Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 1. Whole No. 344, July 1972

Sleep No More by Allan R. Brown{©1972 by Allan R. Brown.}

This is the 369th “first story” to be published by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine... Can a story about sleep be solid and substantial? Or would it, like a dream, more likely be filmy and impalpable? This story, however, is about sleeplessness, and you’ll find it as solid and substantial as wide-awakeness, and with a strong narrative grip...

The author, Allan R. Brown, was born in Tennessee. While a young man he worked as a gandy dancer, miner, fruit picker, marble cutter, and claim adjuster. Later, after studying accounting and business administration, he was an office manager and sales manager. He has traveled widely in the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, and England — the last named undoubtedly explaining the locale of his “first story,” a surprising choice of background for an American...

There were three other patients in the room, and when they accidentally caught each other’s eyes they hurriedly looked away and buried their faces in an old Sphere or Tatler. Miss Featherstone was the only one who made no pretense of reading. She had always wondered what people would be like who came to consult an eminent brain specialist, and she studied the others with disconcerting straightforwardness. But they all seemed depressingly normal. No one stood on his head or stuck out a tongue at her.

Miss Featherstone herself was one of those aloof, austere tweedy spinsters you would expect to meet in a Devonshire lane with two dogs behind her. And that, as it happened, was the exact place where normally you would have found her.

When her turn came she followed the nurse into Sir Gilbert Chamberlain’s consulting room. Sir Gilbert, who looked more like an admiral than an alienist, started.

“Why, Miss Featherstone!” he exclaimed, rising. “I never dreamed it was you when I heard the name.” He had met Miss Featherstone at Grindelwald and had learned to respect her powers both with the curling stone and the human tongue.

Miss Featherstone shook his hand. “It’s me, all right,” she answered shortly. “But don’t imagine there’s anything wrong with me. I’m never ill. I don’t believe in it.”

Sir Gilbert smiled and invited her to sit down. He wasn’t convinced by this remark. His patients often began that way.

Miss Featherstone plumped herself in the chair beside his desk. He too sat down and leaned forward in an attentive professional manner.

“Now, don’t put on airs just because you’re in your consulting room,” Miss Featherstone said sharply. “And don’t look at me as though I were sex-starved or some nonsense of that kind! I’ve come to ask a straight question and I want a straight answer.”

Sir Gilbert laughed. “All right, all right,” he replied. “You’ve won, as usual. What can I do to help you?”

Miss Featherstone drew a deep breath. “The thing I want to know is just this,” she began. “What is sleep?”

Sir Gilbert’s eyebrows went up with a jerk. With most people he would have gone into a long explanation using many technical words, but he knew that with Miss Featherstone it was much safer to tell the truth. “We don’t really know,” he answered.

“Just what I might have expected,” Miss Featherstone remarked with disgust. “I’ve always found you doctors know everything about every disease except the one one’s got.”

“So you’re suffering from insomnia?” Sir Gilbert became professional again.

“No, I’m not,” Miss Featherstone rapped back. “I sleep very well. But I want to learn about sleep. Don’t you know anything about it?”

“Yes, we know quite a lot,” Sir Gilbert said. “We know it can be induced by different drugs and staved off by continual exercise. We know — or at least we think we know — that the sleep center is located in a certain part of the brain called the hypothalamus. Some authorities believe it is caused by a change in the calcium content of the blood, but that isn’t by any means proved.”

“H’m!” Miss Featherstone snorted. “And where’s this hypothalamus thing?”

Sir Gilbert pointed to a spot at the back of his head.

“And what does it look like?”

“It’s just gray matter like the rest of the brain.”

“H’m. That doesn’t help me much.” Miss Featherstone paused, then asked, “Do you know if anyone has ever died naturally from lack of sleep?”

“There’s no medical record of a man dying from it.”

“D’you mean a woman has, then?”

“No, no, but healthy dogs have died after being kept sleepless for fourteen days.”

Miss Featherstone glared at him. “Do you mean to say you have dared to do a thing like that to dogs?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Sir Gilbert answered calmly. “And to rabbits, too. The rabbits, being less high-strung, lasted longer — twenty-one days, as a rule.”

