "Have you got stuck
with the book?  Something like that?"

"The book?"  Just for a moment I couldn't remember anything about the
book.  Then I said hastily, "Oh yes, the book.  It's getting on more or
less all right."

"I believe you're in love," said Rhoda accusingly.  "Yes, that's it.
Being in love has a very bad effect on men it seems to addle their
wits.  Now women are just the opposite on top of the world, looking
radiant and twice as good looking as usual.  Funny, isn't it, that it
should suit women, and only make a man look like a sick sheep?"

"Thank you!"  I said.

"Oh, don't be cross with me, Mark.  I think it's a very good thing
really and I'm delighted.  She's really very nice."

"Who's nice?"

"Hermia Redcliffe, of course.  You seem to think I know nothing about
anything.  I've seen it coming on for ages.  And she really is just the
person for you good-looking and clever; absolutely suitable."

"That," I said, 'is one of the cattiest things you could say about
anyone."

Rhoda looked at me.

"It is rather," she said.

She turned away and said she had to go and give a pep talk to the
butcher.  I said that I would go and pay a call at the vicarage.

"But not' - I forestalled any comment 'in order to ask the vicar to put
the banns up!"

ii

Coming to the vicarage was like coming home.

The front door was hospitably open, and as I stepped inside I was
conscious of a burden slipping from my shoulders.

Mrs.  Dane Calthrop came through a door at the back of the hall,
carrying for some reason unfathomable to me an enormous plastic pail of
bright green.

"Hallo, it's you," she said.  "I thought it would be."

She handed me the pail.  I had no idea what to do with it and stood
looking awkward.

"Outside the door, on the step," said Mrs.  Calthrop impatiently, as
though I ought to have known.

I obeyed.  Then I followed her into the same dark shabby room we had
sat in before.  There was a rather moribund fire there, but Mrs.  Dane
Calthrop poked it into flame and dumped a log on it.  Then she motioned
me to sit down, plumped down herself, and fixed me with a bright
impatient eye.  "Well?"  she demanded.  "What have you done?"

From the vigour of her manner we might have had a train to catch.

"You told me to do something.  I am doing something."

"Good.  What?"

I told her.  I told her everything.  In some unspoken way I told her
things I did not quite know myself.

"Tonight?"  said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop thoughtfully.

"Yes."

She was silent for a minute, obviously thinking.  Unable to help myself
I blurted out,

"I don't like it.  My God, I don't like it."

"Why should you?"

That, of course, was unanswerable.

Tm so horribly afraid for her."

She looked at me kindly.

"You don't know," I said, 'how how brave she is.  If, in some way, they
manage to harm her .. ."

Mrs.  Dane Calthrop said slowly:

"I don't see I really don't see how they can harm her in the way you
mean."

"But they have harmed other people."

"It would seem so, yes .. ."  She sounded dissatisfied.

"In any other way, she will be all right.  We've taken every imaginable
precaution.  No material harm can happen to her."

"But it's material harm that these people claim to be able to produce,"
Mrs.  Dane Calthrop pointed out.  "They claim to be able to work
through the mind on the body.  Illness disease.  Very interesting if
they can.  But quite horrible!  And it's got to be stopped, as we've
already agreed."

"But she's the one who's taking the risk," I muttered.  "Someone has
to," said Mrs.  Dale Calthrop calmly.  "It upsets your pride, that it
shouldn't be you.  You've got to swallow that.  Ginger's ideally suited
for the part she's playing.  She can control her nerves and she's
intelligent.  She won't let you down."

"I'm not worrying about that!'

"Well, stop worrying at all.  It won't do her any good.  Don't let's
shirk the issue.  If she dies as a result of this experiment, then she
dies in a good cause."

"My God, you're brutal!"

"Somebody has to be," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.  "Always envisage the
worst.  You've no idea how that steadies the nerves.  You begin at once
to be sure that it can't be as bad as what you imagine."

She nodded at me reassuringly.

"You may be right," I said doubtfully.

Mrs.  Dane Calthrop said with complete certainty that of course she was
right.

I proceeded to details.

"You're on the telephone here?"

"Naturally."

I explained what I wanted to do.

"After this this business tonight is over, I may want to keep in close
touch with Ginger.  Ring her up every day.  If I could telephone from
here?"  "Of course.  Too much coming and going at Rhoda's.  You want to
be sure of not being overheard."

"I shall stay on at Rhoda's for a bit.  Then perhaps go to Bournemouth.
I'm not supposed to go back to London."

"No use looking ahead," Mrs.  Dane Calthrop said.  "Not beyond
tonight."

"Tonight .. ."  I got up.  I said a thing that was out of character.
"Pray for me for us," I said.

"Naturally," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop, surprised that I should need to
ask.

As I went out of the front door a sudden curiosity made me say,

"Why the pail?  What's it for?"

"The pail?  Oh, it's for the schoolchildren, to pick berries and leaves
from the hedges for the church.  Hideous, isn't it, but so handy."

I looked out over the richness of the autumn world.  Such soft still
beauty .. . "Angels and Ministers of grace defend us," I said.

"Amen," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.

in

My reception at the Pale Horse was conventional in the extreme.  I
don't know what particular atmospheric effect I had expected but it was
not this.

Thyrza Grey, wearing a plain dark wool dress, opened the door, said in
a businesslike tone: "Ah, here you are.  Good.  We'll have supper
straight away '

Nothing could have been more matter-of-fact, more completely ordinary
.. .

The table was laid for a simple meal at the end of the panelled hall.
We had soup, an omelette, and cheese.  Bella waited on us.  She wore a
black stuff dress and looked more than ever like one of the crowd in an
Italian primitive.  Sybil struck a more exotic note.  She had on a long
dress of some woven peacock-coloured fabric, shot with gold.  Her beads
were absent on this occasion, but she had two heavy gold bracelets
clasping her wrists.  She ate a minute portion of omelette but nothing
else.  She spoke little, treating us to a far-away
wrapped-up-in-higher-things mood.  It ought to have been impressive.
Actually it was not.  The effect was theatrical and unreal.

Thyrza Grey provided what conversation there was a brisk chatty
commentary on local happenings.  She was this evening the British
country spinster to the life, pleasant, efficient, uninterested in
anything beyond her immediate surroundings.

I thought to myself, I'm mad, completely mad.  What is there to fear
here?  Even Bella seemed to-night only a half-witted old peasant ^
woman like hundreds of other women of her kind inbred, untouched by
education or a broader outlook.

My conversation with Mrs.  Dane Calthrop seemed fantastic in
retrospect.  We had worked ourselves up to imagine goodness knows what.
The idea of Ginger- Ginger with her dyed hair and assumed name being in
danger from anything these three very ordinary women could do, was
positively ludicrous!

The meal came to an end.

"No coffee," said Thyrza apologetically.  "One doesn't want to be
overstimulated."  She rose.  "Sybil?"

"Yes," said Sybil, her face taking on what she clearly thought was an
ecstatic and other-world expression.  "I must go and PREPARE

Bella began to clear the table.  I wandered over to where the old inn
sign hung.  Thyrza followed me.

"You can't really see it at all by this light," she said.

That was quite true.  The faint pale image against the dark encrusted
grime of the panel could hardly be distinguished as that of a horse.
The hall was lit by feeble electric bulbs shielded by thick vellum
shades.

"That red-haired girl what's her name?  Ginger something who was
staying down here said she'd do a spot of cleaning and restoring on
it," said Thyrza.  "Don't suppose she'll ever remember about it,
though."  She added casually, "She works for some gallery or other in
London."

It gave me a strange feeling to hear Ginger referred to lightly and
casually.

I said, staring at the picture:

"It might be interesting."

"It's not a good painting, of course," said Thyrza.  "Just a daub.  But
it goes with the place and it's certainly well over three hundred years
old."

"Ready."

We wheeled abruptly.

Bella, emerging out of the gloom, was beckoning.

"Time to get on with things," said Thyrza, still brisk and
matter-of-fact.

I followed her as she led the way out to the converted barn.

As I have said, there was no entrance to it from the house.  It was a
dark overcast night, no stars.  We came out of the dense outer
blackness into the long lighted room.

The barn, by night, was transformed.  By day it had seemed a pleasant
library.  Now it had become something more.  There were lamps, but
these were not turned on.  The lighting was indirect and flooded the
room with a soft but cold light.  In the centre of the floor was a kind
of raised bed or divan.  It was spread with a purple cloth, embroidered
with various cabbalistic signs.

On the far side of the room was what appeared to be a small brazier,
and next to it a big copper basin an old one by the look of it.

On the other side, set back almost touching the wall, was a heavy
oak-backed chair.  Thyrza motioned me towards it.

"Sit there," she said.

I sat obediently.  Thyrza's manner had changed.  The odd thing was that
I could not define exactly in what the change consisted.  There was
none of Sybil's spurious occultism about it.  It was more as though an
everyday curtain of normal trivial life had been lifted.  Behind it was
the real woman, displaying something of the manner of a surgeon
approaching the operating table for a difficult and dangerous
operation.  This impression was heightened when she went to a cupboard
in the wall and took from it what appeared to be a kind of long
overall.  It seemed to be made, when the light caught it, of some
metallic woven tissue.  She drew on long gauntlets of what looked like
a kind of fine mesh rather resembling a 'bullet-proof vest' I had once
been shown.

"One has to take precautions," she said.

The phrase struck me as slightly sinister.

Then she addressed me in an emphatic deep voice.

"I must impress upon you, Mr.  Easterbrook, the necessity of remaining
absolutely still where you are.  On no account must you move from that
chair.  It might not be safe to do so.  This is no child's game.  I am
dealing with forces that are dangerous to those who do not know how to
handle them!"  She paused and then asked, "You have brought what you
were instructed to bring?"

Without a word, I drew from my pocket a brown suede glove and handed it
to her.

She took it and moved over to a metal lamp with a gooseneck shade.  She
switched on the lamp and held the glove under its rays which were of a
peculiar sickly colour, turning the glove from its rich brown to a
characterless grey.

She switched off the lamp, nodding in approval.

"Most suitable," she said.  "The physical emanations from its wearer
are quite strong."

She put it down on top of what appeared to be a large radio cabinet at
the end of the room.  Then she raised her voice a little.  "Bella.
Sybil.  We are ready."

Sybil came in first.  She wore a long black cloak over her peacock
dress.  This she flung aside with a dramatic gesture.  It slid down,
looking like an inky pool on the floor.  She came forward.

"I do hope it will be all right," she said.  "One never knows.  Please
don't adopt a sceptical frame of mind, Mr.  Easterbrook.  It does so
hinder things."

"Mr.  Easterbrook has not come here to mock," said Thyrza.

There was a certain grimness in her tone.

Sybil lay down on the purple divan.  Thyrza bent over her, arranging
her draperies.

"Quite comfortable?"  she asked solicitously.

"Yes, thank you, dear."

Thyrza switched off some lights.  Then she wheeled up what was, in
effect, a kind of canopy on wheels.  This she placed so that it
overshadowed the divan and left Sybil in a deep shadow in the middle of
outlying dim twilight.

Too much light is harmful to a complete trance," she said.

"Now, I think, we are ready.  Bella?"

Bella came out of the shadows.  The two women approached me.  With her
right hand Thyrza took my left.  Her left hand took Bella's right.
Bella's left hand found my right hand.  Thyrza's hand was dry and hard,
Bella's was cold and boneless it felt like a slug in mine and I
shivered in revulsion.

Thyrza must have touched a switch somewhere, for music sounded faintly
from the ceiling.  I recognised it as Mendelssohn's funeral march.

"Mise en scene," I said to myself rather scornfully.  "Meretricious
trappings!"  I was cool and critical but nevertheless aware of an
undercurrent of some unwanted emotional apprehension.

The music stopped.  There was a long wait.  There was only the sound of
breathing.  Bella's slightly wheezy, Sybil's deep and regular.

And then, suddenly, Sybil spoke.  Not, however, in her own voice.  It
was a man's voice, as unlike her own mincing accents as could be.  It
had a guttural foreign accent.

"I am here," the voice said.

My hands were released.  Bella flitted away into the shadows.  Thyrza
said: "Good evening.  Is that Macandal?"

"I am Macandal."

Thyrza went to the divan and drew away the protecting canopy.  The soft
light flowed down on to Sybil's face.  She appeared to be deeply
asleep. In this repose her face looked quite different.

The lines were smoothed away.  She looked years younger.  One could
almost say that she looked beautiful.

Thyrza said:

"Are you prepared, Macandal, to submit to my desire and my will?"

The new deep voice said:

"I am."

"Will you undertake to protect the body of the Dossu that lies here and
which you now inhabit, from all physical injury and harm?  Will you
dedicate its vital force to my purpose, that that purpose may be
accomplished through it?"

"I will."

"Will you so dedicate this body that death may pass through it, obeying
such natural laws as may be available in the body of the recipient?"

"The dead must be sent to cause death.  It shall be so."

Thyrza drew back a step.  Bella came up and held out what I saw was a
crucifix.  Thyrza placed it on Sybil's breast in a reversed position.
Then Bella brought a small green phial.  From this Thyrza poured out a
drop or two on to Sybil's forehead, and traced something with her
finger.  Again I fancied that it was the sign of the cross upside
down.

She said to me, briefly, "Holy water from the Catholic church at
Garsington."

Her voice was quite ordinary, and this, which ought to have broken the
spell, did not do so.  It made the whole business, somehow, more
alarming.

