The Couple Next Door: Collected Short Mysteries

I

The island rose out of Lake Huron like a huge bloated ghost.

“There she is!” cried the fat man in the bow of the motor launch to the tall young man beside him. “Magnificent, eh?”

Dr. Prye looked bored as he always did when he was seasick. “You are not seasick,” he told himself silently. “The concept is impossible because this is not a sea but a lake, a cute, harmless lake, and you’ve only been on it for half an hour.”

He still felt very bad. He said: “Choppy today, isn’t it?”

“Not nearly as choppy as usual,” Dr. Haller said vigorously. “You know, Prye, this scheme of ours might revolutionize the whole science of psychiatry.”

“Yours, not ours.”

Haller paid no attention. “I’ve thought of everything. I’ve chosen my subjects carefully and they are all enthusiastic. They want to be cured. That’s half the battle with neurotics. It was most fortunate that you were available, Prye.”

“Fortunate,” Prye asked faintly, “for whom?”

“For my subjects, for me, for the world. With you to assist me, I shall turn the minds of these poor creatures inside out, expose them to the sun and the air and the elements, let them struggle with the fundamentals of life.”

“Struggle. Yes. How?”

Haller’s cherubic pink face glowed. “Let them prepare their own meals, do their own work, grow their own vegetables.”

Prye shaded his eyes against the late-afternoon sun and squinted in the general direction of the island. “Looks like rock to me.”

“Oh, yes, it is. Solid rock. The growing of vegetables was purely a figure of speech. Actually, the food is in cans, two hundred dollars’ worth of cans for a start.”

“I have never seen two hundred dollars’ worth of cans,” Prye said. “It will be an interesting sight.”

“Excuse me. I must superintend the landing.” Haller disappeared into the small cabin.

From the rear, a female voice said loudly and with no trace of sympathy: “Seasick? Too bad.”

He turned to behold a blond young woman in a pale-blue slack suit. She was extremely pretty, but seemed to be either unaware of the fact or so well aware that she didn’t think of it. A cigarette drooped from her red lips.

“Are you one of us? Or one of him” — she cocked her head in the direction of the cabin. “In brief, are you crazy or are you a genius?”

“I alternate,” Prye told her.

“That’s fine,” she said warmly. “So do I. Let’s be friends. My name is Kitty Tyler. I am twenty-five and I have a deep-seated neurosis which defies psychiatrists to unseat it. Are you a psychiatrist?”

Prye said, “Yes.”

“All right. It defies you, too. The trouble is, I’m swarming with hormones. Oh, there you are, Johnny. And smoking, too! Didn’t Dr. Haller tell you that nicotine is a noxious toxin?”

The fair young man with the halfback physique smiled and said: “Sure, but I’m crazy about noxious toxins.”

“Just think,” Kitty mused. “Another five minutes and we’ll be saying good-by to all these degrading pleasures, cigarettes, meat, alcohol.” She turned to Prye again and remarked in a sibilant whisper: “Johnny’s going to go mad without alcohol. He’s just getting over his second attack of D.T.’s.”

“Third,” Johnny said mildly. “My name is John Prince.” He held out his hand to Prye.

“Glad to know you, Prince,” Prye said. “I’m Dr. Paul Prye, Dr. Haller’s assistant.”

“Haller’s batty,” Johnny said. “He’s got a fixation. He thinks I’m batty. Ah, here comes my faithful keeper. Hello, Hemingway. Looking for me?”

“You know damned well I was looking for you,” Hemingway said. He was a middle-aged man with a pleasant face and long, powerful arms. He put one of them around Johnny’s shoulder in a friendly fashion. “Come on, Johnny. I want to search you.”

“Search me? What for? You’re no gentleman, Hemingway. You have never worked your way through Princeton. Princeton,” he added confidentially to Prye, “was named after me. Go ahead, Hemingway. Strip me and I’ll throw you into the lake.”

“Come on, Johnny,” Hemingway said with a smile, and Johnny followed him down to the cabin from which Dr. Haller was just emerging.

Kitty Tyler bent down hastily and drew a long rectangular package from one leg of her slack suit.

“You take this,” she told Prye. “Keep it for me.” She thrust the package under his coat.

“But I—” Prye began.

“Stool pigeon,” she hissed. She whirled around to greet Dr. Haller with a beautiful, candid smile. “Why, Dr. Haller! We were just talking about you. I was telling Dr. Prye what a perfectly marvelous idea your Colony for Mental Hygiene is.”

Haller beamed on her. “Thank you, Miss Tyler. Did I see you give Dr. Prye a package a minute ago?”

“No, indeed,” Miss Tyler replied. “I hardly know the man.”

“Throw it overboard, Prye,” Haller ordered. “We must assist Miss Tyler to overcome her fleshly weaknesses, in this case, cigarettes. Cast the carton upon the waters, Prye.”

Miss Tyler let out an anguished cry as the carton hit the water.

Haller looked at her reproachfully. “May I remind you, Miss Tyler, that you are a voluntary member of this colony, that you are expected to obey the rules, and that this is the third carton of cigarettes you have secreted upon your person?”

“You have an evil eye,” Miss Tyler said, and walked away with a great deal of dignity.

“They’re children really,” Haller said with a benign smile. “I have purposely kept the age grouping below forty, as you will see. They are all in perfect physical health, although Mr. Prince’s constitution is not at present up to par. Mr. Prince, I may say, is not exactly a volunteer. His father recommended the treatment. But we don’t have to worry about Prince. Hemingway will act as his special attendant and he’s a good man.”

The launch had glided into a small bay beneath the rocky shore of the island and stopped beside a flat rock which jutted out into the water, forming a natural landing stage. Several men and women had come on deck carrying crates and suitcases. A small, dark woman detached herself from the group and approached Dr. Haller.

“I didn’t have time to search Tyler’s luggage again,” she said wearily.

“Quite all right,” Haller said. “Miss Eustace, this is Dr. Prye. Miss Eustace is my nurse.”

Miss Eustace offered a sad smile. “I saw the boat pick you up, doctor. I hope you will like the colony.” Her voice expressed grave doubt.

Prye murmured politely that he was sure he would, he was fond of all children under forty. Miss Eustace picked up the crate she had been carrying and walked down the deck, shouting to the rest of the group.

Miss Tyler appeared, carrying nothing at all.

“Share and share alike, Miss Tyler,” Haller called to her across the deck. “We must all do our bit. This is a co-operative colony.”

Miss Tyler nodded pleasantly, waved her handkerchief at him, and disembarked.

“Miss Tyler is going to be a trouble,” Haller said sadly. “I was not altogether anxious to bring her in the first place.”

“What’s the matter with her?” Prye asked.

“Well” — Haller took Prye’s arm and led him toward the cabin — “we’d better collect our own luggage. As I was saying, Miss Tyler shows some symptoms of... ah... nymphomania.”

Prye let out his breath with a long whistle. “That’s dandy. How many men are there in the colony? I want to know my chances.”

“Well, besides Prince and Hemingway and ourselves, there’s Mr. Jenkins. He is here with his wife. They’re the keenest of the lot. They live on raisins and peanuts and plan to sleep outdoors when it’s warmer. Then there’s Mr. Storm. Storm is thoroughly inhibited and seems to have a number of interesting phobias. Those are the men.”

Five minutes later, Prye stumbled onto the island. It appeared to consist, as Haller had said, of huge rock formations which sloped up to form a rough flat plateau. At the summit stood two long low buildings made of logs, and bordered on two sides by screened verandas. A lone tree had fought its way out of the rocks in front of the south building, but the only other foliage visible was masses of dark-green leaves clinging to the rocks like ivy.