“So there’s no reason why human beings shouldn’t die of it in the same way?”

“No, none at all. In fact, there are very good grounds to believe that the Chinese — and I’m sorry to say, the Scots as well, Miss Featherstone — used to torture their enemies to death by this method.”

Miss Featherstone pressed her lips tightly together and remained silent. Sir Gilbert was studying her closely. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would consult a brain specialist for some trivial reason. There was serious trouble somewhere.

“Why are you asking me these strange questions, Miss Featherstone?”

“I’m asking them,” Miss Featherstone said harshly, “because my niece has been murdered.”

Sir Gilbert’s eyebrows shot up again. “Murdered!”

“Yes, murdered,” Miss Featherstone replied. “My niece died three weeks ago. There was no reason why she should have died. She had always been unusually strong and healthy. But she died because she couldn’t get any sleep.”

“Is that what the doctors said, Miss Featherstone?”

“No, it isn’t!” Miss Featherstone snorted again. “They just certified she was dead.”

“Was there no trace of disease?”

“No, nothing. She just suddenly stopped sleeping and in three weeks she was dead.”

“You say it happened suddenly, this sleeplessness?”

Miss Featherstone gave a snap of the fingers. “Just like that!”

“And there was no suggestion of drugs?”

“None, she was terrified of them.”

“But in those circumstances, surely there must have been an inquest?”

“Of course there was. But what was the good? She was dead by then. And any fool could have said it was from natural causes.”

Sir Gilbert gazed thoughtfully at her. “Why do you say your niece was murdered, Miss Featherstone?”

“Because it wasn’t natural,” Miss Featherstone spoke firmly. “I brought Sybil up and I ought to know. No one was ever more abounding in animal health; she hadn’t a nerve in her whole body or a doubt in her mind. Sybil was a beautiful girl, Sir Gilbert, and a bad one. She ran away from me when she was eighteen and started to live the life in London. She was going to have a baby when she died. A bad girl, but that’s no reason why anyone should be allowed to murder her!”

“Quite so,” Sir Gilbert agreed. “But isn’t it a big jump to say she was murdered?”

“No, it isn’t. You’ve told me yourself that no one has ever died of sleeplessness naturally.”

“But you can’t definitely say that she did die of sleeplessness,” Sir Gilbert protested.

“Yes, I can. Anyone who saw her at the end couldn’t help knowing what killed her. The engine in her ran on and on until it just couldn’t run any longer. It was horrible to see.”

“Very well.” Sir Gilbert tried to humor her. “Let’s admit she died of sleeplessness. What then?”

“Just this. Somebody has learned more about sleep than you have. Someone’s discovered how to destroy it.”

“Miss Featherstone, really, there are no grounds at all for a supposition like that!”

“Sybil’s dead, isn’t she? That ought to be grounds enough for anyone. Are you prepared to say categorically that if you injured this hypothalamus thing it wouldn’t destroy the power to sleep forever?”

“Yes, I am prepared to say it — quite categorically. If that were possible, it would have the opposite effect. It would probably induce a state of coma.”

Miss Featherstone was not defeated. “Well, then,” she went on, “if you succeeded in stimulating it instead of destroying it, what effect would you expect?”

Sir Gilbert made a grimace. “That might produce sleeplessness,” he admitted. “But such a thing has never been done.”

“Are you prepared to say definitely it can’t be done?”

Sir Gilbert gazed at her helplessly. “No, I’m not prepared to say it.”

Miss Featherstone fumbled with her bag, then stood up. “That’s all I want to know.”

Sir Gilbert conducted her to the door. He still felt uneasy; she was a determined woman who might do something foolish. “If you’ll take my advice, Miss Featherstone—” he began.

“I never take advice,” she told him. “And I’m going to find out who murdered Sybil. I really came to you as a kind of insurance.”

“Insurance?”

“Yes. If I get into any trouble I’m going to tell them that I’m a patient of yours, and you’ll have to come and say I’m not quite right in the head. I expect you’ll do that gladly. Well, goodbye, Sir Gilbert. I’ll see you at Grindelwald — if not sooner.”