Finally she brought that rather horrible rattle we had seen before.
She shook it three times and then clasped Sybil's hand round it.  She
stepped back and said:

"All is ready'

Bella repeated the words:

"All is ready'

Thyrza addressed me in a low tone:

"I don't suppose you're much impressed, are you, by all the ritual?
Some of our visitors are.  To you, I dare say, it's all so much mumbo
jumbo .. . But don't be too sure.  Ritual a pattern of words and
phrases sanctified by time and usage, has an effect on the human
spirit.  What causes the mass hysteria of crowds?  We don't know
exactly.  But it's a phenomenon that exists.  These old-time usages,
they have their part a necessary part, I think."

Bella had left the room.  She came back now, carrying a white cock.  It
was alive and struggling to be free.

Now with white chalk she knelt down and began to draw signs on the
floor round the brazier and the copper bowl.  She set down the cock
with its back on the white curving line round the bowl and it stayed
there motionless.

She drew more-signs, chanting as she did so, in a low guttural voice.
The words were incomprehensible to me, but as she knelt and swayed, she
was clearly working herself up to some pitch of obscene ecstasy.

Watching me, Thyrza said: "You don't like it much?  It's old, you know,
very old.  The death spell according to old recipes handed from mother
to daughter."

I couldn't fathom Thyrza.  She did nothing to further the effect on my
senses which Bella's rather horrible performances might well have had.
She seemed deliberately to take the part of a commentator.

Bella stretched out her hands to the brazier and a flickering flame
sprang up.  She sprinkled something on the flames and a thick cloying
perfume filled the air.

"We are ready," said Thyrza.

The surgeon, I thought, picks up his scalpel .. .

She went over to what I had taken to be a radio cabinet.  It opened up
and I saw that it was a large electrical contrivance of some
complicated kind.

It moved like a trolley and she wheeled it slowly and carefully to a
position near the divan.

She bent over it, adjusted the controls, murmuring to herself:

"Compass, north-north-east .. . degrees .. . that's about right."  She
took the glove and adjusted it in a particular position, switching on a
small violet light beside it.

Then she spoke to the inert figure on the divan.

"Sybil Diana Helen, you are set free from your mortal sheath which the
spirit Macandal guards safely for you.  You are free to be at one with
the owner of this glove.  Like all human beings, her goal in life is
towards death.  There is no final satisfaction but death.  Only death
solves all problems.  Only death gives true peace.  All great ones have
known it.  Remember Macbeth.  "After life's fitful fever he sleeps
well."  Remember the ecstacy of Tristan and Isolde.  Love and death.
Love and death.  But the greatest of these is death .. ."

The words rang out, echoing, repeating the big box like machine had
started to emit a low hum, the bulbs in it glowed I felt dazed, carried
away.  This, I felt, was no longer something at which I could mock.
Thyrza, her power unleashed, was holding that prone figure on the divan
completely enslaved.  She was using her.  Using her for a definite end.
I realised vaguely why Mrs.  Oliver had been frightened, not of Thyrza
but of the seemingly silly Sybil.  Sybil had a power, a natural gift,
nothing to do with mind or intellect; it was a physical power, the
power to separate herself from her body.  And, so separated, her mind
was not hers, but Thyrza's.  And Thyrza was using her temporary
possession.

Yes, but the box?  Where did the box come in?

And suddenly all my fear was transferred to the box!  What devilish
secret was being practised through its agency?  Could there be
physically-produced rays of some kind that acted on the cells of the
mind?  Of a particular mind?

Thyrza's voice went on:

"The weak spot .. . there is always a weak spot .. . deep in the
tissues of the flesh .. . Through weakness comes strength the strength
and peace of death .. . Towards death slowly, naturally, towards death
the true way, the natural way.  The tissues of the body obey the mind
.. . Command them command them .. . Towards death .. . Death, the
Conqueror .. . Death .. . soon .. . very soon .. . Death .. . Death
..

. DEATH!"

Her voice rose in a great swelling cry .. . And another horrible animal
cry came from Bella.  She rose up, a knife flashed .. . there was a
horrible strangled squawk from the cockerel .. . Blood dripped into the
copper bowl.  Bella came running, the bowl held out .. .

She screamed out:

"Blood ... the blood .. . BLOOD!"

Thyrza whipped out the glove from the machine.  Bella took it, dipped
it in the blood, returned it to Thyrza who replaced it.

Bella's voice rose again in that high ecstatic call .. .

"The blood .  , .  the blood .. . the blood ..."

She ran round and round the brazier, then dropped twitching to the
floor.  The brazier flickered and went out.

I felt horribly sick.  Unseeing, clutching the arm of my chair, my head
seemed to be whirling in space .. .

I heard a click, the hum of the machine ceased.

Then Thyrza's voice rose, clear and composed:

"The old magic and the new.  The old knowledge of belief,

the new knowledge of science.  Together, they will prevail .. ."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

"Well, what was it like?"  demanded Rhoda eagerly at the breakfast
table.

"Oh, the usual stuff," I said nonchalantly.

I was uneasily conscious of Despard's eye on me.  A perceptive man.

"Pentagrams drawn on the floor?"

"Lots of them."

"Any white cocks?"

"Naturally.  That was Bella's part of the fun and games."

"And trances and things?"

"As you say, trances and things."

Rhoda looked disappointed.

"You seem to have found it rather dull," she said in an aggrieved
voice.

I said that these things were all much of a much ness  At any rate, I'd
satisfied my curiosity.

Later, when Rhoda had departed to the kitchen, Despard said to me:

"Shook you up a bit, didn't it?"

"Well-'

I was anxious to make light of the whole thing, but Despard was not an
easy man to deceive.

I said slowly, "It was in a way rather beastly."

He nodded.

"One doesn't really believe in it," said Despard.  "Not with one's
reasoning mind but these things have their effect.  I've seen a good
deal of it in East Africa.  The witch-doctors there have a terrific
hold on the people, and one has to admit that odd things happen which
can't be explained in any rational manner."  "Deaths?"

"Oh yes.  If a man knows he's been marked down to die, he dies."

"The power of suggestion, I suppose."

"Presumably."

"But that doesn't quite satisfy you?"

"No not quite.  There are cases difficult of explanation by any of our
glib Western scientific theories.  The stuff doesn't usually work on
Europeans (though I have known cases).  But if the belief is there in
your blood you've had it!"  He left it there.

I said thoughtfully: "I agree with you that one can't be too didactic.
Odd things happen even in this country.  I was at a hospital one day in
London.  A girl had come in neurotic subject, complaining of terrible
pain in bones, arm, etc.  Nothing to account for it.  They suspected
she was a victim of hysteria.  Doctor told her cure could be effected
by a red hot rod being drawn down the arm.  Would she agree to try it? 
She did.

"The girl turned her head away and screwed up her eyes.  The doctor
dipped a glass rod in cold water and drew it down the inside of her
arm.  The girl screamed with agony.  He said, "You'll be all right
now." She said, "I expect so, but it was awful.  It burnt."  The queer
thing to me was not that she believed that she had been burnt, but that
her arm actually was burnt.  The flesh was actually blistered
everywhere the rod had touched it."

"Was she cured?"  Despard asked curiously.  "Oh yes.  The neuritis, or
whatever it was, never reappeared.  She had to be treated for the burnt
arm, though."

"Extraordinary," said Despard.  "It goes to show, doesn't it?"

"The doctor was startled himself."

"I bet he was .. ."  He looked at me curiously.

"Why were you really so keen to go to that seance last night?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Those three women intrigue me.  I wanted to see what sort of show they
would put up."

Despard said no more.  I don't think he believed me.  As I have said,
he was a perceptive man.

Presently I went along to the vicarage.  The door was open but there
seemed to be no one in the house.

I went to the little room where the telephone was, and rang up
Ginger.

It seemed an eternity before I heard her voice.

"Hallo!"

"Ginger!"

"Oh, it's you.  What happened?"

"You're all right?"

"Of course I'm all right.  Why shouldn't I be?"

Waves of relief swept over me.

There was nothing wrong with Ginger; the familiar challenge of her
manner did me a world of good.  How could I ever have believed that a
lot of mumbo jumbo could hurt so normal a creature as Ginger?

"I just thought you might have had bad dreams or something," I said
rather lamely.

"Well, I didn't.  I expected to have, but all that happened was that I
kept waking up and wondering if I felt anything peculiar happening to
me.  I really felt almost indignant because nothing did happen to me
'

I laughed.

"But go on tell me," said Ginger.  "What's it all about?"

"Nothing much out of the ordinary.  Sybil lay on a purple couch and
went into a trance."

Ginger gave a spurt of laughter.

"Did she?  How wonderful!  Was it a velvet one and did she have
nothing on?"

"Sybil is no Madame de Montespan.  And it wasn't a black mass. Actually
Sybil wore quite a lot of clothes, peacock blue, and lots of
embroidered symbols."

"Sounds most appropriate and Sybil-like.  What did Bella do?"

"That really was rather beastly.  She killed a white cock and then
dipped your glove in the blood."

"Oo nasty .. . What else?"

"Lots of things.," I said.

I thought that I was doing quite well.  I went on:

Thyrza gave me the whole bag of tricks.  Summoned up a spirit Macandal
was, I think, the name.  And there were coloured lights and chanting.
The whole thing would have been quite impressive to some people scared
'em out of their wits."

"But it didn't scare you?"

"Bella did scare me a bit," I said.  "She had a very nasty looking
knife, and I thought she might lose her head and add me to the cock as
a second victim."

Ginger persisted:

"Nothing else frightened you?"

"I'm not influenced by that sort of thing."

"Then why did you sound so thankful to hear I was all right?"

"Well, because' I stopped.

"All right," said Ginger obligingly.  "You needn't answer that one. And
you needn't go out of your way to play down the whole thing. Something
about it impressed you."

"Only, I think, because they Thyrza, I mean seemed so calmly confident
of the result."

"Confident that what you've been telling me about could actually kill a
person?"

Ginger's voice was incredulous.

"It's daft," I agreed.

"Wasn't Bella confident, too?"

I considered.  I said:

"I think Bella was just enjoying herself killing cocks and working
herself up into a kind of orgy of ill wishing.  To hear her moaning out
"The Blood .. . the blood" was really something."

"I wish I'd heard it," said Ginger regretfully.

"I wish you had," I said.  "Frankly, the whole thing was quite a
performance."

"You're all right now, aren't you?"  said Ginger.

"What do you mean all right?"

"You weren't when you rang me up, but you are now."

She was quite correct in her assumption.  The sound of her cheerful
normal voice had done wonders for me.  Secretly, though, I took off my
hat to Thyrza Grey.  Bogus though the whole business might have been,
it had infected my mind with doubt and apprehension.  But nothing
mattered now.  Ginger was all right she hadn't had so much as a bad
dream.

"And what do we do next?"  demanded Ginger.  "Have I got to stay put
for another week or so?"  "If I want to collect a hundred pounds from
Mr.  Bradley, yes."

"You'll do that if it's the last thing you ever do ... Are you staying
on with Rhoda?"

"For a bit.  Then I'll move on to Bournemouth.  You're to ring me every
day, mind, or I'll ring you that's better.  I'm ringing from the
vicarage now."

"How's Mrs.  Dane Calthrop?"

"In great form.  I told her all about it, by the way."

"I thought you would.  Well, good-bye for now.  Life is going to be
very boring for the next week or two.  I've brought some work with me
to do and a good many of the books that one always means to read but
never has the time to."

"What does your gallery think?"

"That I'm on a cruise."

"Don't you wish you were?"

"Not really, "said Ginger .. Her voice was a little odd.

"No suspicious characters approached you?"

"Only what you might expect.  The milkman, the man to read the gas
meter, a woman asking me what patent medicines and cosmetics I used,
someone asking me to sign a petition to abolish nuclear bombs and a
woman who wanted a subscription for the blind.  Oh, and the various
flat porters, of course.  Very helpful.  One of them mended a fuse for
me."

"Seems harmless enough," I commented.

"What were you expecting?"

"I don't really know."

I had wished, I suppose, for something overt that I could tackle.

But the victims of the Pale Horse died of their own free will .. . No,
the word free was not the one to use.  Seeds of physical weakness in
them developed by a process that I did not under stand.

Ginger rebuffed a weak suggestion of mine about a false gas meter
man.

"He had genuine credentials," she said.  "I asked for them!  He was
only the man who gets up on a ladder inside the bathroom and reads off
the figures and writes them down.  He's far too grand to touch pipes or
gas jets.  And I can assure you he hasn't arranged an escape of gas in
my bedroom."

No, the Pale Horse did not deal with accidental gas escapes nothing so
concrete!

"Oh!  I had one other visitor," said Ginger.  "Your friend, Dr.
Corrigan.  He's nice."

"I suppose Lejeune sent him."

"He seemed to think he ought to rally to a namesake.  Up
theCorrigans!"

I rang off, much relieved in mind.

I got back to find Rhoda busy on the lawn with one of her dogs.  She
was anointing it with some unguent.

"The vet's just gone," she said.  "He says it's ringworm.  It's
frightfully catching, I believe.  I don't want the children getting it
or the other dogs."

"Or even adult human beings," I suggested.

"Oh, it's usually children who get it.  Thank goodness they're away at
school all day keep quiet, Sheila.  Don't wriggle.

"This stuff makes the hair fall out," she went on.  "It leaves bald
spots for a bit but it grows again."