From the veranda of the south building came a loud cry of rage. Dr. Haller dropped his luggage and scrambled up the rocks like an adipose mountain goat. Prye followed as best he could.

On the veranda they found Hemingway.

“So!” he said ominously.

“Why, Hemingway,” Haller said in a soothing voice. “Is anything wrong?”

Hemingway waved his hand toward the vast expanse of rock to the south. “Do you know what that green stuff is? It’s poison ivy. I repeat, it’s poison ivy!”

“Of course, it’s poison ivy,” Haller said. “If we accept the wonders of nature, we must be prepared to accept its mistakes also, Hemingway.”

“I am allergic to poison ivy. Look!” He held out his arm and both doctors examined the small reddish blisters beginning to form.

“It couldn’t possibly be poison ivy,” Haller said heartily. “We just arrived and poison ivy symptoms don’t appear until twelve to twenty-four hours after exposure. It must be something else.”

Hemingway smiled bitterly. “Something else such as what? Measles? I want to get off this island here and now.”

“Sorry,” Prye said. “There goes the boat.”

The launch was pulling away from shore. Hemingway let out a groan. “How far is the mainland?”

“Ten miles,” Haller replied. “But you needn’t worry, Hemingway. The boat will be back the day after tomorrow with fresh milk.”

“I won’t see the day after tomorrow. How about the other islands we passed?”

“They’re uninhabited,” Haller said. “Later on, when the season begins, perhaps some more people will arrive. That’s why I chose the beginning of June to come up here. It will give us a chance to get started in strict privacy. Come inside, Hemingway, and we’ll fix your arm with a good scrubbing of yellow soap, and tomorrow we’ll eradicate the poison ivy.”

They went inside, and Prye sank wearily into a deck chair.

A short stout woman came out of the door of the lodge carrying a pail in her right hand. Her left arm was extended at a right angle from her body and the tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“I must get water,” she sobbed. “I must get some water in this pail and my arm is paralyzed again. Look at my poor arm. Oh, the horror of it!”

Prye got to his feet and said: “Come now, sit down and tell me about it, Miss—”

“M-M-Miss S-S-S-Studd.”

“Sit down, Miss Studd.”

Miss Studd sat down, still sobbing vigorously. “I’d put up my hand to wave good-by to the boat and I couldn’t get it down again and Miss Tyler was very nasty about it. She said I was just pretending so I wouldn’t have to bring up any water.”

“Shall I help you lower your arm?”

Miss Studd stopped crying immediately. “If you think you can do it without breaking it off. I’d much rather have a paralyzed arm than no arm at all.”

“And you’re quite right,” Prye said. “There now, down we go.” The arm was lowered very gently.

Miss Studd briskly wiped the tears from her eyes and, without speaking, picked up her pail and walked down the veranda steps. Prye watched her thick dumpy figure bobbing up and down among the rocks.

In five minutes she was back again with the pail full. As she passed Prye, she said in a hurried whisper: “Oh, my dear, I hope you don’t catch anything from me.”

Prye said: “Wait a moment, Miss Studd,” but she was already inside the building. He heard Miss Eustace’s thin weary voice: “Thank you, Miss Studd. Your arm is better again. I see.”

Miss Studd said: “Yes. It’s the air.”

II

Dinner was served at seven o’clock in the north building. Dr. Haller had reserved the north building for eating and recreation, the south for sleeping. They ate at a rough pine table covered with a gay tablecloth and illumined by four kerosene lamps.

Mrs. Jenkins had cooked the meal and Mr. Jenkins was serving it. He was clad in a pair of khaki shorts and a red turtle-neck sweater. Between courses, he stood beside a maplewood buffet and nibbled raisins and peanuts, humming to himself. At intervals, Mrs. Jenkins, a tall, thin vigorous woman of thirty-five, would insert her head into the dining room and ask jovially:

“How is it? Good?”

“Wonderful,” Prye said. The meal wasn’t bad, in fact, except that the drinking water seemed slightly murky.

Dr. Haller was explaining how he had conceived his idea for the colony. “I saw the advertisement in the Herald — island with double lodge for sale, cheap. So I hired a boat — same boat that brought us today — and came over to take a look at it.”

At this point Mr. Jenkins withdrew his hand from the bowl of raisins and peanuts and applauded heartily.

The small, wizened man wedged between Miss Studd and Miss Tyler pushed aside his plate.

“I can’t eat with all this noise going on,” he said querulously. “My food curdles before it hits my stomach. I shall retire.”

“Well, go ahead,” said Miss Tyler in a matter-of-fact voice. “I can do without you, Mr. Storm.”

“Now, children.” Dr. Haller rose to his feet and beamed around the table. “Mr. Storm, you will learn to eat in a crowd if you’re patient. Agoraphobia is most difficult to cure—”

“Difficult,” Mr. Storm said with a snort. “It’s impossible.”

“—without the fullest co-operation.”

“Maybe I could eat in an ordinary crowd, but not in this crowd. They’re all crazy.”

“Crazy!” Miss Studd cried. “Well, I like that!”

Dr. Haller thumped a pudgy fist on the table. “Crazy is a word which the colony deplores. It is a word you must all strike from your heads, your hearts, and your vocabularies.”

Kitty Tyler said, “How about crazy as in ‘I’m crazy about Johnny’?”

Johnny blushed and studied the plate in front of him intently. “Oh, Kitty,” he mumbled. “I wish you wouldn’t. I’ve got a wife and two kids back in Omaha.”

“Liar,” Kitty said. “That’s one thing you can’t say about me. I’m no liar. Even if the truth is devastating, and it often is, I tell it. Don’t I, Miss Eustace?”

“You certainly do,” Miss Eustace said absently.

Mr. Jenkins gamboled into the room with a bowl of canned peaches in one hand and a pile of fruit dishes in the other.

“Anybody want some of my raisins or nuts?” he asked affably. “Raisins for iron and nuts for—”

“Nuts,” said Miss Tyler, and Mr. Jenkins roared with mirth, slapping his bare thighs.

Prye bent his head toward Miss Eustace. “Mr. Jenkins is in very high spirits this evening. Is he always?”

“He has been since I first met him yesterday,” Miss Eustace replied.

“You mean that some of these people aren’t Dr. Haller’s patients!”

“Dr. Winthrop sent Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins and we got Mr. Prince from a private sanitarium for alcoholics. But, of course, we have their case histories. Actually, we know a great deal about them, but—” Her words trailed off in a sigh. “Frankly, doctor, I don’t care for nature in such large slabs, and I feel that a co-operative colony would be difficult to manage under the best of conditions.”

On the other side of Miss Eustace, Hemingway was contemplating his poison ivy in morose silence.

“May I touch it, Hemingway?” Johnny asked.

Hemingway frowned at him almost tenderly. “Now, Johnny, behave yourself and I’ll let you wash the dishes.”

“I’ll help you, Johnny,” Kitty Tyler said. “I love washing dishes.”

Dr. Haller regarded her coldly. “Tomorrow night, Miss Tyler. Tonight you may help Miss Studd fetch the water from the lake.”

“You damn ape,” Kitty said under her breath. “Get your own water.”

Her head disappeared under the table for a moment, and when it reappeared there was a lighted cigarette in her mouth. She inhaled dreamily.

“Give me one, Kitty,” Johnny said.

“Ya, ya!” said Miss Tyler. “Bow down, minions. I’ve got a whole package.”

“Absolutely no smoking,” Dr. Haller said firmly. “Do you hear me, Miss Tyler?”

Miss Tyler heard him but she preferred to run for it. In an instant, she was out of the door and bounding over the rocks toward the water.