Sir Gilbert thought of this interview on several occasions during the next few days. It troubled him to think there might be anything wrong with Miss Featherstone’s mind, yet this certainty that her niece had been murdered was very like one of those fixed ideas that crop up in so many different kinds of mania.

But all the same, her theory was interesting. There was a lot of research going on about sleep. It wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that in trying to create sleep someone might have discovered how to destroy it. And what a power that would be in the hands of an unscrupulous person! The undetectable poison at last!

The whole idea was so arresting that Sir Gilbert decided he must discuss it with his friend, the Assistant Commissioner, and see what the police had to say about such a possibility. If he had done this, he would have learned that the police had far more to say about it than he had ever dreamed. But it was one of those meetings that should have taken place but never did.

In the course of official inquiries into drug deaths the police had come across two cases in the past three years which still worried them. Both cases involved young girls who had suddenly been struck with acute insomnia. The Assistant Commissioner kept the reports before him for a whole month.

Sybil’s case had not been known to the police. Unlike Sybil, the other girls hadn’t held out; each had taken an overdose of drugs — drugs legitimately prescribed by their doctors.

But there were two disturbing factors: in both cases there had been no previous history of insomnia and both girls had been friends of a certain doctor Arthur Hussman, a radiologist with a good practice. He treated rheumatism and sinusitis with some kind of newfangled ray. The Assistant Commissioner had gone to his office in Harley Street and had some ray treatments for fibrositis. But everything seemed to be correct and aboveboard.

Yet Dr. Hussman was a sinister person, and he had a bad reputation with regard to his love affairs. The Assistant Commissioner was pretty well satisfied the doctor was the kind who would gladly wipe his girl friends off the face of the earth when he was tired of them; and the A.C. was by no means convinced that in all that medley of apparatus the doctor did not have some secret means of doing just that.

But believing is not proof. All the police had to go on was that one girl had been to Dr. Hussman for treatment and that the other girl had spent a weekend with him just before her deadly insomnia began. That was something, but not nearly enough. The Assistant Commissioner finally put the papers away.

He had just sat down at his desk when the telephone rang. It was a Detective Inspector from Marlborough Street, and he said they had a woman there charged with assault. “She’s a patient of Sir Gilbert Chamberlain’s,” the voice went on. “A bit barmy, I should say.”

“Then get in touch with Sir Gilbert and don’t bother me.”

“Very good, sir. Just thought you’d like to know the party she assaulted is our friend Hussman.”

The Assistant Commissioner jumped up at once and took his hat from the peg.

Miss Featherstone was not the kind of woman who worried about such trifles as the rules of evidence. She had no idea of the existence of Dr. Hussman at the time she interviewed Sir Gilbert. Sybil had been as hard as nails, and even when dying she hadn’t told her aunt anything of her life or the various men in it. That was entirely Miss Featherstone’s idea. Miss Featherstone had been a nurse in France during the war. She had seen men mortally hit, had seen the startled incredulous look in their eyes. That same look had been in Sybil’s eyes for three weeks.

This had all begun in Devonshire, as far as Miss Featherstone was concerned. Sybil had just arrived, without warning, saying she was tired and needed a rest. No explanations given. It was only the end of the first week then, but the startled incredulous look was already in her eyes, and it stayed and grew.

Miss Featherstone watched in helpless bewilderment. Four days and nights of incessant wakefulness, then Sybil hurried back to London like a hunted creature, and Miss Featherstone panted after. Doctors, specialists. But Sybil wouldn’t touch the drugs they prescribed. She began going to night clubs again, back to her old haunts.

Miss Featherstone had followed, herself sick for lack of sleep, and watched her niece slowly dying on her feet. It was in a night club at three in the morning that the words first flitted into Miss Featherstone’s mind:

Methought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep!”

Two days later Sybil was dead. The inquest followed. Miss Featherstone told them all she knew and held her tongue about what she thought. But the conviction was growing in her that something was wrong.

Once she had made up her mind she was like a bloodhound on the trail. Sybil’s past life began to come into view. Men, men, and more men! Miss Featherstone was shocked at the number of them and the way Sybil had treated them. A heartless little sensualist, and a golddigger, too! If one of these men had shot her or stuck a knife in her, Miss Featherstone would have been prepared to drop it. But it hadn’t been done cleanly like that; and Miss Featherstone went on.