I nodded, offered to help, was refused, for which I was thankful, and
wandered off again.

The curse of the country, I have always thought, is that there are
seldom more than three directions in which you can go for a walk.  In
Much Deeping, you could either take the Garsington road, or the road to
Long Cottenham, or you could go up Shadhanger Lane to the main
LondonBournemouth road two miles away.

By the following day at lunch-time, I had sampled both the Garsington
and the Long Cottenham roads.  Shadhanger Lane was the next prospect.

I started off, and on my way was struck by an idea.  The entrance to
Priors Court opened off Shadhanger Lane.  Why should I not go and call
on Mr.  Venables?

The more I considered the idea, the more I liked it.  There would be
nothing suspicious about my doing so.  When I had been staying down
here before, Rhoda had taken me over there.  It would be easy and
natural to call and ask if I might be shown again some particular
object that I had not had time really to look at and enjoy on that
occasion.

The recognition of Venables by this chemist what was his name Ogden?
Osborne?  was interesting, to say the least of it.  Granted that,
according to Lejeune, it would have been quite impossible for the man
in question to have been Venables owing to the latter's disability,
yet it was intriguing that a mistake should have been made about a man
living in this particular neighbourhood- and a man, one had to admit,
who fitted in so well in character.

There was something mysterious about Venables.  I had felt it from the
first.  He had, I was sure, first-class brains.  And there was
something about him what word could I use?  the word vulpine came to
me. Predatory destructive.  A man, perhaps, too clever to be a killer
himself but a man who could organise killing very well if he wanted
to.

As far as all that went, I could fit Venables into the part perfectly.
The master mind behind the scenes.  But this chemist, Osborne, had
claimed that he had seen Venables walking along a London street.  Since
that was impossible, then the identification was worthless, and the
fact that Venables lived in the vicinity of the Pale Horse meant
nothing.

All the same, I thought, I would like to have another look at Mr.
Venables.  So in due course I turned in at the gates of Priors Court
and walked up the quarter mile of winding drive.  The same manservant
answered the door, and said that Mr.  Venables was at home.  Excusing
himself for leaving me in the hall, "Mr.  Venables is not always well
enough to see visitors," he went away, returning a few moments later
with the information that Mr.  Venables would be delighted to see me.

Venables gave me a most cordial welcome, wheeling his chair forward and
greeting me quite as an old friend.

"Very nice of you to look me up, my dear fellow.  I heard you were down
here again, and was going to ring up our dear Rhoda this evening and
suggest you all come over for lunch or dinner."

I apologised for dropping in as I had, but said that it was a sudden
impulse.  I had gone for a walk, found that I was passing his gate, and
decided to gate crash

"As a matter of fact," I said, "I'd love to have another look at your
Mogul miniatures.  I hadn't nearly enough time to see them properly the
other day."

"Of course you hadn't.  I'm glad you appreciate them.  Such exquisite
detail."

Our talk was entirely technical after this.  I must admit that I
enjoyed enormously having a closer look at some of the really wonderful
things he had in his possession.

Tea was brought in and he insisted that I partake of it.

Tea is not one of my favourite meals but I appreciated the smoky China
tea, and the delicate cups in which it was served.  There was hot
buttered anchovy toast, and a plum cake of the luscious old-fashioned
kind that took me back to tea-time at my grandmother's house when I was
a little boy.

"Home-made," I said approvingly.

"Naturally!  A bought cake never conics into this house."

"You have a wonderful cook, I know.  Don't you find it difficult to
keep a staff in the country, as far away from things as you are
here?"

Venables shrugged his shoulders.  "I must have the best.  I insist upon
it.  Naturally one has to pay!  I pay."

All the natural arrogance of the man showed here.  I said dryly: "If
one is fortunate enough to be able to do that, it certainly solves many
problems."

"It all depends, you know, on what one wants out of life.  If one's
desires are strong enough that is what matters.  So many people make
money without a notion of what they want it to do for them!  As a
result they get entangled in what one might call the money-making
machine.  They are slaves.  They go to their offices early and leave
late; they never stop to enjoy.  And what do they get for it?  Larger
cars, bigger houses, more expensive mistresses or wives and, let me
say, bigger headaches."

He leaned forward.

"Just the getting of money that is really the be all and end all for
most rich men.  Plough it back into bigger enterprises, make more money
still.  But why?  Do they ever stop to ask themselves why?  They don't
know."

"And you?"  I asked.

"I he smiled.  "I knew what I wanted.  Infinite leisure in which to
contemplate the beautiful things of this world, natural and artificial.
Since to go and see them in their natural surroundings has of late
years been denied me, I have them brought from all over the world to
me."

"But money still has to be got before that can happen."

"Yes, one must plan one's coups and that involves quite a lot of
planning but there is no need, really no need nowadays, to serve any
sordid apprenticeship."

"I don't know if I quite understand you."

"It's a changing world, Easterbrook.  It always has been but now the
changes come more rapidly.  The tempo has quickened one must take
advantage of that."

"A changing world," I said thoughtfully.

"It opens up new vistas."

I said apologetically:

"I'm afraid, you know, that you're talking to a man whose face is set
in the opposite direction towards the past not towards the future."
Venables shrugged his shoulders.

"The future?  Who can foresee that?  I speak of today now the immediate
moment!  I take no account of anything else.  The new techniques are
here to use.  Already we have machines that can supply us with the
answer to questions in seconds compared to hours or days of human
labour."

"Computers?  The electronic brain?"

"Things of that kind."

"Will machines take the place of men eventually?"

"Of men, yes.  Men who are only units of manpower that is.  But Man,
no.  There has to be Man the Controller, Man the Thinker, who works out
the questions to ask the machines."

I shook my head doubtfully.

"Man, the Superman?"  I put a faint inflection of ridicule into my
voice.

"Why not, Easterbrook?  Why not?  Remember, we know or are beginning to
know something about Man the human animal.  The practice of what is
sometimes, incorrectly, called brain-washing has opened up enormously
interesting possibilities in that direction.  Not only the body, but
the mind of man, responds to certain stimuli."

"A dangerous doctrine," I said.

"Dangerous?"

"Dangerous to the doctored man."

Venables shrugged his shoulders.

"All life is dangerous.  We forget that, we who have been reared in one
of the small pockets of civilisation.  For that is all that
civilisation really is, Easterbrook.  Small pockets of men here and
there who have gathered together for mutual protection and who thereby
are able to outwit and control Nature.  They have beaten the jungle but
that victory is only temporary.  At any moment, the jungle will once
more take command.  Proud cities that were, are now mere mounds of
earth, overgrown with rank vegetation, and the poor hovels of men who
just manage to keep alive, no more.  Life is always dangerous never
forget that.  In the end, perhaps, not only great natural forces, but
the work of our own hands may destroy it.  We are very near to that
happening at this moment .. ."

"No one can deny that, certainly.  But I'm interested in your theory of
power power over mind."

"Oh that' Venables looked suddenly embarrassed.  "Probably I
exaggerated."

I found his embarrassment and partial withdrawal of his former claim
interesting.  Venables was a man who lived much alone.  A man who is
alone develops the need to talk to someone anyone.  Venables had talked
to me and perhaps not wisely.

"Man the Superman," I said.  "You've rather sold me on some modern
version of the idea, you know."

"There's nothing new about it, certainly.  The formula of the Superman
goes back a long way.  Whole philosophies have been built on it."

"Of course.  But it seems to me that your Superman is a Superman with a
difference ... A man who could wield power and never be known to wield
power.  A man who sits in his chair and pulls the strings."

I looked at him as I spoke.  He smiled.

"Are you casting me for the part, Easterbrook?  I wish it were indeed
so.  One needs something to compensate for this!"

His hand struck down on the rug across his knees, and I heard the
sudden sharp bitterness in his voice.

"I won't offer you my sympathy," I said.  "Sympathy is very little good
to a man in your position.  But let me say that if we are imagining
such a character a man who can turn unforeseen disaster into triumph
you would be, in my opinion, exactly that type of man."

He laughed easily.

"You're flattering me."

But he was pleased, I saw that.

"No," I said.  "I have met enough people in my life to recognise the
unusual, the extra gifted man, when I meet him."

I was afraid of going too far; but can one ever, really, go too far
with flattery?  A depressing thought!  One must take it to heart and
avoid the pitfall oneself.

"I wondered," he said thoughtfully, 'what actually makes you say that?
All this?"  He swept a careless hand round the room.

"That is a proof," I said, 'that you are a rich man who knows how to
buy wisely, who has appreciation and taste.  But I feel that there is
more to it than mere possession.  You set out to acquire beautiful and
interesting things and you have practically hinted that they were not
acquired through the medium of laborious toil."

"Quite right, Easterbrook, quite right.  As I said, only the fool
toils.  One must think, plan the campaign in every detail.  The secret
of all success is something quite simple but it has to be thought of!
Something simple.  One thinks of it, one puts it into execution and
there you are!"

I stared at him.  Something simple something as simple as the removal
of unwanted persons?  Fulfilling a need.  An action performed without
danger to anybody except the victim.  Planned by Mr.  Venables sitting
in his wheeled chair, with his great hooked nose like the beak of a
bird of prey, and his prominent Adam's apple moving up and down.
Executed by whom?  Thyrza Grey?

I watched him as I said:

"All this talk of remote control reminds me of something that odd Miss
Grey said."

"Ah, our dear Thyrza!"  His tone was smooth, indulgent (but had there
been a faint flicker of the eyelids?).  "Such nonsense as those two
dear ladies talk!  And they believe it, you know, they really believe
it.  Have you been yet (I'm sure they'll insist on your going) to one
of these ridiculous seances of theirs?"  I had a momentary hesitation
whilst I decided rapidly what my attitude here ought to be.

"Yes," I said, "I - I did go to a seance."

"And you found it great nonsense?  Or were you impressed?"

I avoided his eyes and presented to my best ability a man who is ill at
ease.

"I oh well of course I didn't really believe in any of it.  They seem
very sincere but' I looked at my watch.  "I'd no idea it was so late. I
must hurry back.  My cousin will wonder what I am doing."

"You have been cheering up an invalid on a dull afternoon.  My regards
to Rhoda.  We must arrange another luncheon party soon.  Tomorrow I am
going to London.  There is an interesting sale at Sotheby's.  Medieval
French ivories.  Exquisite!  You will appreciate them, I am sure, if I
succeed in acquiring them."  We parted on this amicable note.  Was
there an amused and malicious twinkle in his eye as he registered my
awkwardness over the seance?  I thought so, but I could not be sure.  I
felt it quite likely that I was now imagining things.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

I went out into the late afternoon.  Darkness had already fallen, and
since the sky was overcast, I moved rather uncertainly down the winding
drive.  I looked back once at the lighted windows of the house.  In
doing so, I stepped off the gravel on to the grass and collided with
someone moving in the opposite direction.

It was a small man, solidly made.  We exchanged apologies.  His voice
was a rich deep bass with a rather fruity and pedantic tone.

Tm so sorry ..."

"Not at all.  Entirely my fault, I assure you ..."

"I have never been here before," I explained, 'so I don't quite know
where I'm going.  I ought to have brought a torch."

"Allow me."

The stranger produced a torch from his pocket, switched it on and
handed it to me.  By its light I saw that he was a man of middle age,
with a round cherubic face, a black moustache and spectacles.  He wore
a good quality dark raincoat and can only be described as the acme of
respectability.  All the same, it did just cross my mind to wonder why
he was not using his torch himself since he had it with him.

"Ah," I said rather idiotically.  "I see.  I have stepped off the
drive."

I stepped back on it, then offered him back the torch.

"I can find my way now."

"No, no, pray keep it until you get to the gate."

"But you you are going to the house?"

"No, no.  I am going the same way that you are.  Er down the drive. And
then up to the bus stop.  I am catching a bus back to Bournemouth."

I said, "I see," and we fell into step side by side.  My companion
seemed a little ill at ease.  He inquired if I also were going to the
bus stop.  I replied that I was staying in the neighbourhood.

There was again a pause and I could feel my companion's embarrassment
growing.  He was the kind of man who does not like feeling in any way
in a false position.  "You have been to visit Mr.  Venables?"  he
asked, clearing his throat.

I said that that was so, adding, "I took it that you also were on your
way to the house?"

"No," he said.  "No .. . As a matter of fact' he paused.  "I live in
Bournemouth or at least near Bournemouth.  I have just moved into a
small bungalow there."

I felt a faint stirring in my mind.  What had I recently heard about a
bungalow at Bournemouth?  Whilst I was trying to remember, my
companion, becoming even more ill at ease, was finally impelled to
speak.

"You must think it very odd1 admit, of course, it is odd to find
someone wandering in the grounds of a house when the er person in
question is not acquainted with the owner of the house.  My reasons are
a little difficult to explain, though I assure you that I have reasons.
But I can only say that although I have only recently settled in
Bournemouth, I am quite well known there, and I could bring forward
several esteemed residents to vouch for me personally.  Actually, I am
a pharmacist who has recently sold an old-established business in
London, and I have retired to this part of the world which I have
always found very pleasant very pleasant indeed."

Enlightenment came to me.  I thought I knew who the little man was.
Meanwhile he was continuing in full spate.

"My name is Osborne, Zachariah Osborne, and as I say I have had rather
a very nice business in London Barton Street Paddington Green.  Quite a
good neighbourhood in my father's time, but sadly changed now oh yes,
very much changed.  Gone down in the world."

