“Jo,” Hersey said. “Jo, come here.”

Jonathan’s fingers pulled at his lips. He did not move.

“Jo.”

Jonathan crossed the library and went into the smoking-room. There was another long silence. Nobody moved or spoke. At last Hersey came round the screen.

“Mr. Mandrake,” she said, “will you go in to Jonathan?”

Without a word Mandrake went into the smoking-room. The heavy door with its rows of book-shelves shut behind him.

It was then that Nicholas cried out: “My God, what’s happened?”

Hersey went to him and took his hands in hers. “Nick,” she said, “he’s killed William.”

William was sitting in a low chair beside the wireless. He was bent double. His face was between his knees and his hands were close to his shoes. His posture suggested an exaggerated scrutiny of the carpet. If Mandrake had walked in casually he might have thought at first glance that William was staring at some small object that lay between his feet. The cleft in the back of his head looked like some ugly mistake, preposterous rather than ghastly, the kind of thing one could not believe. Mandrake had taken in this much before he looked at Jonathan, who stood with his back against the door into the “boudoir.” He was wiping his hands on his handkerchief. Mandrake heard a tiny spat of sound. A little red star appeared on the toe of William’s left shoe.

“Aubrey, look at this.”

“Is he…? Are you sure…?”

“Good God, look at him.”

Mandrake had no wish to look at William but he limped over to the chair. Has anyone measured the flight of thought? In a timeless flash it can embrace a hundred images, and compass a multitude of ideas. In the second that passed before Mandrake stooped over William Compline, he was visited by a confused spiral of impressions and memories. He thought of William’s oddities, of how he himself had never seen any of William’s paintings, of how William’s mouth might now be open and full of spilling blood. He thought, in a deeper layer of consciousness, of Chloris, who must have been kissed by William, of Dr. Hart’s hands, of phrases in detective novels, of the fact that he might have to give his own name if he was called as a witness. The name of Roderick Alleyn was woven in his thoughts and over all of them rested an image of deep snow. He knelt by William and touched his right hand. It moved a little, flaccidly, under the pressure of his fingers, and that shocked him deeply. Something hit the back of his own hand and he saw a little red star like the one on William’s shoe. He wiped it off with a violent movement. He stooped lower and looked up into William’s face and that was terrible because the eyes as well as the mouth were wide open. Then Mandrake rose to his feet and looked at the back of William’s head and felt abominably sick. He drew away with an involuntary sideways lurch and his club-foot struck against something on the floor. It lay in shadow and he had to stoop again to see it. It was a flatfish spatulate object that narrowed to a short handle. He heard Jonathan’s voice babbling behind him —

“It hung on the wall there, you know. I showed it to you. It came from New Zealand. I told you. It’s called a mere. [Pronounced ‘merry.’] I told you. It’s made of stone.”

“I remember,” said Mandrake.

When he turned to speak to Jonathan he found that Nicholas had come into the room.

“Nick,” said Jonathan, “my dear Nick.”

“He’s not dead,” Nicholas said. “He can’t be dead.”

He thrust Jonathan from him and went to his brother. He put his hands on William’s head and made as if to raise it.

“Don’t,” said Mandrake. “I wouldn’t. Not yet.”

“You must be mad. Why haven’t you tried…? Leaving him! You must be mad.” He raised William’s head, saw his face, and uttered a deep retching sound. The head sagged forward again loosely as he released it. He began to repeat William’s name — “Bill, Bill, Bill—” and walked distractedly about the room, making strange uneloquent gestures.

“What are we to do?” asked Jonathan, and Mandrake repeated to himself: “What are we to do?”

Aloud he said: “We can’t do anything. We ought to get the police. A doctor. We can’t do anything.”

“Where’s Hart?” Nicholas demanded suddenly. “Where is he?”

He stumbled to the door beyond Jonathan, fumbled with the key and flung it open. The green “boudoir” was in darkness and the fire there had sunk to a dead glow.

“By God, yes, where is he?” cried Mandrake.

Nicholas turned to the door into the hall and on a common impulse Mandrake and Jonathan intercepted him. “Clear out of my way,” shouted Nicholas.

“Wait a minute, for Heaven’s sake, Compline,” said Mandrake.

“Wait a minute!”

“We’re up against a madman. He may be lying in wait for you. Think, man.”

He had Nicholas by the arm and he felt him slacken. He thought he saw something of the old nervousness come into his eyes.

“Aubrey’s right, Nick,” Jonathan was gabbling. “We’ve got to keep our head, my dear fellow. We’ve got to lay a plan of campaign. We can’t rush blindly at our fences. No, no. There’s — there’s your mother to think of, Nick. Your mother must be told, you know.”

Nicholas wrenched himself free from Mandrake, turned away to the fireplace and flung himself into a chair. “For Christ’s sake leave me alone,” he said. Mandrake and Jonathan left him alone and whispered together.

“Look here,” Mandrake said, “I suggest we lock up this room and go next door where we can talk. Are those two women all right in there? Better not leave them. We’ll go back into the library, then.” He turned to Nicholas. “I’m terribly sorry, Compline, but I don’t think we ought to — to make any changes here just yet. Jonathan, are there keys in all these doors? Yes, I see.”

The door into the “boudoir” was locked. He withdrew the key, locked the door into the hall, and gave both keys to Jonathan. As he crossed the room to open the library door he felt a slight prick in the sole of his normal foot and, in one layer of his conscious thoughts, cursed his shoemaker. They shepherded Nicholas back into the library. Mandrake found that, behind its rows of dummy books, the door into the library also had a lock.

They found Hersey and Chloris sitting together by the fire. Mandrake saw that Chloris had been crying. “I’m out of this,” he thought, “I can’t try to help.” And, unrecognized by himself, a pang of jealousy shook him, jealousy of William who, by getting himself murdered, had won tears from Chloris.

Mandrake, for the first time, noticed that Jonathan was as white as a ghost. He kept opening and closing his lips, his fingers went continually to his glasses and he repeatedly gave a dry nervous cough. “I daresay I look pretty ghastly myself,” thought Mandrake. Jonathan, for all his agitation, had assumed a certain air of authority. He sat down by Hersey and took her hand.

“Now, my dears,” he began, and though his voice shook, his phrases held their old touch of pedantry, “I know you will be very sensible and brave. This is a most dreadful calamity, and I feel that I am myself, in a measure, responsible for it. That is an appallirg burden to carry upon one’s conscience but at the moment I dare not let myself consider it. There is an immediate problem and we must deal with it as best we may. There is no doubt at all, I am afraid, that it is Dr. Hart who has killed William, and in my mind there is no doubt that he is insane. First of all, then, I want you both to promise me that you will not separate, and also that when we leave you alone together you will lock this door after us and not unlock it until one of us returns.”

“But he’s not going for either of us,” said Hersey. “He’s got nothing against us, surely.”

“What had he against William?”