Mr. Jenkins swallowed a peanut, yelled, “Come on, Josephine!” and dashed out with Mrs. Jenkins after him. Miss Studd’s arm became paralyzed as she reached out for more peaches. Hemingway’s poison ivy began to itch. Johnny wanted a drink and Miss Tyler wanted Johnny. Mr. Storm shut himself in his room, and Dr. Prye and Miss Eustace washed the dishes and exchanged bitter reflections on the nature of nature.

Undressing for bed at nine thirty under the bored gaze of two cockroaches, Dr. Prye contemplated his position and found it wanting.

He sighed and turned down the wick of the kerosene lamp. For half an hour, he lay in bed listening to the roar of the water on the rocks. When he woke up, he could still hear the water roaring, but another noise sounded above it, the high, thin wail of a woman in anguish.

It was Miss Studd he found first. She was lying face down across a rock about a hundred yards south of the sleeping lodge. One of her hands clutched a clump of poison ivy. There was a gash in her forehead from which blood was flowing, and she was unconscious.

Prye raised his eyes from Miss Studd and saw Dr. Haller, also in his pajamas, bounce around the corner of the north building and cover the hundred yards to Miss Studd with flying feet.

“What’s happened?” he shouted. “Miss Studd, are you hurt? Miss Studd!”

“She’s fallen,” Prye said. “Wait till I move her hand out of that damn ivy. You’d better tell Miss Eustace, and I’ll carry Miss Studd back to her room!”

Haller turned to go back to the lodge. Ten yards from Prye he stopped short and his eyes widened in horror. Close to his foot lay another foot, naked and swollen and red.

Hemingway was no longer allergic to poison ivy. He had been lying face down in a bed of it for some time, and his expression had not changed at all.

Dr. Haller was emitting small squeaks like a clarinet in the hands of an amateur. “He’s naked!” he gasped.

Prye, teetering under Miss Studd’s considerable weight, stopped and demanded impatiently, “Who’s naked?”

“Hemingway. He’s dead and naked and he’s been scalped. He’s been scalped,” Haller repeated in a daze.

Miss Studd changed hands.

“You take her,” Prye said. “Keep the others inside the lodge until I can look around.”

“I think I’m going to faint,” Haller said weakly.

“All right. I’ll carry both of you.” With Miss Studd hanging over his right shoulder and Dr. Haller clinging to his left hand, Prye made the trip to the lodge in five minutes. Mr. Jenkins was just coming out of the door with two pails.

“Hi-ho,” he said briskly. “What’s happened here? The little lady faint?” He dropped the pails, put a hand to his mouth and roared, “Oh, Josephine! Oh, Josephine!”

Mrs. Jenkins, a ghastly vision in green shorts, pranced out, took a look at Miss Studd, and smiled indulgently.

“Tenderfoot,” she said tolerantly. “Righto.”

“Righto,” Mr. Jenkins replied.

The word was apparently the Jenkins’ signal for prompt action. In less than a minute, they were whisking Miss Studd into her bedroom.

“I’d better superintend,” Haller said faintly.

“Do,” said Prye.

In his room, Prye struggled into a pair of gray flannels, a long-sleeved sweater, and his heaviest socks and shoes. He drew on an old pair of pig-skin gloves, picked up a yard ruler in the kitchen, and went back to Hemingway.

It was shortly before seven o’clock and the sun was not yet strong enough to dry the dew on Hemingway’s broad smooth back. From the top of his head a neat circle had been cut and it lay beside him sprouting black hair like a strange plant.

The scalping didn’t kill him, Prye thought, and the poison ivy couldn’t have killed him.

Prye slashed away at the ivy with his yardstick and then leaned over and dragged the body onto a section of bare rock. He noticed that the limbs were rigid as he turned Hemingway on his back. Beneath the left breast there was a short, straight incision, its outlines marked by dried blood.

Probing among the leaves of the poison ivy, Prye found a butcher knife encrusted with blood. The knife was familiar to him. He had washed it the night before, and Miss Eustace had cautioned him to be careful. She had taken it from him, dried it, and put it in a drawer of the kitchen cabinet. But somebody had taken it out and put it in Hemingway.

Nobody had any reason to kill Hemingway, Prye thought. Haller had said he was an experienced and skillful attendant. All the patients liked him and went to him for advice and sympathy. Old Mr. Prince was paying him an additional salary to look after Johnny and Johnny had liked him right off the bat.

Judging by the type of wound, there should have been a great deal of blood but the only stains Prye found were small. One was on the leaves on which Hemingway had been lying, and the other was where the knife had been thrown.

“He was killed with his clothes on,” Prye said aloud. “The murderer soaked up the blood with Hemingway’s clothes. Then where are the clothes? Probably in the lake. Why isn’t Hemingway in the lake, too? Why undress a corpse, throw away the clothes and leave behind the more damning evidence, the corpse itself?”

He heard a shout from the direction of the lodge and turned to see Miss Eustace running toward him. She had evidently flung herself into her uniform, for she was still buttoning it as she ran, and her long black hair was streaming along behind her. From a distance she looked like a maenad hurrying to an orgy, but when she came up Prye saw that she was the same tired and slightly bored Miss Eustace.

“Dr. Haller told me,” she said, puffing a little. “Is there anything I can do? Where is he? Where — Oh!”

She glanced at Hemingway briefly and turned back to face Dr. Prye.

“What did I tell you?” she said, sighing. “I knew this scheme of Dr. Haller’s would lead to trouble. Poor Hemingway. I was very fond of him.”

Prye studied her, puzzled. “You don’t seem as upset as I am.”

“No,” Miss Eustace said. “Violence doesn’t upset me any more. I’ve been a psychiatric nurse for ten years. I was in the next ward when my sister was beaten to death with a chair. I guess I felt like quitting then, but I didn’t. I’ve been at this work for so long that I feel odd, out of place, when I go into the outer world where people are supposed to act like reasonable beings and don’t.”

Watching her, Prye said: “You have the case histories of all the people in the colony. Has any of them a tendency to be violent?”

“Of course not. Dr. Haller would have refused to bring them if that were so. They are all mildly neurotic with the exception of Miss Studd, whose condition seems more serious to me. She’s a hypochondriac, according to Dr. Haller. According to me, she’s a hypochondriac plus, but harmless and very easy to manage.”

“How about Johnny?” Prye said.

“Well, of course, Johnny was violent when he had his attacks of delirium tremens but that’s the usual thing. All delirious patients are potentially violent, but the violence is general and not directed against people but against any instrument of restraint. Johnny is a lovable boy. His is a case of too much money and too much idleness.”

“And Miss Tyler?”

“Miss Tyler,” Miss Eustace said thoughtfully, “is a puzzling case. She came to Dr. Haller’s office about a month ago and said she believed she was on the point of going insane and that she wanted to be psychoanalyzed. Well, as you know, Dr. Haller does no psychoanalytic work at all, but he was interested in the girl and invited her to join the colony. She seems to have a great deal of money. She has never been institutionalized. In fact, Johnny is the only one who has.”

Her eyes went back to Hemingway. “What shall we do about Hemingway? There is no place to bury him.”

“We’ll have to get in touch with the authorities,” Prye said. “It’s murder, you know.”

“I know. But how are you going to get in touch with them? Dr. Haller gave orders to the boatman to come back tomorrow afternoon, and no sooner.”

“Flag a ship,” Prye suggested.

“What ship? There are no ships in this part of Lake Huron in early June. If the boatman doesn’t come, I’m afraid we may have to bury poor Hemingway at sea.”