He sighed, and shook his head.

Then he resumed:

"This is Mr.  Venables's house, is it not?  I suppose er he is a friend
of yours?"

I said with deliberation:

"Hardly a friend.  I have only met him once before today, when I was
taken to lunch with him by some friends of mine."

"Ah yes I see ... Yes, precisely."

We had come now to the entrance gates.  We passed through them.  Mr.
Osborne paused irresolutely.  I handed him back his torch.  "Thank
you," I said.

"Not at all.  You're welcome.  I -' He paused, then words came from him
in a rush.

"I shouldn't like you to think ... I mean, technically, of course, I
was trespassing.  But not, I assure you, from any motive of vulgar
curiosity.  It must have seemed to you most peculiar my position and
open to misconstruction.  I really would like to explain toer clarify
my position."

I waited.  It seemed the best thing to do.  My curiosity, vulgar or
not, was certainly aroused.  I wanted it satisfied.  Mr.  Osborne was
silent for about a minute, then he made up his mind.

"I really would like to explain to you, Mr.  er -'

"Easterbrook.  Mark Easterbrook."

"Mr.  Easterbrook.  As I say, I would welcome the chance of explaining
my rather odd behaviour.  If you have the time - ?  It is only five
minutes' walk up the lane to the main road.  There is quite a
respectable little cafe at the petrol station close to the bus stop. My
bus is not due for over twenty minutes.  If you would allow me to offer
you a cup of coffee?"  I accepted.  We walked up the lane together. 
Mr.  Osborne, his anguished respectability appeased, chatted cosily of
the amenities of Bournemouth, its excellent climate, its concerts and
the nice class of people who lived there.

We reached the main road.  The petrol station was on the corner with
the bus stop just beyond it.  There was a small clean cafe, empty
except for a young couple in a corner.  We entered and Mr.  Osborne
ordered coffee and biscuits for two.

Then he leaned forward across the table and unburdened himself.

"This all stems from a case you may have seen reported in the
newspapers some time ago.  It was not a very sensational case, so it
did not make the headlines if that is the correct expression.  It
concerned the Roman Catholic parish priest of the district in London
where I have had my shop.  He was set upon one night and killed.  Very
distressing.  Such happenings are far too frequent nowadays.  He was, I
believe, a good man though I myself do not hold with the Roman
doctrine.  However that may be, I must explain my particular interest.
There was a police announcement that they were anxious to interview
anyone who had seen Father Gorman on the night in question.  By chance
I had happened to be standing outside the door of my establishment that
evening about eight o'clock and had seen Father Gorman go by. Following
him at a short distance was a man whose appearance was unusual enough
to attract my attention.  At the time, of course, I thought nothing of
the matter, but I am an observant man, Mr. Easterbrook, and I have the
habit of mentally registering what people look like.  It is quite a
hobby of mine, and several people who have come to my shop have been
surprised when I say to them, "Ah yes, I think you came in for this
same preparation last March?"  It pleases them, you know, to be
remembered.  Good business, I have found it. Anyway, I described the
man I had seen to the police.  They thanked me and that was that.

"Now I come to the rather surprising part of my story.  About ten days
ago I came over to a church fete in the little village at the bottom of
the lane we have just walked up and what was my surprise to see this
same man I have mentioned.  He must have had, or so I thought, an
accident, since he was propelling himself in a wheeled chair.  I
inquired about him and was told he was a rich local resident of the
name of Venables.  After a day or two to debate the matter, I wrote to
the police officer to whom I had made my original statement.  He came
down to Bournemouth Inspector Lejeune was his name.  He seemed
sceptical, however, as to whether this was indeed the man I had seen on
the night of the murder.  He informed me that Mr.  Venables had been
crippled for some years, as a result of polio.  I must, he said, have
been misled by a chance resemblance."

Mr.  Osborne came to an abrupt halt.  I stirred the pale fluid in front
of me and took a cautious sip.  Mr.  Osborne added three lumps of sugar
to his own cup.

"Well, that seems to settle that," I said.

"Yes," said Mr.  Osborne.  "Yes .. ."  His voice was markedly
dissatisfied.  Then he leaned forward again, his round bald head
shining under the electric bulb, his eyes quite fanatical behind his
spectacles .. .

"I must explain a little more.  As a boy, Mr.  Easterbrook, a friend of
my father's, another pharmacist, was called to give evidence in the
case of Jean Paul Marigot.  You may remember he poisoned his English
wife an arsenical preparation.  My father's friend identified him in
court as the man who signed a false name in his poison register.
Marigot was convicted and hanged.  It made a great impression on me I
was nine years old at the time an impressionable age.  It was my great
hope that some day, I, too, might figure in a cause celebre and be the
instrument of bringing a murderer to justice!  Perhaps it was then that
I began to make a study of memo rising faces.  I will confess to you,
Mr.  Easterbrook, though it may seem to you quite ridiculous, that for
many, many years now I have contemplated the possibility that some man,
determined to do away with his wife, might enter my shop to purchase
what he needed."

"Or, I suppose, a second Madeleine Smith," I suggested.

"Exactly.  Alas," Mr.  Osborne sighed, 'that has never happened.  Or,
if so, the person in question has never been brought to justice.  That
occurs, I would say, more frequently than it is quite comfortable to
believe.  So this identification, though not what I had hoped, opened
up at least a possibility that I might be a witness in a murder
case!"

His face beamed with childish pleasure.

"Very disappointing for you," I said sympathetically.

"Ye-es."  Again Mr.  Osborne's voice held that odd note of
dissatisfaction.

"I'm an obstinate man, Mr.  Easterbrook.  As the days have passed by I
have felt more and more sure that I was right.  That the man I saw was
Venables and no other.  Oh!"  he raised a hand in protest as I was
about to speak.  "I know.  It was inclined to be foggy.  I was some
distance away but what the police have not taken into consideration is
that I have made a study of recognition.  It was not just the features,
the pronounced nose, the Adam's apple; there is the carriage of the
head, the angle of the neck on the shoulders.  I said to myself "Come,
come, admit you were mistaken."  But I continued to feel that I had not
been mistaken.  The police said it was impossible.  But was it
impossible?  That's what I asked myself."

"Surely, with a disability of that kind' He stopped me by waving an
agitated forefinger.

"Yes, yes, but my experiences, under the National Health

Well, really it would surprise you what people are prepared to do and
what they get away with!  I wouldn't like to say that the medical
profession are credulous a plain case of malingering they will spot
soon enough.  But there are ways ways that a chemist is more likely to
appreciate than a doctor.  Certain drugs, for instance, other quite
harmless-seeming preparations.  Fever can be induced various rashes and
skin irritations dryness of throat, or increase of secretions '

"But hardly atrophied limbs," I pointed out.

"Quite, quite.  But who says that Mr.  Venables's limbs are
atrophied?"

"Well his doctor, I suppose?"

"Quite.  But I have tried to get a little information on that point.
Mr.  Venables's doctor is in London, a Harley Street man true, he was
seen by the local doctor here when he first arrived.  But that doctor
has now retired and gone to live abroad.  The present man has never
attended Mr.  Venables.  Mr.  Venables goes up once a month to Harley
Street."

I looked at him curiously.

"That still seems to me to present no loophole for er - er '

"You don't know the things I know," said Mr.  Osborne.  "A humble
example will suffice.  Mrs.  H. drawing insurance benefits for over a
year.  Drew them in three separate places

only in one place she was Mrs.  C. and in another place Mrs.  T..  ..
Mrs.  C. and Mrs.  T. lent her their cards for a consideration, and so
she collected the money three times over."

"I don't see-'

"Suppose just suppose' The forefinger was now wiggling excitedly, 'our
Mr.  V. makes contact with a genuine polio case in poor circumstances.
He makes a proposition.  The man resembles him, let us say, in a
general kind of way, no more.  Genuine sufferer calling himself Mr. 
V. calls in specialist, and is examined, so that the case history is
all correct.  Then Mr.  V. takes house in country.  Local G.P. wants to
retire soon.  Again genuine sufferer calls in doctor, is examined.  And
there you are!  Mr.  Venables well documented as a polio sufferer with
atrophied limbs.  He is seen locally (when he is seen) in a wheeled
chair, etc."

"His servants would know, surely," I objected.  "His valet."

"But supposing it is a gang the valet is one of the gang.  What could
be simpler?  Some of the other servants, too, perhaps."

"But why?"

"Ah," said Mr.  Osborne.  "That's another question, isn't it?  I won't
tell you my theory I expect you'd laugh at it.  But there you are a
very nice alibi set up for a man who might want an alibi.  He could be
here, there and everywhere, and nobody would know.  Seen walking about
in Paddington?  Impossible!  He's a helpless cripple living in the
country, etc."  Mr.  Osborne paused and glanced at his watch.  "My bus
is due.  I must be quick.  I get to brooding about this you see.
Wondered if I could do anything to prove it, as you might say.  So I
thought I'd come out here (I've time on my hands, these days.  I almost
miss my business sometimes), go into the grounds and well, not to put
too fine a point upon it, do a bit of spying.  Not very nice, you'll
say and I agree.  But if it's a case of getting at the truth of
bringing a criminal to book ... If, for instance, I spotted our Mr. 
Venables having a quiet walk around in the grounds, well, there you
are!  And then I thought, if they don't pull the curtains too soon (and
you may have noticed people don't when daylight saving first ends
they've got in the habit of expecting it to be dark an hour later) -1
might creep up and take a peep.  Walking about his library, maybe,
never dreaming that anyone would be spying on him?  Why should he?  No
one suspects him as far as he knows!"

"Why are you so sure the man you saw that night was Venables?"

"I know it was Venables!"

He shot to his feet.

"My bus is coming.  Pleased to have met you, Mr.  Easterbrook, and it's
a weight off my mind to have explained what I was doing there at Priors
Court.  I dare say it seems a lot of nonsense to you."

"It doesn't altogether," I said.  "But you haven't told me what you
think Mr.  Venables is up to."

Mr.  Osborne looked embarrassed and a little sheepish.

"You'll laugh, I dare say.  Everybody says he's rich but nobody seems
to know how he made his money.  I'll tell you what / think.  I think
he's one of those master criminals you read about.  You know plans
things, and has a gang that carries them out.  It may sound silly to
you but I '

The bus had stopped.  Mr.  Osborne ran for it I walked home down the
lane very thoughtful ... It was a fantastic theory that Mr.  Osborne
had outlined, but I had to admit that there might just possibly be
something in it.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

Ringing up Ginger on the following morning, I told her that I was
moving to Bournemouth the next day.

"I've found a nice quiet little hotel called (heaven knows why) the
Deer Park.  It's got a couple of nice unobtrusive side exits.  I might
sneak up to London and see you."

"You oughtn't to really, I suppose.  But I must say it would be rather
heaven if you did.  The boredom!  You've no idea!  If you couldn't come
here, I could sneak out and meet you somewhere."

Something suddenly struck me.

"Ginger!  Your voice .. . It's different somehow .. ."

"Oh that!  It's all right.  Don't worry."

"But your voice?"

"I've just got a bit of a sore throat or something, that's all."

"Ginger!"

"Now look, Mark, anyone can have a sore throat.  I'm starting a cold, I
expect.  Or a touch of 'flu."

"Fhi?  Look here, don't evade the point.  Are you all right, or aren't
you?"

"Don't fuss.  I'm all right."

"Tell me exactly how you're feeling.  Do you feel as though you might
be starting 'flu?"  "Well perhaps .. . Aching a bit all over, you know
the kind of thing '

"Temperature?"

"Well, perhaps a bit of a temperature .. ."

I sat there, a horrible cold sort of feeling stealing over me.

I was frightened.  I knew, too, that however much Ginger might refuse
to admit it, Ginger was frightened also.

Her voice spoke again.

"Mark don't panic.  You are panicking and really there's nothing to
panic about."

"Perhaps not.  But we've got to take every precaution.  Ring up your
doctor and get him to come and see you.  At once."

"All right .. . But he'll think I'm a terrible fusspot."

"Never mind.  Do it!  Then, when he's been, ring me back."

After I had rung off, I sat for a long time staring at the black
inhuman outline of the telephone.  Panic I mustn't give way to panic ..
. There was always 'flu, about at this time of year .. . The doctor
would be reassuring .. . perhaps it would be only a slight chill .. .

I saw in my mind's eye Sybil in her peacock dress with its scrawled
symbols of evil.  I heard Thyrza's voice, willing, commanding .. . On
the chalked floor, Bella, chanting her evil spells, held up a
struggling white cock .. .

Nonsense, all nonsense .. . Of course it was all superstitious nonsense
.. .

The box not so easy, somehow, to dismiss the box.  The box represented,
not human superstition, but a development of scientific possibility ..
. But it wasn't possible it couldn't be possible that Mrs.  Dane
Calthrop found me there, sitting staring at the telephone.  She said at
once:

"What's happened?"

"Ginger," I said, 'isn't feeling well .. ."

I wanted her to say that it was all nonsense.  I wanted her to reassure
me.  But she didn't reassure me.

That's bad," she said.  "Yes, I think that's bad."

"It's not possible," I urged.  "It's not possible for a moment that
they can do what they say!"

"Isn't it?"

"You don't believe you can't believe '

"My dear Mark," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop, 'both you and Ginger have
already admitted the possibility of such a thing, or you wouldn't be
doing what you are doing."