It was from one of these men — a young fellow who had really loved Sybil and wanted to marry her — that Miss Featherstone first heard of Dr. Hussman. She learned the doctor had spent a weekend with Sybil just before it all happened. So she went to Harley Street.

Miss Featherstone had changed her character for this interview. She was no longer her brisk self, but a frail vague old lady who leaned on a heavy ebony walking stick. Dr. Hussman was a dark delicate man of about 35, with small feet and hands and immense nervous energy. He received her with professional apathy.

After a nervous glance at all the couches and chairs, the bulbs, coils, and projectors in the room, she sat down on the chair he indicated. Dr. Hussman wanted to know her age, if she was married, her operations, where she lived, her occupation.

Finally he asked, “And now what is the exact trouble, Miss Featherstone?”

Miss Featherstone told him, in rather garrulous fashion, what she had rehearsed before her looking glass. “I just can’t keep awake, Doctor. It’s been like that for months now. When I pick up a book or my sewing or anything, I suddenly doze off. It even happens when I’m talking to people. And it’s very embarrassing. I know I’m getting old, Doctor, but even so, it isn’t natural to be like that, is it?”

“No, it isn’t natural,” he agreed. “If you’ll just take off your hat I’ll examine you before we go any further.”

Miss Featherstone took off her hat; he got up and came around behind her. She had to brace herself for the ordeal. Apart from her suspicions she found him physically repulsive; there was something evil about his greedy eyes. And now his hands were exploring the back of her neck. Very gently. But she could feel the tensile strength in them. She thought of those hands on Sybil’s body, wondered if he already knew she was Sybil’s aunt, and she shuddered.

“Is that a sensitive place?” he asked.

“No, no,” Miss Featherstone answered.

“But you jumped then, didn’t you?”

“It was nothing. I’m afraid I’ve always been high-strung.”

“Oh, indeed! Well, there’s nothing to worry about. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The hands continued their exploration. A few more questions. Any pain here? Any stiffness there? Then they stopped. Dr. Hussman sat down at his desk.

“What made you come to me, Miss Featherstone?”

There was a suspicious look in his eyes now, and Miss Featherstone answered warily.

“Well, Dr. Uttley — he’s our family doctor — he sent me up to see Sir Gilbert Chamberlain. And Sir Gilbert sent me to you.”

“Oh! I don’t remember that Sir Gilbert has sent me any of his patients before.”

“Well, he said you’d had some very successful results. I do hope you can do me some good, Doctor.”

She looked at him earnestly and was relieved to see that the suspicious look had vanished from his eyes.

“I’m going to be quite frank with you, Miss Featherstone,” he told her. “I don’t know definitely that I can cure you; but if I can, then I can do it easily.”

“Is the treatment very expensive?” she asked nervously.

“The treatment is five guineas a time, but you won’t require more than three. If I have not been successful after three treatments I shall know you are not susceptible to my methods.”

“What is the treatment, Doctor?” she inquired.

“Just a ray,” he replied. “A form of stimulation. Quite harmless. The first treatment will only take three minutes, so I might as well give it to you now.”

Miss Featherstone felt herself go pale. She had to swallow twice before she could answer. “I’d like it now,” she said at last.

She watched him get up. She was wondering which of these nightmarish instruments he was intending to use. Would it be the same one he had used on Sybil? But it wasn’t any of the apparatus built into the room. Instead, he picked up a case which might have contained a portable phonograph. But the instrument inside was more like a machine gun on a stand, with a thin stumpy barrel. He arranged it behind a chair with a low back. Now he was plugging an electric cord into the wall.

Miss Featherstone clenched her teeth. It had always puzzled her how anyone could have done the damage without Sybil’s knowing. But this portable thingamajig could be used anywhere. It could be plugged into a socket in a hotel bedroom. She could picture it all in her mind now: Sybil lying in bed asleep; the man beside her rising stealthily, working skillfully in the dark; and then the instrument killing her sleep — killing it while sleep was on her.

“All ready now.” Dr. Hussman spoke softly. “Just step over here and sit in this chair.”