“What sea?” Prye said coldly.

Miss Eustace’s glance was full of reproach. “We must all try to keep our heads and our tempers, Dr. Prye.”

She turned to go back, stepping delicately around the poison ivy. Prye was bending over Hemingway again when he heard her shout:

“Stay back, Miss Tyler! Go and get your breakfast.”

Miss Tyler shouted back: “There is no breakfast and I never eat it, anyway.”

Miss Eustace put a firm hand on Miss Tyler’s arm, but Miss Tyler was equally firm in removing it.

“I’m exploring,” she said brightly.

“You can explore after breakfast.”

“But I just said there is no— Why, there’s Dr. Prye. Yoo, hoo, Dr. Prye!”

“Yoo, hoo,” Prye said. “Beat it.”

But Miss Tyler had already arrived. She saw Hemingway, gave a husky cackle, and sat down abruptly on a rock. With her eyes tightly closed she said: “It has happened. I am now crazy. I have just had a visual hallucination of a most repellent nature. Pad my cell.” Her voice broke. “Oh, it’s terrible to be crazy. Miss Eustace! Are you there, Miss Eustace? I’m scared to open my eyes.”

“If you’re crazy,” Miss Eustace said practically, “so am I. Now get up and come back to the lodge. You are not having hallucinations, Miss Tyler. Somebody has murdered Hemingway. Take my arm and in Heaven’s name open your eyes. I don’t intend to carry you.”

Miss Eustace’s unexpected severity shocked Miss Tyler into mobility. She got up and walked away without any assistance.

“Miss Eustace,” Prye said. “Tell Dr. Haller to come and help me get Hemingway back to the lodge. We can’t leave him out here; Miss Tyler makes that clear. Get everyone else in the north building for breakfast and we’ll put Hemingway in his own room.”

It was half an hour before Hemingway’s body was placed on his bed and covered with a sheet. Prye locked the door, and with the key in his pocket, walked over to the north lodge with Dr. Haller.

Dr. Haller didn’t want any breakfast, but he took his place at the head of the table.

“What’s going on here this morning?” Mr. Storm asked. “Who was doing that yelling?”

Miss Tyler opened her mouth to reply, but Dr. Prye put his hand over it. By that time all attention was fixed on Dr. Haller who had risen to his feet.

“Guests,” he said, “Mr. Hemingway has met with an accident.”

Mr. Storm said: “Ha. About time. That’s one less to bother me.”

Johnny’s face was wrinkled with concentration. “What do you mean, accident? I didn’t really throw him in the lake. I was just kidding. I like Hemingway.”

“Shut up, Johnny!” Miss Tyler cried.

“Mr. Hemingway,” Haller said gently, “is dead.”

Johnny sat motionless, staring into space. Miss Tyler ran over to him and flung her arms around his shoulders.

“Oh, Johnny, don’t feel badly. If you feel badly I’ll c-cry and I haven’t got a h-h-handkerchief. I’ll 1-look after you, Johnny. That’s one thing you c-can say ab-b-bout—” Miss Tyler gave it up.

Mr. Storm was pressing his hands tightly over his ears. He took one down, reached in his pocket tossed a handkerchief at Miss Tyler, and hurried out of the room.

Miss Tyler’s sobs were immediately translated into giggles. “Why, it’s a d-d-dirty handkerchief. It’s got b-b-b-blood on it!”

Prye was out of the door in five seconds. Mr. Storm was not in his room in the south lodge. Prye went around to the small icehouse at the back of the lodge.

“Hey, Mr. Storm! What are you doing in there?”

Mr. Storm’s quavering voice came through the door: “Just sitting.”

“Where did you get that handkerchief you gave to Miss Tyler?”

“From my pocket.”

“Is it your handkerchief?”

Mr. Storm unlocked the door and stuck his head out. He tried to be dignified, but his small wizened face looked more than ever like a monkey’s.

“I am not in the habit of using other people’s handkerchiefs. I think I shall retire to my room.”

“I’ll retire with you,” Prye said pleasantly. “I’d like to have a private talk.”

Mr. Storm replied that he had done and heard quite enough talking that morning, that the whole human race sickened him, that he wanted to be alone and the only place he could be alone was the icehouse because his room didn’t have a key.

Prye guided him firmly into the back door of the south lodge and down the hall. From the room beside Hemingway’s, Mrs. Jenkins’ voice could be heard assuring Miss Studd that her cut was a “teeny-weeny scratch,” and Miss Studd’s voice replying with sad simplicity: “I am dying.”

“Go on to your room, Mr. Storm,” Prye said. “I’ll be with you shortly.”

He rapped softly on Miss Studd’s door and Mrs. Jenkins caroled: “Come in, come in, whoever you are!”

Miss Studd was sitting up in bed. Her head had been lavishly bandaged and one eye was completely hidden. The other eye surveyed Prye with infinite sorrow.

“I want to make peace,” she said. “I ask forgiveness of my enemies and I bestow blessings on my friends however undeserving. My time has come.”

“Isn’t she a card?” Mrs. Jenkins said with delight. “If you ask me, the only trouble with her is that she’s overweight and the strain of carrying around fifty pounds too many has affected her mind. Fat people are never good-natured. If you ask me—”

“I’ll certainly ask you, Mrs. Jenkins,” Prye said, “but later. I want to talk to Miss Studd alone.”

Miss Studd was outraged. “Fifty pounds too many! Oh!” She sank back among her pillows, letting out asthmatic little snorts. Mrs. Jenkins moved gracefully to the door, humming contentedly under her breath.

Miss Studd folded her arms on her chest and waited for the end.

Pyre said: “Hemingway was murdered, you know. You fainted this morning because you found him, is that it?”

Miss Studd nodded.

“Why were you up so early this morning, Miss Studd?”

Miss Studd replied: “I knew it was to be my last day on earth and I wanted it to be as long as possible.”

“You have insomnia?”

“I never sleep a wink. I never close my eyes.”

“Your room is next to Hemingway’s. Did you hear Hemingway go out last night after we had all retired?”

“I heard him talking.”

Prye kept his voice casual. “Talking to himself or to someone else?”

“He was talking to someone else.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know,” Miss Studd said angrily. “The other person was whispering. I couldn’t understand a thing he said.”

“It was a man?”

Miss Studd’s one eye looked thoughtful. “Now that I come to think of it, it couldn’t have been a man. Hemingway called her Myrtle.”

“What did he say to Myrtle?”

“Oh, he talked for a long time. I only understood a little of it.”

“Tell me what you understood.”

“Well, Hemingway said right at the first: ‘I found it and half of it’s mine.’ Then Myrtle whispered a lot and then Hemingway said: We can get away together, Myrtle. You can’t keep it up long.’”

Prye had taken out a small notebook and was writing down Miss Studd’s words. “Did Hemingway seem angry?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!” Miss Studd cried. “That was what made me listen in the first place. Mr. Hemingway was such a good-natured man usually. He swore at Myrtle and I think... I think once he called her a... a girl dog, you know.”

“I know,” Prye said. “You’re sure of that?”

Miss Studd certainly was sure of it.

“What did Hemingway appear to be talking about, Miss Studd?”

“Dope,” she said tersely.

“You actually heard the word ‘dope’?”

“I certainly did. Mr. Hemingway said: ‘I’ve got the dope on you, Myrtle.’”

Prye’s smile was pained. “Dope in that sense might mean information. It’s like saying, ‘I know all about you, Myrtle.’ Did he mean that, do you think?”

“Both,” Miss Studd replied in a triumphant voice. “He meant that he had information, that is the dope, that Myrtle was a dope fiend. That covers everything. I have quite an analytical mind.”