"And our believing makes it worse makes it more likely!"

"You don't go so far as believing- you just admit that, with evidence,
you might believe."

"Evidence?  What evidence?"

"Ginger's becoming ill is evidence," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.

I hated her.  My voice rose angrily.

"Why must you be so pessimistic?  It's just a simple cold something of
that kind.  Why must you persist in believing the worst?"

"Because if it's the worst, we've got to face it not bury our heads in
the sand until it's too late."

"You think that this ridiculous mumbo jumbo works?  These trances and
spells and cock sacrifices and all the bag of tricks?"

"Something works," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.  "That's what we've got to
face.  A lot of it, most of it, I think, is trappings.  It's just to
create atmosphere atmosphere is important.  But concealed amongst the
trappings, there must be the real thing the thing that does work."

"Something like radio activity at a distance?"

"Something of that kind.  You see, people are discovering things all
the time frightening things.  Some variation of this new knowledge
might be adapted by some unscrupulous person for their own purposes
Thyrza's father was a physicist, you know '

"But what?  What?  That damned box!  If we could get it examined?  If
the police '

"Police aren't very keen on getting a search warrant and removing
property without a good deal more to go on than we've got."

"If I went round there and smashed up the damned thing?"

Mrs.  Dane Calthrop shook her head.

"From what you told me, the damage, if there has been damage, was done
that night."

I dropped my head in my hands and groaned.

"I wish we'd never started this damned business."  Mrs.  Dane Calthrop
said firmly: "Your motives were excellent.  And what's done is done.
You'll know more when Ginger rings back after the doctor has been.
She'll ring Rhoda's, I suppose '

I took the hint.

"I'd better get back."

"I'm being stupid," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop suddenly as I left.  "I
know I'm being stupid.  Trappings!  We're letting ourselves be obsessed
by trappings.  I can't help feeling that we're thinking the way they
want us to think."

Perhaps she was right.  But I couldn't see any other way of thinking.

Ginger rang me two hours later.

"He's been," she said.  "He seemed a bit puzzled, but he says it's
probably 'flu.  There's quite a lot about.  He's sent me to bed and is
sending along some medicine.  My temperature is quite high.  But it
would be with 'flu, wouldn't it?"

There was a forlorn appeal in her hoarse voice, under its surface
bravery.

"You'll be all right," I said miserably.  "Do you hear?  You'll be all
right.  Do you feel very awful?"

"Well fever and aching, and everything hurts, my feet and my skin.  I
hate anything touching me ... And I'm so hot."

"That's the fever, darling.  Listen, I'm coming up to you!  I'm leaving
now at once.  No, don't protest."

"All right.  I'm glad you're coming, Mark.  I dare say I'm not so
brave as I thought .. ."

I rang up Lejeune.

"Miss Corrigan's ill," I said.

"What?"

"You heard me.  She's ill.  She's called her own doctor.  He says
perhaps 'flu.  It may be.  But it may not.  I don't know what you can
do.  The only idea that occurs to me is to get some kind of specialist
on to it."

"What kind of specialist?"

"A psychiatrist or psychoanalyst, or psychologist.  A psycho something.
A man who knows about suggestion and hypnotism and brainwashing and all
that kind of thing.  There are people who deal with that kind of
thing?"

"Of course there are.  Yes.  There are one or two Home Office men who
speciali se in it.  I think you're dead right.  It may be just 'flu but
it may be some kind of psycho business about which nothing much is
known.  Lord, Easterbrook, this may be just what we've been hoping
for!"

I slammed down the receiver.  We might be learning something about
psychological weapons but all that I cared about was Ginger, gallant
and frightened.  We hadn't really believed, either of us- or had we?
No, of course we hadn't.  It had been a game a cops and robbers game.
But it wasn't a game.

The Pale Horse was proving itself a reality.

I dropped my head into my hands and groaned.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

I doubt if I shall ever forget the next few days.  It appears to me now
as a kind of bewildered kaleidoscope without sequence or form.  Ginger
was removed from the flat to a private nursing home.  I was allowed to
see her only at visiting hours.

Her own doctor, I gather, was inclined to stand on his high horse about
the whole business.  He could not understand what the fuss was all
about.  His own diagnosis was quite clear bronchopneumonia following on
influenza, though complicated by certain slightly unusual symptoms, but
that, as he pointed out, 'happens all the time.  No case is ever
"typical."  And some people don't respond to antibiotics."

And, of course, all that he said was true.  Ginger had
bronchopneumonia.  There was nothing mysterious about the disease from
which she was suffering.  She just had it and had it badly.

I had one interview with the Home Office psychologist.  He was a quaint
little cock robin of a man, rising up and down on his toes, with eyes
twinkling through very thick lenses.

He asked me innumerable questions, half of which I could see no point
in whatever, but there must have been a point, for he nodded sapiently
at my answers.  He entirely refused to commit himself, wherein he was
probably wise.  He made occasional pronouncements in what I took to be
the jargon of his trade.  He tried, I think, various forms of hypnotism
on Ginger, but by what seemed to be universal consent, no one would
tell me very much.  Possibly because there was nothing to tell.

I avoided my own friends and acquaintances, yet the loneliness of my
existence was insupportable.

Finally, in an excess of desperation, I rang up Poppy at her flower
shop.  Would she come out and dine with me.  Poppy would love to do
so.

I took her to the Fantasie.  Poppy prattled happily and I found her
company very soothing.  But I had not asked her out only for her
soothing qualities.  Having lulled her into a happy stupor with
delicious food and drink, I began a little cautious probing.  It seemed
to be possible that Poppy might know something without being wholly
conscious of what it was she knew.  I asked her if she remembered my
friend Ginger.  Poppy said, "Of course," opening her big blue eyes, and
asked what Ginger was doing nowadays.

"She's very ill," I said.

"Poor pet."  Poppy looked as concerned as it was possible for her to
look, which was not very much.

"She got herself mixed up with something," I said.  "I believe she
asked your advice about it.  Pale Horse stuff.  Cost her a terrible lot
of money."

"Oh," exclaimed Poppy, eyes wider still.  "So it was^ou!"

For a moment or two I didn't understand.  Then it dawned upon me that
Poppy was identifying me with the 'man' whose invalid wife was the bar
to Ginger's happiness.  So excited was she by this revelation of our
love life that she quite failed to be alarmed by the mention of the
Pale Horse.  She breathed excitedly:

"Did it work?"

"It went a bit wrong somehow."  I added, "The dog it was that died."

"What dog?"  asked Poppy, at sea.

I saw that words of one syllable would always be needed where Poppy
was concerned.

"The er business seems to have recoiled upon Ginger.  Did you ever hear
of that happening before?"

Poppy never had.

"Of course," I said, 'this stuff they do at the Pale Horse down in Much
Deeping you know about that, don't you?"

"I didn't know where it was.  Down in the country somewhere."

"I couldn't quite make out from Ginger what it is they do .. ."

I waited carefully.

"Rays, isn't it?"  said Poppy vaguely.  "Something like that.  From
outer space," she added helpfully.  "Like the Russians!"

I decided that Poppy was now relying on her limited imagination.

"Something of that kind," I agreed.  "But it must be quite dangerous. I
mean, for Ginger to get ill like this."

"But it was your wife who was to be ill and die, wasn't it?"

"Yes," I said, accepting the role Ginger and Poppy had planted on me.
"But it seems to have gone wrong backfired."

"You mean?"  Poppy made a terrific mental effort.  "Like when you plug
an electric iron in wrong and you get a shock?"

"Exactly," I said.  "Just like that.  Did you ever know that sort of
thing happen before?"

"Well, not that way-'

"What way, then?"

"Well, I mean if one didn't pay up afterwards.  A man I knew wouldn't."
Her voice dropped in an awe stricken fashion.  "He was killed in the
tube fell off the platform in front of a train."

"It might have been an accident."

"Oh no," said Poppy, shocked at the thought.  "It was

THEM."

I poured some more champagne into Poppy's glass.  Here, I felt, in
front of me was someone who might be helpful if only you could tear out
of her the disassociated facts that were flitting about in what she
called her brain.  She had heard things said, and assimilated about
half of them, and got them jumbled up and nobody had been very careful
what they said because it was 'only Poppy."

The maddening thing was that I didn't know what to ask her.  If I said
the wrong thing she would shut up in alarm like a clam and go dumb on
me.

"My wife," I said, 'is still an invalid, but she doesn't seem any
worse."

"That's too bad," said Poppy sympathetically, sipping champagne.

"So what do I do next?"

Poppy didn't seem to know.

"You see it was Ginger who / didn't make any of the arrangements.  Is
there anyone I could get at?"

"There's a place in Birmingham," said Poppy doubtfully.

"That's closed down," I said.  "Don't you know anyone else who'd know
anything about it?"

"Eileen Brandon might know something but I don't think so."

The introduction of a totally unexpected Eileen Brandon startled me.  I
asked who Eileen Brandon was.

"She's terrible really," said Poppy.  "Very dim.  Has her hair very
tightly per med, and never wears stiletto heels.  She's the end."  She
added by way of explanation, "I was at school with her but she was
pretty dim then.  She was frightfully good at geography."

"What's she got to do with the Pale Horse?"

"Nothing really.  It was only an idea she got.  And so she chucked it
up."

"Chucked what up?"  I asked, bewildered.

"Her job with CRC."

"What's CRC.?"

"Well, I don't really know exactly.  They just say CRC.  Something
about Customers' Reactions or Research.  It's quite a small show." 
"And Eileen Brandon worked for them?  What did she have to do?"

"Just go round and ask questions about toothpaste or gas stoves, and
what kind of sponges you used.  Too too depressing and dull.  I mean,
who cares?"

"Presumably CRC."  I felt a slight prickling of excitement.

It was a woman employed by an association of this kind who had been
visited by Father Gorman on the fatal night.  And yes of course,
someone of that kind had called on Ginger at the flat ... Here was a
link of some kind.

"Why did she chuck up her job?  Because she got bored?"

"I don't think so.  They paid quite well.  But she got a sort of idea
about it that it wasn't what it seemed."

"She thought that it might be connected, in some way, with the Pale
Horse?  Is that it?"

"Well, I don't know.  Something of that kind .. . Anyway, she's working
in an Espresso coffee bar off Tottenham Court Road now."

"Give me her address."

"She's not a bit your type."

"I don't want to make sexual advances to her," I said brutally.  "I
want some hints on Customers Research.  I'm thinking of buying some
shares in one of those things."

"Oh, I see," said Poppy, quite satisfied with this explanation.

There was nothing more to be got out of her, so we finished up the
champagne, and I took her home and thanked her for a lovely evening.

I tried to ring Lejeune next morning but failed.  However, after some
difficulty I managed to get through to Jim Corrigan.

"What about that psychological pipsqueak you brought along to see me,
Corrigan?  What does he say about Ginger?"

"A lot of long words.  But I rather think, Mark, that he's yours truly
baffled.  And you know, people do get pneumonia.  There's nothing
mysterious or out of the way about that."

"Yes," I said.  "And several people we know of, whose names were on a
certain list, have died of bronchopneumonia, gastro-enteritis, bulbar
paralysis, tumour on the brain, epilepsy, para typhoid and other well
authenticated diseases."

"I know how you feel .. . But what can we do?"

"She's worse, isn't she?"  I asked.

"Well yes .. ."

"Then something's got to be done."

"Such as?"

"I've got one or two ideas.  Going down to Much Deeping, getting hold
of Thyrza Grey and forcing her, by scaring the living daylights out of
her, to reverse the spell or whatever it is-'

"Well that might work."

"Or I might go to Venables -'

Corrigan said sharply:

"Venables?  But he's out.  How can he possibly have any connection with
it?  He's a cripple."

"I wonder.  I might go there and snatch off that rug affair and see if
this atrophied limbs business is true or false!"

"We've looked into all that '

"Wait.  I ran into that little chemist chap, Osborne, down in Much
Deeping.  I want to repeat to you what he suggested to me."

I outlined to him Osborne's theory of impersonation.

"That man's got a bee in his bonnet," said Corrigan.  "He's the kind of
man who has always got to be right."

"But Corrigan, tell me, couldn't it be as he said?  It's possible,
isn't it?"

After a moment or two Corrigan said slowly,

"Yes.  I have to admit it's possible .. . But several people would-have
to be in the know and would have to be paid very heavily for holding
their tongues."

"What of that?  He's rolling in money, isn't he?  Has Lejeune found out
yet how he's made all that money?"

"No.  Not exactly ... I'll admit this to you.  There's something wrong
about the fellow.  He's got a past of some kind.  The money's all very
cleverly accounted for, in a lot of ways.  It isn't possible to check
up on it all without an investigation which might take years.  The
police have had to do that before when they've been up against a
financial crook who has covered his traces by a web of infinite
complexity.  I believe the Inland Revenue has been smelling around
Venables for some time.  But he's clever.  What do you see him as the
head of the show?"

"Yes.  I do.  I think he's the man who plans it all."

"Perhaps.  He sounds as though he'd have the kind of brains for that, I
agree.  But surely he wouldn't have done anything so crude as killing
Father Gorman himself!"

"He might have if there was sufficient urgency.  Father Gorman might
have had to be silenced before he could pass on what he had learnt from
that woman about the activities of the Pale Horse.  Besides ' I stopped
short.

"Hallo you still there?"

"Yes, I was thinking .. . Just an idea that occurred to me .. ."