Miss Featherstone walked over with the help of the ebony stick. He was bending down now, switching the current on; but no light seemed to come out of the barrel.

“Is it working?” she asked, “I don’t see any light.”

“This ray isn’t visible to the naked eye,” he explained. “Just sit down, please. You won’t know anything is happening.”

She sat down and tried to look behind her.

“Now, bend your neck forward a little.”

She didn’t move. But the nimble fingers were adjusting her head exactly where he wanted it. There was a padded chin-rest to keep the head in place. And now something cool touched the back of her head in the exact spot where Sir Gilbert had told her the hypothalamus was located.

It was too much. Her nerve failed. She slipped out of the chair in a realistic faint.

Of course, she hadn’t really fainted at all. She wanted time to think before she risked anything more. Most apologetic she was, murmuring about a touch of the sun the day before; and Dr. Hussman had agreed she had better not start the treatment until she was quite well again. And so, still apologizing, she had escaped.

After that she spent a whole day in her hotel bedroom wondering what to do next. She was certain Dr. Hussman was the man. But how was she ever to persuade anybody else she was right? Go back to Sir Gilbert? He’d probably just pop her into a mental home. Go to Scotland Yard? A fine chance of being listened to there!

No, she would have to go on by herself. There was no other way. Risky? Yes, but she was an old woman now, and there was no reason to suppose anything very grand was still ahead of her. And she could write it all down in her diary. Then, if anything did happen, her diary would tell them everything.

She had already started writing when another idea occurred to her. By chance she had looked up and caught sight of her ebony stick, and her mind had jumped back nearly 25 years to when she was a nurse in France. That sergeant! She had known the ambulance would break down one night when they were alone together. And she had been quite right about the sergeant! Only the sergeant hadn’t known how handy she was with a spanner. He was unconscious all the way back to camp, and the doctor there had congratulated her, saying she couldn’t have chosen a more scientific place for her blow.

She remembered the exact spot now, and thought of Dr. Hussman bending over to plug in the cord. Of course, she was older, not as strong, and the ebony stick wouldn’t be as easy to handle as a spanner. Still, it ought to work.

There and then she rang up and asked for an appointment the next day. She chose the last appointment before lunch — not much risk of being interrupted at that time. She sat down again at the desk and brought her diary up to date.

It was a quarter to one when Miss Featherstone walked into Dr. Hussman’s consulting room the next day. She noticed with dismay that the portable apparatus was already plugged into the wall. Dr. Hussman wouldn’t have to bend down. She would have to think again — and think quickly.

She sat down at the desk.

“I hope you’ve quite recovered,” Dr. Hussman said pleasantly.

“Quite,” Miss Featherstone replied, looking warily around. “I’m really ashamed of myself for giving such an exhibition.”

The doctor made no reply. He was already adjusting the machine.

“All ready now, Miss Featherstone. If you’ll just take off your hat.”

Miss Featherstone took off her hat.

“Now if you’ll step over to this chair.”

Miss Featherstone had her left hand on the desk. There were two heavy medical books there; as she rose, her sleeve caught in them and tipped them onto the floor.

“Oh, dear, how clumsy I am!” ‘Miss Featherstone murmured.

The doctor was at her side at once, suave and polite. “Please allow me.”

Miss Featherstone allowed him. She took careful aim and brought the heavy ebony handle down on his skull. He fell, grunting, only half knocked out, and she gave him another blow before he could recover. He lay still then, and Miss Featherstone examined him. Not such a good job as she had done on the sergeant! The doctor was barely unconscious, so she gave him a third blow for luck. Then she locked the door.

After that she set to work methodically. She dragged him across to the chair and pulled him up onto it. She arranged his head on the chin-rest just as he had arranged hers. Then she focused the machine on the spot at the back of his head, and finally she switched it off. By this time it was 12:55. She wondered how long it would be before he regained consciousness. It didn’t really matter, so long as he thought he had been out a long time. She opened the face of the clock on the wall and turned the hand to 1:20.