“You have indeed,” Prye said. “Can you remember anything else that Hemingway said?”

Miss Studd thought hard, but her analytical mind had deserted her. All she could remember was a door opening and closing and the sound of feet going down the hall.

“How many feet?” Prye asked.

Miss Studd was very acid. “Two feet. No one would hop on one foot in the middle of the night.”

“How about four feet?”

“Two feet,” Miss Studd persisted. “Two feet went down the hall and outside.”

“You actually heard the feet go outside and not into another room?”

“They went outside. I heard the front door creak twice, opening and closing.”

“After the front door opened, did you hear Hemingway in his room?”

“I did. Then I went to sleep.”

It was useless to remind Miss Studd that she hadn’t slept at all. Prye said he would look in on her later, told her to hang onto life as long as possible, and went out.

The hall ran the full length of the building and the bedrooms opened on it in pairs. On the south side were Dr. Haller at the front, then Mr. Storm, an empty room, Johnny Prince and Miss Eustace. Across from Haller was Hemingway, then Miss Studd, Miss Tyler, Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins, and Dr. Prye.

Prye made a small diagram in his notebook, then he rapped on Mr. Storm’s door and waited. Mr. Storm could be heard removing his barricade of furniture. When he opened the door, he was puffing violently.

“The icehouse is simpler, isn’t it?” Prye said. “May I come in?”

Mr. Storm observed tartly that he had every intention of coming in anyway, so he might as well come in, providing he didn’t accuse an innocent man of stealing other people’s handkerchiefs.

Prye sat down in a wicker rocking chair. “All right, Mr. Storm, it’s your handkerchief. Perhaps you’ll be able to tell me how the blood got on it.”

“What blood? Whose blood?”

“Hemingway’s blood, probably. Hemingway was stabbed to death sometime last night.”

Mr. Storm licked his dry lips and began swallowing very fast.

Prye said: “I thought you knew he was dead, Mr. Storm. But you didn’t know he was murdered?”

Mr. Storm muttered something about responsibility. His face was the color of ashes.

“What do you mean?” Prye asked.

“My fault. All my fault. If I’d gone with him when he asked me — my fault he was killed. The blood on my handkerchief is a sign from Heaven.”

“It’s nothing of the sort,” Prye said briskly. “Mr. Hemingway asked you to go outside with him last night. When was this?”

Storm had pulled himself together somewhat, but his voice was still shaking. “The others had gone to bed. I was in my room undressing when Hemingway rapped on the door. He said he wasn’t sleepy, that he wanted to take a walk. He had something to tell me, he said. I told him—”

“I can imagine what you told him,” Prye said dryly. “It wasn’t pleasant.”

Storm was rapidly becoming normal again. “Why should it be pleasant? Is anyone ever pleasant to me? It was after eleven o’clock. I was tired. Why should I take a walk when I’m tired?”

“You’re perfectly right. Did Hemingway hint at what he wanted to tell you?”

“No, he didn’t. He just said he’d changed his mind anyway, that he could handle the situation himself. Then he went out.”

“Out of the lodge?”

“Out of my room. I don’t know whether he went out of the lodge or not. The man was nothing to me. Why should I listen to where he went?”

Prye got to his feet and went to the door. “As far as you know, then the handkerchief you gave to Miss Tyler this morning was the same one you had in your pocket last night, but at that time it was perfectly clean?”

“Yes.”

“All right. That’s all for now.”

Prye walked thoughtfully back to the south lodge and entered the dining room. Miss Eustace and Dr. Haller were still sitting at the table, looking completely unhappy.

“Where are the others?” Prye asked.

“Miss Tyler and Mr. Prince are washing the dishes,” Miss Eustace replied, sighing. “Mr. Jenkins and his wife are swimming, I think. Sit down, doctor. Dr. Haller and I are trying to settle something.”

Prye sat down, reached in his pocket for a cigarette, found none and scowled in Haller’s direction.

“Have you any noxious toxins?” he asked coldly.

Haller said: “No. I wish I had.”

“So do I,” Miss Eustace said.

They regarded each other glumly. Prye broke the silence with: “Do you suppose Miss Tyler would have any?”

“We can’t ask Miss Tyler,” Haller said in a spirited voice. “Think of the loss of face!”

“I don’t mind losing a little face in a good cause,” Prye said and walked into the kitchen.

Miss Tyler was very sweet about it. “I’m sure I’d love to give you some cigarettes, Dr. Prye, but the fact is, I don’t think they’re good for one. One should not surrender to one’s fleshly temptations.”

“Female Scrooge,” Prye said.

“That’s not it at all,” Miss Tyler said virtuously. “I am simply helping you preserve your own ideal — mind over matter. It’s quite different with Johnny and me. Our ideal is matter over mind.”

“Oh, Kitty, give him one,” Johnny said.

Miss Tyler removed her hands from the dish water and dried them with exasperating slowness.

“Close your eyes,” she said. Prye closed his eyes. “All right, open your eyes.”

Miss Tyler held out a package of cigarettes and Prye took three and carried them back to the dining room.

Miss Eustace inhaled deeply and remarked that there was a great deal to be said for Miss Tyler.

“Something, anyway,” Haller conceded. “Prye, what are we going to do about Hemingway?”

“He’s all right where he is at present,” Prye said. “It’s too late to help Hemingway. The thing is to protect ourselves.”

A shocked silence greeted this speech. Prye went on: “When a man is stabbed, stripped, scalped and placed in a bed of poison ivy, two interpretations are possible — either the murderer is mentally ill or he is a sane man pretending to be mentally ill. In this situation both are plausible. In the case histories of the patients we have with us, there are no evidences of violence. But you realize that this is not conclusive, Dr. Haller?”

Haller shifted in his chair and said defensively: “It’s not conclusive, no. It would be fairly so if the case histories had been compiled at an institution and covered a long period of time. My case histories were prepared from my own observations of the people, from those of their close relatives and in some instances by other doctors.”

“Given a certain set of circumstances,” Prye said, “any man is capable of murder, whether he is sane or insane, a millionaire or a flagpole sitter. Miss Eustace, what are your given names?”

“Dorothy Adelaide,” Miss Eustace replied.

“And Miss Studd’s?”

“Rita Agnes.”

“Miss Tyler’s?”

“Catherine Elizabeth.”

Miss Eustace reeled off the names of the others: Henry H. Jenkins and his wife, Josephine; Albert Storm; John Ross Prince, 3rd; Dr. Paul Prye, and Dr. Homer Virgil Haller.

Dr. Homer Virgil Haller blushed and said crossly: “Why do you want to know our first names?”

Prye took out his notebook and read Miss Studd’s statement aloud.

“There’s no Myrtle here at all,” Miss Eustace said, frowning. “You cannot always believe what Miss Studd tells you.”

Haller bristled at this. “Miss Studd’s lies are always connected intimately with her own condition. She exaggerates her symptoms in the same way that others of her type do. But she is not an indiscriminate liar. I believe her statement. It may contain some inaccuracies, but I believe that in the main it is true.”

“Unless she happens to be guilty herself,” Prye said quietly.

“She was fond of Hemingway,” Miss Eustace protested. “We all were.”

“Still, he’s dead, isn’t he?” Prye’s eyes met Miss Eustace’s over the table. “Nurses are very light sleepers as a rule. Are you?”

She was extremely pale. “I heard nothing last night, if that’s what you mean. I went to bed at nine thirty. I slept soundly. I guess... I suppose it’s the air. I was—” She got up quickly. “I think I hear Miss Studd calling. Excuse me.”

Prye noticed that her step was unsteady as she went to the door.