"What was it?"

"I've not got it clear yet ... Just that real safety could only be
achieved one way.  I haven't worked it out yet ... Anyway, I must go
now.  I've got a rendezvous at a coffee bar."

"Didn't know you were in the Chelsea coffee bar set!"

"I'm not.  My coffee bar is in Tottenham Court Road, as a matter of
fact."

I rang off and glanced at the clock.

I started for the door when the telephone rang.

I hesitated.  Ten to one, it was Jim Corrigan again, ringing back to
know more about my idea.

I didn't want to talk to Jim Corrigan just now.

I moved towards the door whilst the telephone rang on persistently,
naggingly.

Of course, it might be the hospital Ginger I couldn't risk that.  I
strode across impatiently and jerked the receiver off its hook.

"Hallo?"

"Is that you, Mark?"

"Yes, who is it?"

"It's me, of course," said the voice reproachfully.  "Listen, I want to
tell you something."

"Oh, it's you."  I recognised the voice of Mrs.  Oliver.  "Look here,
I'm in a great hurry, got to go out.  I'll ring you back later."

"That won't do at all," said Mrs.  Oliver, firmly.  "You've got to
listen to me now.  It's important."

"Well, you'll have to be quick.  I've got an appointment."

"Pooh," said Mrs.  Oliver.  "You can always be late for an appointment.
Everybody is.  They'll think all the more of you."

"No, really, I've got to '

"Listen, Mark.  This is important.  I'm sure it is.  It must be!"

I curbed my impatience as best I could, glancing at the clock.

"Well?"

"My Milly had tonsilitis.  She was quite bad and she's gone to the
country to her sister '

I gritted my teeth.

"I'm frightfully sorry about that, but really '

"Listen.  I've not begun yet.  Where was I?  Oh yes.  Milly had to go
to the country and so I rang up the agency I always go to the Regency
such a silly name I always think like a cinema '

"I really must '

"And said what could they send?  And they said it was very difficult
just now which they always say as a matter of fact but they'd do what
they could '

Never had I found my friend Ariadne Oliver so maddening.

' and so, this morning a woman came along, and who do you think she
turned out to be?"

"I can't imagine.  Look '

"A woman called Edith Binns comic name, isn't it?  and you actually
know her."

"No, I don't.  I never heard of a woman called Edith Binns."

"But you do know her and you saw her not very long ago.  She had been
with that godmother of yours for years.  Lady HeskethDubois."

"Oh, with her!"

"Yes.  She saw you the day you came to collect some pictures."

"Well, that's all very nice and I expect you're very lucky to find her.
I believe she's most trustworthy and reliable and all that.  Aunt Min
said so.  But really now '

"Wait, can't you?  I haven't got to the point.  She sat and talked a
great deal about Lady Hesketh-Dubois and her last illness, and all that
sort of thing, because they do love illnesses and death and then she
said it."

"Said what?"

"The thing that caught my attention.  She said something like: "Poor
dear lady, suffering like she did.  That nasty thing on her brain, a
growth, they say, and she in quite good health up to just before.  And
pitiful it was to see her in the nursing home and all her hair, nice
thick white hair it was, and always blued regularly once a fortnight,
to see it coming out all over the pillow.  Coming out in handfuls.  And
then, Mark, I thought of Mary Delafontaine, that friend of mine.  Her
hair came out.  And I remembered what you told me about some girl you'd
seen in a Chelsea coffee place fighting with another girl, and getting
her hair all pulled out in handfuls.  Hair doesn't come out as easily
as that, Mark.  You try just try to pull your own hair, just a little
bit of it, out by the roots!  Just try it!  You'll see.  It's not
natural, Mark, for all those people to have hair that comes out by the
roots.  It's not natural.  It must be some special kind of new illness
it must mean something."

I clutched the receiver and my head swam.  Things, half-remembered
scraps of knowledge, drew together.  Rhoda and her dogs on the lawn an
article I had read in a medical journal in New York Of course ... Of
course!

I was suddenly aware that Mrs.  Oliver was still quacking happily.

"Bless you," I said.  "You're wonderful!"

I slammed back the receiver, then took it off again.  I dialled a
number and was lucky enough this time to get Lejeune straight away.

"Listen," I said, 'is Ginger's hair coming out by the roots in
handfuls?"

"Well as a matter of fact I believe it is.  High fever, I suppose."

"Fever my foot," I said.  "What Ginger's suffering from, what they've
all suffered from, is thallium poisoning.  Please God, we may be in
time .. ."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

"Are we in time?  Will she live?"

I wandered up and down.  I couldn't sit still.

Lejeune sat watching me.  He was patient and kind.

"You can be sure that everything possible is being done."

It was the same old answer.  It did nothing to comfort me.

"Do they know how to treat thallium poisoning?"

"You don't often get a case of it.  But everything possible will be
tried.  If you ask me, I think she'll pull through."

I looked at him.  How could I tell if he really believed what he was
saying?  Was he just trying to soothe me?

"At any rate, they've verified that it was thallium."

"Yes, they've verified that."

"So that's the simple truth behind the Pale Horse.  Poison.  No
witchcraft, no hypnotism, no scientific death rays.  Plain poisoning!
And she flung that at me, damn her.  Flung it in my face.  Laughing in
her cheek all the while, I expect."

"Who are you talking about?"  "Thyrza Grey.  That first afternoon when
I went to tea there.  Talked about the Borgias and all the build up of
"rare and untraceable poisons"; the poisoned gloves and all the rest of
it.  "Common white arsenic," she said, "and nothing else."  This was
just as simple.  All that hooey!  The trance and the white cocks and
the brazier and the penta grams and the voodoo and the reversed
crucifix all that was for the crudely superstitious.  And the famous
"box" was another bit of hooey for the contemporary-minded.  We don't
believe in spirits and witches and spells nowadays, but we're a
gullible lot when it comes to "rays" and "waves" and psychological
phenomena.  That box, I bet, is nothing but a nice little assembly of
electrical show-off, coloured bulbs and humming valves.  Because we
live in daily fear of radio fall out and strontium 90 and all the rest
of it, we're amenable to suggestion along the line of scientific talk. 
The whole set-up at the Pale Horse was bogus!  The Pale Horse was a
stalking horse, neither more nor less.  Attention was to be focused on
that, so that we'd never suspect what might be going on in another
direction.  The beauty of it was that it was quite safe for them. 
Thyrza Grey could boast out loud about what occult powers she had or
could command.  She could never be brought into court and tried for
murder on that issue.  Her box could have been examined and proved to
be harmless.  Any court would have ruled that the whole thing was
nonsense and impossible!  And, of course, that's exactly what it
was."

"Do you think they're all three in it?"  asked Lejeune.

"I shouldn't think so.  Bella's belief in witchcraft is genuine, I
should say.  She believes in her own powers and rejoices in them.  The
same with Sybil.  She's got a genuine gift of mediumship.  She goes
into a trance and she doesn't know what happens.  She believes
everything that Thyrza tells her."

"So Thyrza is the ruling spirit?"

I said slowly:

"As far as the Pale Horse is concerned, yes.  But she's not the real
brains of the show.  The real brain works behind the scenes.  He plans
and organises.  It's all beautifully dovetailed, you know.  Everyone
has his or her job, and no one has anything on anyone else.  Bradley
runs the financial and legal side.  Apart from that, he doesn't know
what happens elsewhere.  He's handsomely paid, of course; so is Thyrza
Grey."  "You seem to have got it all taped to your satisfaction," said
Lejeune drily.

"I haven't.  Not yet.  But we know the basic necessary fact.

It's the same as it has been through the ages.  Crude and simple. Just
plain poison.  The dear old death potion."

"What put thallium into your head?"

"Several things suddenly came together.  The beginning of the whole
business was the thing I saw that night in Chelsea.  A girl whose hair
was being pulled out by the roots by another girl.  And she said: "It
didn't really hurt."  It wasn't bravery, as I thought; it was simple
fact.  It didn't hurt.  "I read an article on thallium poisoning when I
was in America.  A lot of workers in a factory died one after the
other.  Their deaths were put down to astonishingly varied causes.
Amongst them, if I remember rightly, were para typhoid apoplexy,
alcoholic neuritis, bulbar paralysis, epilepsy, gastro-enteritis, and
so on.  Then there was a woman who poisoned seven people.  Diagnosis
included brain rumour, encephalitis, and lobar pneumonia.  The symptoms
vary a good deal, I understand.  They may start with diarrhoea and
vomiting, or there may be a stage of intoxication, again it may begin
with pain in the limbs, and be put down as poly neuritis or rheumatic
fever or polio one patient was put in an iron lung.  Sometimes there's
pigmentation of the skin."  "You talk like a medical dictionary!"

"Naturally.  I've been looking it up.  But one thing always happens
sooner or later.  The hair falls out.  Thallium used to be used for
depilation at one time particularly for children with ringworm.  Then
it was found to be dangerous.  But it's occasionally given internally,
but with very careful dosage going by the weight of the patient.  It's
mainly used nowadays for rats, I believe.  It's tasteless, soluble, and
easy to buy.  There's only one thing, poisoning mustn't be suspected."
Lejeune nodded.  "Exactly," he said.  "Hence the insistence by the Pale
Horse that the murderer must stay away from his intended victim.  No
suspicion of foul play ever arises.  Why should it?  There's no
interested party who could have had access to food or drink.  No
purchase of thallium or any other poison is ever made by him or her.
That's the beauty of it.  The real work is done by someone who has no
connection whatever with the victim.  Someone, I think, who appears
once and once only."

He paused.

"Any ideas on that?"

"Only one.  A common factor appears to be that on every occasion some
pleasant harmless-seeming woman calls with a questionnaire on behalf of
a domestic research unit."

"You think that that woman is the one who plants the poison?  As a
sample?  Something like that?"

"I don't think it's quite as simple as that," I said slowly.  "I have
an idea that the women are quite genuine.  But they come into it
somehow. I think we may be able to find out something if we talk to a
woman called Eileen Brandon, who works in an Espresso off Tottenham
Court Road."

Eileen Brandon had been fairly accurately described by Poppy allowing,
that is to say, for Poppy's own particular point of view.  Her hair was
neither like a chrysanthemum, nor an unruly birds' nest.  It was waved
back close to her head, she wore the minimum of makeup and her feet
were encased in what is called, I believe, sensible shoes.  Her husband
had been killed in a motor accident, she told us, and left her with two
small children.  Before her present employment, she had been employed
by a firm called Customers' Reactions Classified for over a year.  She
had left of her own accord as she had not cared for the type of work.

"Why didn't you care for it, Mrs.  Brandon?"

Lejeune asked the question.  She looked at him.

"You're a detective-inspector of police?  Is that right?"

"Quite right, Mrs.  Brandon."

"You think there's something wrong about that firm?"

"It's a matter I'm inquiring into.  Did you suspect something of that
kind?  Is that why you left?"

"I've nothing definite to go upon.  Nothing definite that I could tell
you."

"Naturally.  We understand that.  This is a confidential inquiry."

"I see.  But there is really very little I could say."

"You can say why you wanted to leave."

"I had a feeling that there were things going on that I didn't know
about."

"You mean you didn't think it was a genuine concern?"

"Something of the kind.  It didn't seem to me to be run in a
business-like way.  I suspected that there must be some ulterior object
behind it.  But what that object was I still don't know."

Lejeune asked more questions as to exactly what work she had been asked
to do.  Lists of names in a certain neighbourhood had been handed out.
Her job was to visit those people, ask certain questions, and note down
the answers.

"And what struck you as wrong about that?"

"The questions did not seem to me to follow up any particular line of
research.  They seemed desultory, almost haphazard.  As though how can
I put it?  they were a cloak for something else."

"Have you any idea what the something else might have been?"

"No.  That's what puzzled me."

She paused a moment and then said doubtfully:

"I did wonder, at one time, whether the whole thing could have been
organised with a view perhaps to burglaries, a spying out of the land,
so to speak.  But that couldn't be it, because I was never asked for
any description of the rooms, fastenings, etc, or when the occupants of
the flat or house were likely to be out or away."

"What articles did you deal with in the questions?"

"It varied.  Sometimes it was foodstuffs.  Cereals, cake mixes, or it
might be soap flakes and detergents.  Sometimes cosmetics, face
powders, lipsticks, creams, etc.  Sometimes patent medicines or
remedies, brands of aspirin, cough pastilles, sleeping pills, pep
pills, gargles, mouth-washes, indigestion remedies and so on."

"You were not asked," Lejeune spoke casually, 'to supply samples of any
particular goods?"

"No.  Nothing of that kind."

"You merely asked questions and noted down the answers?"

"Yes."

"What was supposed to be the object of these inquiries?"

"That was what seemed so odd.  We were never told exactly.  It was
supposed to be done in order to supply information to certain
manufacturing firms but it was an extraordinarily amateurish way of
going about it.  Not systematic at all."

"Would it be possible, do you think, that amongst the questions you
were told to ask, there was just one question or one group of
questions, that was the object of the enterprise, and that the others
might have been camouflage?"  She considered the point, frowning a
little, then she nodded.

"Yes," she said.  "That would account for the haphazard choice but I
haven't the least idea what question or questions were the important
ones."

Lejeune looked at her keenly.

"There must be more to it than what you've told us," he said gently.

"That's the point, there isn't really.  I just felt there was something
wrong about the whole set-up.  And then I talked to another woman, a
Mrs.  Davis '

"You talked to a Mrs.  Davis yes?"