She pulled a chair close to Dr. Hussman and sat watching him. When the clock hands pointed to 1:30 she saw his eyelids flutter and switched on the machine. But it was a false alarm, so she switched it off again. Finally, when the clock showed 1:50, he groaned and stirred. Miss Featherstone switched the machine on and watched intently.

He came to slowly. First, his eyes opened: they opened but he didn’t seem to see anything. Next, he was looking at her, at first blankly, then with a dawning bewilderment. He lifted his hand vaguely to feel his head and it touched the barrel of the machine behind him. Suspicion and fear came into his eyes — but most of all, fear. He turned his head slowly, as though he hardly dared to look. When he saw the machine he tore himself loose, staggered whimpering to the opposite side of the room, and cowered against the wall.

Miss Featherstone watched him with an idiotic smile. The machine had crashed to the floor with the jerk he’d given it in his frenzied effort to get away from it. Even now, he didn’t seem to see her. He was staring at the clock.

At last he looked at Miss Featherstone. “Who are you?” he whispered. “Why have you done this to me?”

Miss Featherstone smiled her idiotic smile. “I was only playing doctor and patient,” she explained. “Such a nice game! Now I suppose they’ll put me away again.”

Things happened quickly after that. Dr. Hussman seemed to lose his head entirely. He rushed out into the hall shouting for help, and in a moment the consulting room was crowded with nurses and servants. Soon after that came the police, two of them. Dr. Hussman was still beside himself and could hardly give a coherent account of what had happened, but he had the bruises on his head, and he pointed to the ebony stick.

But Miss Featherstone noticed he gave her in charge for knocking him unconscious. Nothing else was mentioned. He seemed unwilling to call attention to the mechanism on the floor.

Miss Featherstone had never been charged in a police court before, and she found it interesting. The policemen really were very kind. Even the inquisitive man from Scotland Yard was kind. Curious how interested he seemed to be in Dr. Hussman.

Meanwhile Miss Featherstone was in the dock. The magistrate was looking bored and the police were applying for a remand. Somebody mentioned bail, but the police opposed it because, they said, she wasn’t responsible for her actions. But now Sir Gilbert was saying he would be responsible for her. The magistrate murmured something inaudible, and presently she was in a taxi alone with Sir Gilbert.

And before she realized it they were in a sunny room in a nursing home, and Sir Gilbert was standing in front of her. “Now, Miss Featherstone,” he began, “it’s time you told me what all this means.”

“I think it’s a touch of schizophrenia,” Miss Featherstone said calmly.

“Nonsense!” Sir Gilbert was impatient. “You’re as sane as I am and you know it.”

Miss Featherstone gave a derisive snort. “I hope I’m a great deal saner than that!”

He looked at her sourly. Then he tried pleading. “Don’t you see this puts me in a very awkward position after what you told me the other day?”

“I don’t see why this should have anything to do with what I said the other day,” Miss Featherstone replied.

“Are you trying to persuade me that you didn’t go to Dr. Hussman because you thought he was mixed up some way in your niece’s death?”

“I’m not trying to persuade you of anything. Dr. Hussman has charged me with hitting him over the head with a stick. If I said or did anything more than that to him, it’s for him to say, isn’t it?”

Sir Gilbert gave up the unequal contest. “Very well, if you won’t tell me, you won’t; but you’re not going to have it all your own way. I’m in charge, and I’m going to order you senna pods and a milk diet.”

Miss Featherstone poured the senna pods down the basin. As for the milk diet, she had been intending for some time to do a little slimming, and this was a splendid opportunity.

For the next few days she was being continually asked questions by Sir Gilbert and the detectives and even the Assistant Commissioner himself. She wouldn’t tell them a thing. The proper place to tell her story was in court, where she intended to tell it from beginning to end — when Dr. Hussman was there and they could all watch his face.

The one thing she longed to know in the meantime was what Dr. Hussman was doing and thinking. As far as she was concerned, her suspicions had been proved by Dr. Hussman’s behavior when he first came to. The terror in his eyes could have meant only one thing: that he thought she had done to him exactly what he had done to Sybil. Further proof had been added when he avoided all mention of the machine.

By now, of course, he would have discovered that he could sleep, that she hadn’t done him any real harm; and when he appeared in court he would probably take the line that she was a lunatic. The only danger was that they might all really believe she was crazy.