“Miss Eustace has very sharp ears,” Haller said complacently.

“Sharper than mine anyway.”

“She’s an efficient nurse, the best I’ve ever worked with. She has a real concern for her patients no matter how exacting and unpleasant they are. Miss Eustace is a gem.”

Gems, Prye thought cynically, are subject to the same temptations as other people. He was certain that Miss Eustace had heard something in the night, or that she preferred to conceal the reason why she did not hear something. A light sleeper would have heard the front door creak as Miss Studd did, and psychiatric nurses slept lightly for the sake of their own survival.

Why hadn’t Miss Eustace admitted the truth? Had she been out of the lodge herself at the time?

Dr. Haller was talking again. “Did Mr. Storm admit that the bloodstained handkerchief was his? Where is it, by the way?”

“Where is it?” Prye repeated. “You picked it off the floor, didn’t you?”

“No. I... I was trying to soothe Miss Tyler. I completely forgot to. It must be here some place.”

It wasn’t, however. After fifteen minutes of searching, Haller sat down again and wiped his forehead.

“It’s p-preposterous!” he spluttered. “Somebody around here is crazy.”

Prye smiled thinly. “Strike the word from your vocabulary, Haller.”

“It was right there on the floor where Storm threw it! I saw the bloodstain on it myself before Miss Tyler shouted.”

“Who was in the room?”

“There was Miss Eustace, myself, Miss Tyler and Johnny. Mr. Jenkins came in after you left. He managed Johnny while I managed Miss Tyler. An amazing man, Jenkins. He cheered Johnny up in five minutes.”

“Amazing is putting it mildly. What’s the matter with Jenkins and his wife?”

“So far as I can tell, nothing. Winthrop sent them to me when he heard of my idea for the colony. Their case histories are startlingly similar. They went to Winthrop in the first place complaining of a general maladjustment to the world. The only suspicious fact in their histories is a superabundant vitality and energy which led me to look for manic depression. I found no signs of it at all.”

“Maybe,” Prye said, “the world is maladjusted to the Jenkinses. I’ve just been talking to Mr. Storm.”

“Now there’s an interesting case for you,” Haller said with enthusiasm. “Storm is a retired teacher. He came to me about a month ago. He’d had to give up his job because he developed rather a severe case of agoraphobia, and could no longer tolerate the sight of his pupils. This, of course, developed into an unreasoning fear of all people in groups, not merely his pupils. Teachers do occasionally suffer from this. But Storm’s case is unusual because he has also a terrible fear of wide open spaces, of eternity, of time and space.”

“I have met with it,” Prye said, “but I usually found it was an occupational neurosis. I had a retired jail warden a year ago with an extremely serious case of it. He refused to go out of doors at all.”

The discussion was interrupted by the entrance of Miss Tyler. She was looking very virtuous.

“I have been slaving over a hot stove,” she said. “That I do not mind. Honest labor never hurt anyone. But I do object to the onslaught of a mechanized unit of cockroaches and the lack of utensils with which to cut bread.”

Prye yelled, “What?”

“Bread knife,” Miss Tyler explained. “There is no bread knife. Do we tear the bread apart with our hands like noble savages or—”

Prye was already out in the kitchen, making a frantic search of the cabinet drawers.

“There was one last night,” he kept saying. “A large knife with a wavy edge.” He closed the last drawer and shouted to Haller: “Get everybody in the dining room right away, including Miss Studd. Everybody!”

Miss Tyler and Johnny made an enthusiastic dash for the back door.

“Come back here, you two,” Prye said. “Get into the dining room and sit down.”

“I’ve never been so insulted in my life,” Miss Tyler declared.

“I’m bigger than you are,” Johnny said gently, “and you insulted a lady.”

Miss Tyler had Johnny by the arm. “Don’t be silly, Johnny. I’m no lady. I’ll bet you two toxins I can beat you at double Canfield. Come on.”

Prye stared thoughtfully at Miss Tyler’s shapely blue linen back as it disappeared through the door. Then he walked out of the lodge by the back way to find Mr. Storm. It was not difficult, as Mr. Storm was once more ensconced in the icehouse.

Mr. Storm did not want to come to the dining room; in fact, he would be damned if he would. However, he was a reasonable man when he was not contemplating eternity, and Prye was most persuasive. They walked back to the dining room, arm in arm.

“About this handkerchief of yours,” Prye said. “I noticed when you got off the boat yesterday you were wearing one in your breast pocket. Did you change it this morning?”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t have any reason to. It hadn’t been used.”

“You went to bed shortly after eleven last night. Did you barricade your door?”

Mr. Storm looked surprised. “No. Why should I?”

“You did this morning.”

“Oh, that’s different. I don’t like to be annoyed by people. But last night nearly everyone was in bed, so I wasn’t afraid of being annoyed.”

“I thought perhaps you had something valuable in your room and were protecting it from thieves.”

“Thieves!” Mr. Storm snorted. “I’m not afraid of the biggest thief who ever lived. It’s these jabbering tongue-waggers I can’t stand.”

In the dining room, Miss Tyler and Johnny were playing double Canfield to the tune of enthusiastic cheers and promptings from Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins.

“Eight of clubs, Johnny, old boy!” Mr. Jenkins was shouting. “Beat her to it!”

Mr. Storm clapped his hands over his ears and made for a corner.

“Oh, Josephine!” Mr. Jenkins cried. “Mr. Storm looks lonesome.”

“Righto,” Josephine said affably, and went into action. She approached Mr. Storm with all her large white teeth showing in what she considered a friendly smile. Ignoring his violent frown, she removed Mr. Storm’s hands from his ears.

“Get more out of your life, Mr. Storm,” she urged. “Play games! Sing! Be merry! Burn up your calories!”

Mr. Storm groaned.

“That’s the way,” Josephine cried. “Try again. That was a little flat. All together. One — two — three — go. Tor he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fell-ow, which nobody can deny.’”

While Mrs. Jenkins was collecting her energies for a second chorus, Prye said in a loud distinct voice: “Myrtle!”

Everyone turned and regarded him with astonishment. Everyone, Prye thought gloomily, not just Myrtle. If there were a Myrtle.

Mrs. Jenkins flashed Prye a smile. “Sorry, I don’t know any piece called ‘Myrtle.’ How about ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’?”

“Forever,” Mr. Storm said hollowly, “and ever and ever.”

Josephine slapped him playfully on the bald spot at the top of his head and burst into song. When Dr. Haller appeared, Josephine was still singing.

Dr. Haller gave the others a painfully reassuring smile and walked over to Prye. In a voice almost drowned by Josephine’s bubbles he said: “The knife has been found. Come outside a minute.”

Miss Tyler’s sharp blue eyes stabbed at Prye. “Anyone dead?” she inquired.

“Now, Miss Tyler,” said Haller, “you go right on with your game. Nothing at all has happened.”

“Then I guess there’s nothing to keep me here,” said Miss Tyler with an air of sweet reasonableness. She rose and yawned, and strolled to the door.

Prye strolled after her. “I think you’ll stay here,” he said pleasantly. “We’ll be wanting lunch at one thirty and it’s after twelve now. You and Johnny can strong-arm a few cans. I’d let Johnny do it by himself, but I’m afraid he’d cut his hand and die of septic poisoning.”

“I couldn’t get blood poisoning,” said Johnny with a smile. “My blood is a ten percent solution of alcohol.”

“We won’t discuss alcohol,” said Miss Tyler firmly. “Johnny hasn’t had a drink for a month.”

Johnny looked at her, puzzled. “How do you know? I haven’t known you that long.”