Lejeune's voice remained quite unchanged.

"She wasn't happy about things, either."

"And why wasn't she happy?"

"She'd overheard something."

"What had she overheard?"

"I told you I couldn't be definite.  She didn't tell me in so many
words.  Only that from what she had overheard, the whole set-up was a
racket of some kind.  "It's not what it seems to be."  That is what she
said.  Then she said: "Oh well, it doesn't affect us.  The money's very
good and we're not asked to do anything that's against the law so I
don't see that we need bother our heads about it"."

That was all?"

"There was one other thing she said.  I don't know what she meant by
it.  She said: "Sometimes I feel like Typhoid Mary."  At the time I
didn't know what she meant."

Lejeune took a paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

"Do any of the names on that list mean anything to you?  Did you call
upon any of them that you can remember?"

"I wouldn't remember."  She took the paper.  "I saw so many .. ."  She
paused as her eye went down the list.  She said:

"Ormerod."

"You remember an Ormerod?"

"No.  But Mrs.  Davis mentioned him once.  He died very suddenly,
didn't he?  Cerebral haemorrhage.  It upset her.  She said, "He was on
my list a fortnight ago.  Looked like a man in the pink of condition."
It was after that that she made the remark about Typhoid Mary.  She
said, "Some of the people I call on seem to curl up their toes and pass
out just from having one look at me."  She laughed about it and said it
was a coincidence.  But I don't think she liked it much.  However, she
said she wasn't going to worry."

"And that was all?"

"Well-'

"Tell me."

"It was some time later.  I hadn't seen her for a while.  But we met
one day in a restaurant in Soho.  I told her that I'd left the CRC. and
got another job.  She asked me why, and I told her I'd felt uneasy, not
knowing what was going on.  She said: "Perhaps you've been wise. But
it's good money and short hours.  And after all, we've all got to take
our chance in this life!  I've not had much luck in my life and why
should I care what happens to other people?"  I said: "I don't
understand what you're talking about.  What exactly wrong with that
show?"  She said: "I can't be sure, but I'll tell you I recognised
someone the other day.  Coming out of a house where he'd no business to
be and carrying a bag of tools.  What was he doing with those I'd like
to know?"  She asked me, too, if I'd ever come across a woman who ran a
pub called the Pale Horse somewhere.  I asked her what the Pale Horse
had to do with it."

"And what did she say?"

"She laughed and said "Read your Bible"."

Mrs.  Brandon added: "I don't know what she meant.  That was the last
time I saw her.  I don't know where she is now, whether she's still
with CRC.  or whether she's left."

"Mrs.  Davis is dead," said Lejeune.

Eileen Brandon looked startled.

"Dead!  But how?"

"Pneumonia, two months ago."

"Oh, I see.  I'm sorry."

"Is there anything else you can tell us, Mrs.  Brandon?"

"I'm afraid not.  I have heard other people mention that phrase the
Pale Horse, but if you ask them about it, they shut up at once.  They
look afraid, too."

She looked uneasy.

"I - I don't want to be mixed up in anything dangerous, Inspector
Lejeune.  I've got two small children.  Honestly, I don't know anything
more than I've told you."

He looked at her keenly then he nodded his head and let her go.

"That takes us a little further," said Lejeune when Eileen Brandon had
gone.  "Mrs.  Davis got to know too much.  She tried to shut her eyes
to the meaning of what was going on, but she must have had a very
shrewd suspicion of what it was.  Then she was suddenly taken ill, and
when she was dying, she sent for a priest and told him what she knew
and suspected.  The question is, how much did she know?  That list of
people, I should say, is a list of people she had called on in the
course of her job, and who had subsequently died.  Hence the remark
about Typhoid Mary.  The real question is, who was it she "recognised"
coming out of a house where he had no business to be, and pretending to
be a workman of some kind?  That must have been the knowledge that made
her dangerous.  If she recognised him, he may have recognised her and
he may have realised that she had recognised him.  If she'd passed on
that particular item to Father Gorman, then it was vital that Father
Gorman should be silenced at once before he could pass it on."

He looked at me.

"You agree, don't you?  That must have been the way of it."

"Oh yes," I said.  "I agree."

"And you've an idea, perhaps, who the man is?"

"I've an idea, but '

"I know.  We haven't a particle of evidence."

He was silent a moment.  Then he got up.

"But we'll get him," he said.  "Make no mistake.  Once we know
definitely who it is, there are always ways.  We'll try every damned
one of them!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

It was some three weeks later that a car drove up to the front door of
Priors Court.

Four men got out.  I was one of them.  There was also
Detective-Inspector Lejeune and Detective-Sergeant Lee.  The fourth man
was Mr.  Osborne, who could hardly contain his delight and excitement
at being allowed to be one of the party.

"You must hold your tongue, you know," Lejeune admonished him.

"Yes, indeed, Inspector.  You can count on me absolutely.  I won't
utter a word."

"Mind you don't."

"I feel it's a privilege.  A great privilege, though I don't quite
understand '

But nobody was entering into explanations at this moment.

Lejeune rang the bell and asked for Mr.  Venables.

Looking rather like a deputation, the four of us were ushered in.

If Venables was surprised at our visit, he did not show it.  His manner
was courteous in the extreme.  I thought again, as he wheeled his chair
a little back so as to widen the circle round him, what a very
distinctive appearance the man had.  The Adam's apple moving up and
down between the wings of his old-fashioned collar, the haggard profile
with its curved nose like a bird of prey.

"Nice to see you again, Easterbrook.  You seem to spend a lot of time
down in this part of the world nowadays."

There was a faint malice in his tone, I thought.  He resumed:

"And Detective-Inspector Lejeune, is it?  That rouses my curiosity, I
must admit.  So peaceful in these parts, so free from crime.  And yet,
a detective-inspector calls!  What can I do for you,
Detective-Inspector?"

Lejeune was very quiet, very suave.

"There is a matter on which we think you might be able to assist us,
Mr.  Venables."

"That has a rather familiar ring, does it not?  In what way do you
think I can assist you?"

"On October seventh a parish priest of the name of Father Gorman was
murdered in West Street, Paddington.  I have been given to understand
that you were in the neighbourhood at that time between 7.45 and 8.15
in the evening, and you may have seen something that may have a bearing
on the matter?"

"Was I really in the neighbourhood at that time?  Do you know, I doubt
it, I very much doubt it.  As far as I can recall I have never been in
that particular district of London.  Speaking from memory, I do not
even think I was in London at all just then.  I go to London
occasionally for an interesting day in the sale room, and now and then
for a medical check up."

"With Sir William Dugdale of Harley Street, I believe."

Mr.  Venables stared at him coldly.

"You are very well informed, Inspector."

"Not quite so well as I should like to be.  However, I'm disappointed
that you can't assist me in the way that I hoped.  I think I owe it to
you to explain the facts connected with the death of Father Gorman."

"Certainly, if you like.  It is a name I have never heard until now."

"Father Gorman had been called out on that particular foggy evening to
the death-bed of a woman nearby.  She had become entangled with a
criminal organisation, at first almost unwittingly, but later certain
things made her suspect the seriousness of the matter.  It was an
organisation which speciali sed in the removal of unwanted persons- for
a substantial fee, naturally."

"Hardly a new idea," murmured Venables.  "In America-'

"Ah, but there were some novel features about this particular
organisation.  To begin with, the removals were ostensibly brought
about by what might perhaps be called psychological means.  What is
referred to as a "death wish," said to be present in everyone, is
stimulated '

"So that the person in question obligingly commits suicide?  It sounds,
if I may say so, Inspector, too good to be true."

"Not suicide, Mr.  Venables.  The person in question dies a perfectly
natural death."

"Come now.  Come now.  Do you really believe that?  How very unlike our
hard-headed police force!"

"The headquarters of this organisation are said to be a place called
the Pale Horse."

"Ah, now I begin to understand.  So that is what brings you to our
pleasant rural neighbourhood; my friend Thyrza Grey, and her nonsense!
Whether she believes it herself or not, I've never been able to make
out.  But nonsense it is!  She has a silly mediumistic friend, and the
local witch cooks her dinners (quite brave to eat them hemlock in the
soup any moment!).  And the three old dears have worked up quite a
local reputation.  Very naughty, of course, but don't tell me Scotland
Yard, or wherever you come from, take it all seriously?"

"We take it very seriously indeed, Mr.  Venables."

"You really believe that Thyrza spouts some highfalutin' nonsense,
Sybil throws a trance, and Bella does black magic, and as a result
somebody dies?"

"Oh no, Mr.  Venables the cause of death is simpler than that' He
paused a moment.

"The cause is thallium poisoning."

There was a momentary pause What did you say?"

"Poisoning by thallium salts.  Quite plain and straightforward.  Only
it had to be covered up and what better method of covering up than a
pseudo-scientific, psychological set-up full of modern jargon and
reinforced by old superstitions.  Calculated to distract attention from
the plain fact of administration of poison."

Thallium," Mr.  Venables frowned.  "I don't think I've ever heard of
it."

"No?  Used extensively as rat poison, occasionally as a depilatory for
children with ringworm.  Can be obtained quite easily.  Incidentally
there's a packet of it tucked away in a corner of your potting shed."

"In my potting shed?  It sounds most unlikely."

"It's there all right.  We've examined some of it for testing
purposes'

Venables became slightly excited.

"Someone must have put it there.  I know nothing about it!  Nothing at
all."

"Is that so?  You're a man of some wealth, aren't you, Mr. 
Venables?"

"What has that got to do with what we are talking about?"

The Inland Revenue have been asking some awkward questions lately, I
believe?  As to source of income, that is."

The curse of living in England is undoubtedly our system of taxation. I
have thought very seriously of late of going to live in Bermuda."

"I don't think you'll be going to Bermuda just yet awhile, Mr.
Venables."

"Is that a threat, Inspector?  Because if so '

"No, no, Mr.  Venables.  Just an expression of opinion.  Would you like
to hear just how this little racket was worked?"

"You are certainly determined to tell me."

"It's very well organised.  Financial details are arranged by a
debarred solicitor called Mr.  Bradley.  Mr.  Bradley has an office in
Birmingham.  Prospective clients visit him there, and do business. This
is to say, there is a bet on whether someone will die within a stated
period .. . Mr.  Bradley, who is fond of a wager, is usually
pessimistic in his prognostications.  The client is usually more
hopeful.  When Mr.  Bradley wins his bet, the money has to be paid over
promptly or else something unpleasant is liable to happen.  That is all
Mr.  Bradley has to do make a bet.  Simple, isn't it?

"The client next visits the Pale Horse.  A show is put on by Miss
Thyrza Grey and her friends, which usually impresses him in the way it
is meant to do.

"Now for the simple facts behind the scenes.

"Certain women, bona-fide employees of one of the many consumer
research concerns, are detailed to canvass a particular neighbourhood
with a questionnaire.  "What bread do you prefer?  What toilet articles
and cosmetics?  What laxative, tonics, sedatives, indigestion mixtures,
etc.?"  People nowadays are conditioned to answering quizzes.  They
seldom object.

"And so to the last step.  Simple, bold, successful!  The only action
performed by the originator of the scheme in person.  He may be wearing
a mansion flat porter's uniform, he may be a man calling to read the
gas or the electric meter.  He may be a plumber, or an electrician, or
a workman of some kind.  Whatever he is, he will have what appear to be
the proper credentials with him if anyone asks to see them.  Most
people don't.  Whatever role he is playing, his real object is simple
the substitution of a preparation he brings with him for a similar
article which he knows (by reason of the CRC.  questionnaires) that his
victim uses.  He may tap pipes, or examine meters, or test water
pressure but that is his real object.  Having accomplished it, he
leaves, and is not seen in that neighbourhood again.

"And for a few days perhaps nothing happens.  But sooner or later, the
victim displays symptoms of illness.  A doctor is called in, but has no
reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary.  He may question what
food and drink, etc."  the patient has taken, but he is unlikely to
suspect the ordinary proprietary article that the patient has taken for
years.

"And you see the beauty of the scheme, Mr.  Venables?  The only person
who knows what the head of the organisation actually does is the head
of the organisation himself.  There is no one to give hint away."

"So how do you know so much?"  demanded Mr.  Venables pleasantly.

"When we have suspicions of a certain person, there are ways of making
sure."

"Indeed?  Such as?"

"We needn't go into all of them.  But there's the camera, for instance.
All kinds of ingenious devices are possible nowadays.  A man can be
snapped without his suspecting the fact.  We've got some excellent
pictures, for instance, of a uniformed flat porter, and a gas man and
so on.  There are such things as false moustaches, different dentures,
etc., but our man has been recognised, quite easily first by Mrs.  Mark
Easterbrook, alias Miss {Catherine Corrigan, and also by a woman called
Edith Binns.  Recognition is an interesting thing, Mr.  Venables.  For
instance, this gentleman here, Mr.  Osborne, is willing to swear he saw
you following Father Gorman in Barton Street on the night of the
seventh of October about eight o'clock."

"And I did see you!"  Mr.  Osborne leaned forward, twitching with
excitement.  "I described you exactly!"

"Rather too exactly, perhaps," said Lejeune.  "Because you didn't see
Mr.  Venables that night when you were standing outside the doorway of
your shop.  You weren't standing there at all.  You were across the
street yourself- following Father Gorman until he turned into West
Street, and you came up with him and killed him .. ."