On the morning of the sixth day Sir Gilbert came in with a grave face. “I’ve got some serious news for you. Dr. Hussman was found dead in bed this morning.”

Miss Featherstone looked at him. “You don’t mean I hit him as hard as all that?”

“No, I don’t. But he hasn’t slept for the past six days. Last night he took an overdose of drugs and ended it.”

But I can’t have killed him, Miss Featherstone was thinking; the machine was only on for a couple of minutes. That can’t have been long enough.

“You must tell all you know now,” Sir Gilbert went on. “It’s your only hope. The Assistant Commissioner will be here any minute. I’ve come to warn you.”

“I suppose you’ve told him what I said to you that first time?”

“Not yet,” Sir Gilbert answered. “But I may have to. So far it’s he who has been telling me things. Apparently Sybil wasn’t the only one. Two other girls died who were friends of Hussman’s. They’ve known that a long time, only they had no evidence to act on. Now they know about Sybil as well, and they know she was your niece. You must tell the whole truth.”

“But what am I supposed to have done?” asked Miss Featherstone.

“You’re supposed to have used some apparatus on him — the same apparatus he used on those girls.”

“I see. Have they found this apparatus in his consulting room?”

“No. Everything there is standard equipment.”

“Well then?”

“There’s something missing. It was on the floor when he called the police, but now it’s gone.”

“H’m! It seems a pity the police didn’t look at it while they had a chance. Am I supposed to have spirited it away?”

“No, Hussman did. It could have been used as evidence against him as well as you.”

“Had he confessed to its existence?”

“He never mentioned it.”

“Too bad!” Miss Featherstone observed dryly. “It looks as though the police haven’t got a case at all until they’ve found this apparatus.”

“D’you mean you’ll refuse to speak?”

“I can’t tell them things I don’t know.”

“But it’s your duty — in the interests of justice and science as well.”

“In my opinion,” Miss Featherstone said flatly, “justice has already been done. As for science, it is discoveries like this that are ruining mankind. The sooner some machines are lost, the better.”

That was the end of her talk with Sir Gilbert. When the Assistant Commissioner took his place, she disclaimed any knowledge of the alleged apparatus. She saw that once she spoke about it she’d be in for a charge — not of assault, but of murder. Accordingly she admitted she had assaulted Dr. Hussman because she knew he was the man who had led Sybil astray. She admitted that and nothing else, and three hours of questioning couldn’t shake her.

The Assistant Commissioner was studying her closely all this time. A grand woman, he was thinking, and putting up a grand show! Pity she had forgotten all about the diary he had in his pocket. It didn’t say enough, that diary; perhaps he could trap her into telling more.

But he really didn’t want to do that. Why stir up everything anew when it had already been so neatly settled? Was it his duty to go on demanding victims when the account had already been balanced? He decided it wasn’t. The machine had vanished, and without it he didn’t have a case.

The Assistant Commissioner stopped suddenly in front of Miss Featherstone. “So you’re quite sure you have nothing more to tell me?”

“Quite sure,” Miss Featherstone replied.

“Very well, then.” He pulled the diary from his pocket and handed it to her. “I was going to ask your permission to read this, but I don’t think it’s necessary now. Better burn it.” Miss Featherstone felt herself sink into the floor as he left the room. She had completely forgotten the diary, and she was certain he had read every word of it.

When the case finally came up Miss Featherstone was bound over to be on good behavior for twelve months. Sir Gilbert had testified as to her sanity, and the magistrate decided to be lenient.

Sir Gilbert saw her off when she took the train back to Devonshire.

“There’s just one more point about sleep,” she said.

“Oh! What is that?” Sir Gilbert sounded suspicious.

“Am I right in supposing that shock or anxiety might cause severe insomnia?”

“Perfectly right.”

“Then, just to take an instance, suppose someone was obsessed with the idea that he would never sleep again. Could that in itself be enough to keep him from sleeping?”

“Quite enough.”

“That’s all I want to know,” Miss Featherstone ended sweetly. “Goodbye, and thank you.”

Sir Gilbert stood gazing where the train had been, long after it was out of sight.