“Hemingway told me.” Miss Tyler’s cheeks were pink but her words came glibly enough. “I’m interested in alcoholics because my great-uncle Frederick was one.”

“Very clear,” said Prye.

Haller was beckoning Prye from the doorway. Once outside the building, the two men quickly walked over to the south house and down the hall to Miss Studd’s room.

III

Miss Studd was lying almost buried among her pillows, her unbandaged eye glaring up at the ceiling in a fixed stare. She did not turn her head when they entered.

Outside the covers on Miss Studd’s stomach was a long bread knife with a wavy edge. She was not touching it; she seemed to be unaware that it was there. It rose and fell with her breathing.

“Miss Studd,” Prye said. She did not reply, but her eye blinked.

“Is your head bothering you?” he asked.

Miss Studd shook the head in question.

“Have you been out of bed, Miss Studd?”

She shook her head again. Prye turned to Dr. Haller, who was sitting by the window wiping his forehead. “Did you find the door of this room unlocked?”

“Yes.”

Prye said, “Miss Studd, I heard you lock this door after I left you this morning. Have you had any other visitors?”

Her hands began to pluck at the covers. “Myrtle,” she said. “Myrtle was talking to me.”

Prye’s voice was without expression. “Myrtle was here talking to you? You saw her?”

“You mustn’t hurt Myrtle,” Miss Studd said. “You mustn’t try to catch her. She lives on the rocks like the ivy.”

Haller was clutching the arms of his chair, his knuckles white. He said in a strangled voice, “Miss Studd, you mustn’t be frightened. You must tell us exactly what Myrtle said.”

“I am not frightened,” Miss Studd said. “I have no reason to be frightened. I am Myrtle.”

Prye repressed a shudder and said evenly, “You killed Hemingway?”

“Myrtle killed Hemingway. He was going to kill the ivy where she lives. She has been here for a million years, waiting for me to come.”

“It’s no use,” Haller said, but Prye waved him to silence.

“Miss Studd, did Myrtle tell you these things?”

“Yes.” Miss Studd turned her head and her pale eye regarded Prye steadily. “You are next.”

“Myrtle wants to kill me, too?”

“You are next,” Miss Studd repeated. “Myrtle is going to kill you. No one will find her, for she is the color of the rocks where she lives.”

Prye looked out of the window and saw the rocks like huge cysts on the shoulders of the island. A cancerous island, he thought. A lonesome ghost of an island.

“I’ll get Miss Eustace,” Prye said.

As he went out, he looked back at Miss Studd. “She’s flabby and pale and fat,” he thought, “like a white slug under a rock. A fat, white worm living under a rock. Maybe Hemingway was stripped so he’d look like a white slug—”

He tapped lightly on Miss Eustace’s door and waited. As there was no response, he opened the door and stepped inside. Miss Eustace was lying on the bed asleep. Her closed eyelids were red and transparent and the tip of her small straight nose was red. She had evidently cried herself to sleep.

Miss Eustace was a gem whom violence didn’t upset, but she had cried into her pillow until she was exhausted and fell asleep. Prye touched her arm and she was awake in an instant.

“Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry. I was so tired. I’m terribly sorry.”

She scrambled to her feet, straightening her uniform and patting her hair into place. When she saw the knife in Prye’s hand, her eyes widened, but she said calmly, “What are you doing with that?”

“Holding it,” Prye replied. “I found it on Miss Studd’s bed.”

Miss Eustace wrinkled her brow. “But that’s silly. What would Miss Studd want with a bread knife?”

“She’ll tell you,” Prye said grimly. “We’ll have to take shifts watching her. You may go there now and I’ll relieve you after lunch.”

“You mean she has confessed to the murder?”

“I mean that whatever Miss Studd confesses will never be used against her. She is disturbed.”

To a psychiatric nurse that word meant a great deal. Her mouth tightened, and the muscles of her jaw moved up and down rhythmically as she clenched and unclenched her teeth. She said through her teeth: “I knew it. I knew this would happen.”

She swept out of the room, her small sturdy body stiff and militant. Prye heard her enter Miss Studd’s room and say in the jovial but firm voice peculiar to nurses, “Well, and how are we now, Miss Studd?”

A minute later Dr. Haller came from the room and joined Prye in the hall.

“I didn’t dream this was possible,” he muttered as they left the building. “There was nothing at all in her symptoms to suggest this terrible change in her.”

“Nothing at all,” echoed Prye.

By lunch the news of Miss Studd’s condition was floating through the air with the greatest of ease. It had a depressing effect on the other colonists. Johnny sulked into his plate and Miss Tyler became even more acid than usual. Mrs. Jenkins was least affected; the only change in her was a decrease in the volume of her voice so subtle that it passed unnoticed by Mr. Storm. He set the tempo for the meal by calling Mrs. Jenkins an unfeeling, insensitive monster of a woman.

Prye studied his dish of spinach carefully, with the detached interest of a scholar, as if the dish contained stewed papyrus leaves that might throw light on ancient Egyptian civilization. He ate one forkful, decided that they were papyrus leaves, and asked Miss Tyler for a cigarette.

But Miss Tyler, it seemed, had no cigarettes. She had lost them to Johnny at double Canfield, and Johnny had smoked them one right after another. The others stared at Johnny in righteous disapproval.

“My nerves were bad,” he said, flushing.

“Hog,” Mr. Storm said distinctly. “Unprincipled hog.”

Miss Tyler fixed Mr. Storm with a cold eye. “Johnny may be a hog, but he’s not unprincipled. I’m beginning to dislike you savagely, Mr. Storm.”

“I have disliked you from the first, Miss Tyler,” Mr. Storm said politely.

“Such talk!” Mrs. Jenkins cried with an indulgent laugh. “After all, we’re all brothers in the colony. Love thy neighbor, you know.”

“I know,” said Miss Tyler, “but I reserve the right to choose my neighbors, and I don’t choose him.”

“Well, I didn’t choose you,” Mr. Storm replied.

“I,” said Prye, “didn’t choose either of you, but here I am and here I stay, at least until the boat comes tomorrow. Meanwhile, we have a murder to investigate.”

Johnny raised his head and looked at Prye. “I thought Miss Studd had confessed. I mean, why investigate when she’s confessed?”

“I’ll illustrate,” Prye said, “just so my point will be clear. There once was a silver spoon which disappeared from the main dining hall of a mental hospital I was connected with. Of the fifty people in the room, nine confessed to removing the spoon and each of the nine gave some compelling reason for the theft. You can’t divide a silver spoon by nine.”

“But nine of us haven’t confessed,” said Miss Tyler. “There are only nine of us.”

“That’s true,” Prye said. “Eventually the silver spoon was found, but not on any of the nine who confessed. The man who had it had not confessed.”

“I see,” Miss Tyler said pensively. “You can’t accept Miss Studd’s confession until you get some more evidence to support it.”

“And so,” Prye continued, “I am going to question you all separately after lunch. While I am doing this, I want you to go down to the lake in pairs and watch for a passing ship. Mr. Jenkins, you’re an expert at building fires, I suppose?”

“None better,” Mrs. Jenkins said loyally, while Mr. Jenkins hung his head modestly in his dish of raisins.

“In that case, we should have a fire built ready to light on the high rock behind the lodge.”

The Jenkinses moved in concert to the door.

“Wood in kitchen,” Mrs. Jenkins sang.

“More wood piled behind the lodge,” sang Mr. Jenkins.

“Righto!”

The Jenkinses disappeared, and Mr. Storm said nastily, “Thank God! What a dreadful pair!”

“You should talk,” Miss Tyler said significantly.