Mr.  Zachariah Osborne said:

"What?"

It might have been ludicrous.  It was ludicrous!  The dropped jaw, the
staring eyes .. .

"Let me introduce you, Mr.  Venables, to Mr.  Zachariah Osborne,
pharmacist, late of Barton Street, Paddington.  You'll feel a personal
interest in him when I tell you that Mr.  Osborne, who has been under
observation for some time, was unwise enough to plant a packet of
thallium salts in your potting shed.  Not knowing of your disability,
he'd amused himself by casting you as the villain of the piece; and
being a very obstinate, as well as a very stupid man, he refused to
admit he'd made a bloomer."

"Stupid?  You dare to call me stupid?  If you knew if you'd any idea
what I've done what I can do I -'

Osborne shook and spluttered with rage.

Lejeune summed him up carefully.  I was reminded of a man playing a
fish.

"You shouldn't have tried to be so clever, you know," he said
reprovingly.  "Why, if you'd just sat back in that shop of yours, and
let well alone, I shouldn't be here now, warning you, as it's my duty
to do, that anything you say will be taken down and '

It was then that Mr.  Osborne began to scream.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

"Look here, Lejeune, there are lots of things I want to know."

The formalities over, I had got Lejeune to myself.  We were sitting
together with two large tankards of beer opposite us.

"Yes, Mr.  Easterbrook?  I gather it was a surprise to you."

"It certainly was.  My mind was set on Venables.  You never gave me the
least hint."

"I couldn't afford to give hints, Mr.  Easterbrook.  You have to play
these things close to your chest.  They're tricky.  The truth is we
hadn't a lot to go on.  That's why we had to stage the show in the way
we did with Venables's cooperation.  We had to lead Osborne right up
the garden path and then turn on him suddenly and hope to break him
down. And it worked."

"Is he mad?"  I asked.

"I'd say he's gone over the edge now.  He wasn't to begin with, of
course, but it does something to you, you know.  Killing people.  It
makes you feel powerful and larger than life.  It makes you feel you're
God Almighty.  But you're not.  You're only a nasty bit of goods that's
been found out.  And when that fact's presented to you suddenly your
ego just can't stand it.  You scream and you rant and you boast of what
you've done and how clever you are.  Well, you saw him."

I nodded.  "So Venables was in on the performance you put up," I said.
"Did he like the idea of cooperating?"

"It amused him, I think," said Lejeune.  "Besides, he was impertinent
enough to say that one good turn deserves another."

"And what did he mean by that cryptic remark?"

"Well, I shouldn't be telling you this," said Lejeune, 'this is off the
record.  There was a big outbreak of bank robberies about eight years
ago.  The same technique every time.  And they got away with it!  The
raids were cleverly planned by someone who took no part in the actual
operation.  That man got away with a lot of money.  We may have had our
suspicions who it was, but we couldn't prove it.  He was too clever for
us.  Especially on the financial angle.  And he's had the sense never
to try and repeat his success.  I'm not saying more.  He was a clever
crook but he wasn't a murderer.  No lives were lost."

My mind went back to Zachariah Osborne.  "Did you always suspect
Osborne?"  I asked.  "Right from the beginning?"  "Well, he would draw
attention to himself," said Lejeune.  "As I told him, if he'd only sat
back and done nothing, we'd never have dreamed that the respectable
pharmacist, Mr.  Zachariah Osborne, had anything to do with the
business.  But it's a funny thing, that's just what murderers can't do.
There they are, sitting pretty, safe as houses.  But they can't let
well alone.  I'm sure I don't know why."

"The desire for death," I suggested.  "A variant of Thyrza Grey's
theme."

"The sooner you forget all about Miss Thyrza Grey and the things she
told you, the better," said Lejeune severely.  "No," he said
thoughtfully, "I think really it's loneliness.  The knowledge that
you're such a clever chap, but that there's nobody you can talk to
about it."

"You haven't told me when you started to suspect him," I said.

"Well, straight away he started telling lies.  We asked for anyone
who'd seen Father Gorman that night to communicate with us.  Mr.
Osborne communicated and the statement he made was a palpable lie. He'd
seen a man following Father Gorman and he described the features of
that man, but he couldn't possibly have seen him across the street on a
foggy night.  An aquiline nose in profile he might have seen, but not
an Adam's apple.  That was going too far.  Of course, that lie might
have been innocent enough.  Mr.  Osborne might just want to make
himself important.  Lots of people are like that.  But it made me focus
my attention on Mr.  Osborne and he was really rather a curious person.
At once he started to tell me a lot about himself.  Very unwise of him.
He gave me a picture of someone who had always wanted to be more
important than he was.  He'd not been content to go into his father's
old-fashioned business.  He'd gone off and tried his fortunes on the
stage, but he obviously hadn't been a success.  Probably, I should say,
because he couldn't take production.  Nobody was going to dictate to
him the way he should play a part!  He was probably genuine enough when
he told of his ambition to be a witness in a murder trial, successfully
identifying a man who had come in to buy poison.  His mind ran on those
lines a good deal, I should think.  Of course we don't know at what
point, and when, the idea occurred to him that he might become a really
big criminal, a man so clever that he could never be brought to
justice.

"But that's all surmise.  To go back.  Osborne's description of the man
he had seen that night was interesting.  It was so obviously a
description of a real person whom he had at one time seen.  It's
extraordinarily difficult, you know, to make up a description of
anybody.  Eyes, nose, chin, ears, bearing, all the rest of it.  If you
try it you'll find yourself unconsciously describing somebody that
you've noticed somewhere in a tram or a train or an omnibus.  Osborne
was obviously describing a man with somewhat unusual characteristics.
I'd say that he noticed Venables sitting in his car one day in
Bournemouth and was struck by his appearance if he'd seen him that way,
he wouldn't realise the man was a cripple.

"Another reason that kept me interested in Osborne was that he was a
pharmacist.  I thought it just possible that that list we had might tie
up with the narcotic trade somewhere.  Actually that wasn't so, and I
might, therefore, have forgotten all about Mr.  Osborne if Mr.  Osborne
himself hadn't been determined to keep in the picture.  He wanted, you
see, to know just what we were doing, and so he writes to say that he's
seen the man in question at a church fete in Much Deeping.  He still
didn't know that Mr.  Venables was a paralysis case.  When he did find
that out he hadn't the sense to shut up.  That was his vanity.  Typical
criminal's vanity.  He wasn't going to admit for one moment that he'd
been wrong.  Like a fool, he stuck to his guns and put forward all
sorts of preposterous theories.  I had a very interesting visit to him
at his bungalow in Bournemouth.  The name of it ought to have given the
show away.  Everest.  That's what he called it.  And he'd hung up a
picture of Mount Everest in the hall.  Told me how interested he was in
Himalayan exploration.  But that was the kind of cheap joke that he
enjoyed.  Ever rest.  That was his trade his profession.  He did give
people eternal rest on payment of a suitable fee.  It was a wonderful
idea, one's got to hand him that.  The whole set-up was clever. 
Bradley in Birmingham, Thyrza Grey holding her seances in Much Deeping.
And who was to suspect Mr.  Osborne who had no connection with Thyrza
Grey, no connection with Bradley and Birmingham, no connection with the
victim.  The actual mechanics of the thing was child's play to a
pharmacist.  As I say, if only Mr.  Osborne had had the sense to keep
quiet."

"But what did he do with the money?"  I asked.  "After all, he did it
for money presumably?"

"Oh, yes, he did it for the money.  Had grand visions, no doubt, of
himself travelling, entertaining, being a rich and important person.
But of course he wasn't the person he imagined himself to be.  I think
his sense of power was exhilarated by the actual performance of murder.
To get away with murder again and again intoxicated him, and what's
more, he'll enjoy himself in the dock.  You see if he doesn't.  The
central figure with all eyes upon him."

"But what did he do with the money?"  I demanded.

"Oh, that's very simple," said Lejeune, 'though I don't know that I
should have thought of it unless I'd noticed the way he'd furnished the
bungalow.  He was a miser, of course.  He loved money and he wanted
money, but not for spending.  That bungalow was sparsely furnished and
all with stuff that he'd bought cheap at sales.  He didn't like
spending money, he just wanted to have it."

"Do you mean he banked it all?"

"Oh no," said Lejeune.  "I'd say we'll find it somewhere under the
floor in that bungalow of his."

Both Lejeune and I were silent for some minutes while I contemplated
the strange creature that was Zachariah Osborne.

"Corrigan," said Lejeune dreamily, 'would say it was all due to some
gland in his spleen or his sweetbread or something either
over-functioning or under-producing I never can remember which.  I'm a
simple man1 think he's just a wrong 'un What beats me it always does is
how a man can be so clever and yet be such a perfect fool."

"One imagines a master mind," I said, 'as some grand and sinister
figure of evil."

Lejeune shook his head.  "It's not like that at all," he said.  "Evil
is not something superhuman, it's something less than human.  Your
criminal is someone who wants to be important, but who never will be
important, because he'll always be less than a man."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mark Easterbrook's Narrative

At Much Deeping everything was refreshingly normal.

Rhoda was busy doctoring dogs.  This time, I think, it was de worming
She looked up as I came in and asked me if I would like to assist.  I
refused and asked where Ginger was.

"She's gone over to the Pale Horse."

"What?"

"She said she had something to do there."

"But the house is empty."

"I know."

"She'll overtire herself.  She's not fit yet '

"How you fuss, Mark.  Ginger's all right.  Have you seen Mrs.  Oliver's
new book?  It's called The White Cockatoo.  It's over on the table
there."

"God bless Mrs.  Oliver.  And Edith Binns, too."

"Who on earth is Edith Binns?"

"A woman who has identified a photograph.  Also faithful retainer to my
late godmother."

"Nothing you say seems to make sense.  What's the matter with you?"

I did not reply, but set out for the Pale Horse.

Just before I got there, I met Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.

She greeted me enthusiastically.

"All along I knew I was being stupid," she said.  "But I didn't see
how.  Taken in by trappings."

She waved an arm towards the inn, empty and peaceful in the late autumn
sunshine.

"The wickedness was never there not in the sense it was supposed to be.
No fantastic trafficking with the Devil, no black and evil splendour.
Just parlour tricks done for money and human life of no account. That's
real wickedness.  Nothing grand or big just petty and contemptible."

"You and Inspector Lejeune would seem to agree about things."

"I like that man," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop.  "Let's go into the Pale
Horse and find Ginger."

"What's she doing there?"

"Cleaning up something."

We went in through the low doorway.  There was a strong smell of
turpentine.  Ginger was busy with rags and bottles.  She looked up as
we entered.  She was still very pale and thin, a scarf wound round her
head where the hair had not yet grown, a ghost of her former self.

"She's all right," said Mrs.  Dane Calthrop, reading my thoughts as
usual.

"Look!"  said Ginger triumphantly.

She indicated the old inn sign on which she was working.

The grime of years removed, the figure of the rider on the horse was
plainly discernible; a grinning skeleton with gleaming bones.

Mrs.  Dane Calthrop's voice, deep and sonorous, spoke behind me:
"Revelation, Chapter Six, Verse Eight.  And I looked and behold a pale
horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with
him ..."

We were silent for a moment or two, and then Mrs.  Dane Calthrop, who
was not one to be afraid of anti-climax, said,

"So that's that," in the tone of one who puts something in the
wastepaper basket.

"I must go now," she added.  "Mothers' Meeting."

She paused in the doorway, nodded at Ginger, and said unexpectedly:

"You'll make a good mother."

For some reason Ginger blushed crimson .. .

"Ginger," I said, 'will you?"

"Will I what?  Make a good mother?"

"You know what I mean."

"Perhaps .. . But I'd prefer a firm offer."

I made her a firm offer .. .

After an interlude, Ginger demanded:

"Are you quite sure you don't want to marry that Hermia creature?"

"Good lord!"  I said.  "I quite forgot."

I took a letter from my pocket.

"This came three days ago, asking me if I'd come to the Old Vic with
her to see Love's Labour's Lost."

Ginger took the letter out of my hand and tore it up.

"If you want to go to the Old Vic in future," she said firmly, 'you'll
go with me."

AGATHA CHRISTIE

Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of

Crime.  Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English
language with another billion in 44 foreign languages.  She is the most
widely published author of all time and in any language,

outsold by only the Bible and Shakespeare.  She is the author of

79 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and

6 novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

Agatha Christie was born in Torquay.  Her first novel,

The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was written toward the end of the
First World War, in which she served as a VAD.  In it she created
Hercule Poirot, the little Belgian detective who was destined to become
the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes.  It
was eventually published by

The Bodley Head in 1920.

In 1926, after averaging a book a year, Agatha Christie wrote

her masterpiece.  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the first of her
books to be published by Collins and marked the beginning of an
author-publisher relationship which lasted for fifty years and well
over seventy books.  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was also the first of
Agatha Christie's books to be dramatised under the name Alibi and to
have a successful run in the West End.

The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, is the longest-running play
in history.

Agatha Christie was made a Dame in 1971.  Her last two books to be
published were Curtain: Point's Last Case in 1975, and Sleeping

Murder, featuring the deceptively mild Miss Marple, in 1976.

Both were bestsellers.  Agatha Christie also wrote four nonfiction
works including an autobiography and the delightful Come, Tell

Me How You Live, which celebrates the many expeditions she shared with
her archaeologist husband Sir Max Mallowan.