Dr. Haller leaned toward Prye. “If you want to take them in alphabetical order, I’ll relieve Miss Eustace now.”

“Good,” said Prye.

“Not, of course, that we could suspect Miss Eustace in any way. Miss Eustace is a gem.”

“I have heard so,” Prye said, as Haller went out.

In about five minutes, Miss Eustace appeared in the doorway, looking cool and unperturbed.

“You wished to talk to me, doctor?” she said to Prye.

“In the sitting room. While I’m gone, Miss Tyler, you might wash the dishes.”

“I’m always washing dishes,” Miss Tyler said coldly. “Have the rest of you got hydrophobia?”

“It’s better than doing nothing,” Johnny said.

Miss Tyler disappeared into the kitchen with a contemptuous snort. Noises of intense activity ensued, the clank of silver, the shattering of a plate, and a vigorous “Damn!”

Miss Eustace smiled as she led the way into the sitting room. She sat down rather stiffly on a settee of knotty pine upholstered in blue leather.

She said, “Is my interview with you purely a formality or am I actually under suspicion?”

“Miss Studd has confessed,” Prye said.

Miss Eustace sighed. “Please don’t try to deceive me. I’ve heard too many patients confess to too many things to believe Miss Studd’s confession, at least until something substantiates it.”

“All right then. I will tell you that you are under the same suspicion as the rest of us.” Prye took out his notebook and pen. “Tell me a little about yourself, Miss Eustace.”

Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “The story of my life? What bearing could that have on the murder of Hemingway?”

“Probably none at all, but I’ll hear it anyway.”

“Very well,” Miss Eustace said in a resigned voice. “I am thirty-one years old, the oldest of a family of four. I went into training at seventeen, and three years later I took a postgraduate course in psychiatric nursing at Holloway Hospital. Dr. Haller was chief resident psychologist there. When he left three years ago to go into private practice and treat the lighter types of neurosis, I left with him.”

“And Hemingway?” Prye prompted.

“Hemingway came to Dr. Haller from a private sanitarium for alcoholics about two years ago.”

“You scarcely need an attendant for mild neurotics,” Prye said.

“Dr. Haller preferred to have one handy. Besides, Hemingway helped him conduct tests and even acted as chauffeur occasionally. He was a kind man and a first-class attendant. I know nothing of his private life except that he was unmarried and planned to retire and buy a farm when he had saved enough money.”

“Attendants don’t usually earn enough money to buy farms.”

“Hemingway was quite well paid, and saved his money. And, of course, when he took on an extra job like looking after Johnny, he was paid extra for that. Dr. Haller sometimes loaned him out for D. T. cases that didn’t require hospitalization.”

“He never mentioned any love affairs?”

“Never,” Miss Eustace said firmly.

“Did he swear much?”

“Swear?” she repeated. “I never heard him swear.”

“Still,” Prye said, “when you work with a man for two years you pile up a lot of conversation, don’t you?”

“You do, but the conversation isn’t necessarily personal. We discussed the patients and things like that. Hemingway was very much interested in psychiatry, and he followed new developments closely. He even wanted to offer himself as a control subject in the frozen sleep experiments in cases of schizophrenia, but Dr. Haller couldn’t spare him because we were coming up here.” Her voice shook slightly. “But he got his sleep. And all for the sake of a few members of the idle rich class who haven’t the courage to face their difficulties the way the rest of us have to.”

“Neurosis isn’t a class disease,” Prye said.

“The hell it isn’t,” Miss Eustace said bitterly.

Prye changed the subject. “Do you go to sleep easily, Miss Eustace?”

“Yes, very easily.” Her voice was flat and expressionless again. “And wake up easily?”

“Yes.”

“Did you wake up last night?”

“No. I went to bed at nine thirty and slept soundly all night. It’s the air.”

“The phrase has a familiar ring. I didn’t believe it this morning and I don’t now. Did you disobey Dr. Haller’s orders and take a sleeping capsule last night?”

“Yes,” Miss Eustace said eagerly, “that’s it.”

She seemed very uncomfortable. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs and tugged at the collar of her uniform.

“That isn’t it at all, Miss Eustace, and you know it.”

“All right,” she said finally. “I’m lying. But you can boil me in oil and I won’t change my story.”

“It won’t be necessary to boil anybody in oil. It seems obvious that you recognized the person you heard last night and that you’re trying to protect him. Now whom would you try to protect? Miss Tyler? Hardly. Miss Tyler protects other people. Mr. Storm? No, indeed. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins? Emphatically, no. Do you know where that’s leading us, Miss Eustace? I see you do. But why protect Johnny if you think he’s innocent?”

“Johnny wouldn’t hurt a fly!” she cried. “Johnny was terribly fond of Hemingway. Johnny — I knew you’d all pick on him! Somebody’s got to look after him now that Hemingway’s gone.”

“Miss Tyler’s doing all right,” Prye said.

Miss Eustace flushed. “Yes, and you know why.”

“Why?”

“She’d walk a mile for a camel if it had pants on.”

“You’ve seen a lot of nymphomaniacs,” Prye said. “Does Miss Tyler seem the garden variety?”

“No,” Miss Eustace said sulkily. “But if that isn’t what’s wrong with her then there’s nothing wrong with her, and if there’s nothing wrong with her, what is she doing here?”

Prye bent over his notebook for a moment. He felt Miss Eustace’s eyes burning into the paper. So he wrote: “Nuts to you, Miss Eustace!” and looked up quickly. She turned her head away, blushing.

“So you heard Johnny last night?” Prye said softly. “Did he go out of the lodge?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know it was Johnny?”

“I looked out into the hall to see. I heard him moving around in the room next to mine. Then I heard his door open and close again. When I looked out, he was just going out the back door of the lodge. I went back into my room and watched him from the window. The moonlight was shining on his hair—” She closed her eyes, and saw the moonlight on Johnny’s hair, Johnny’s lovely bright hair.

“She’s got it bad,” Prye thought, “and probably for the first time.” Aloud he said, “Where did he go?”

She opened her eyes slowly, reluctantly. “I couldn’t see him for very long. But he was walking in the direction of the landing rock.”

“Did you notice what time he went out?”

“It was about one o’clock. He was just gone for fifteen minutes. There wasn’t time enough, you see,” she said. “He couldn’t have done that to Hemingway in fifteen minutes; he couldn’t possibly.”

“Did you stay at the window while he was out?”

“Yes.”

“You heard nothing?”

“Nothing but the booming of the lake. I don’t like this lake. It’s not friendly. It’s like the sea.” She paused. “I saw lights.”

“You saw what?”

“Lights. They looked like flashlights. They kept going on and off over there.” She pointed through the window toward the northeast shore of the island.

“Near the spot where we landed yesterday?”

“Just about there. That’s where Johnny went. And Hemingway was found on the other side of the island. That’s how I’m so sure Johnny didn’t do it. It must have been Johnny down there at the landing rock with two flashlights.”

“There were two flashlights?”

“Yes.”

“What would Johnny be doing with two flashlights?”

“He’s just a boy,” Miss Eustace said hastily. “It was his first night here, and he probably wanted to explore. You know what boys are.”

“Johnny is twenty-five. A protracted boyhood, is it not, Miss Eustace?”

“Hemingway was murdered on the other side of the island,” she repeated.

“We have no proof of that and we have no proof that Johnny went to the landing rock. And when I think of two flashlights I don’t think of one man playing with two flashlights but of two men each with a flashlight.”

Miss Eustace began to cry.

“Damn the moonlight on Johnny’s hair!” Prye thought.

“You’re picking on him!” she sobbed.

Miss Eustace did not cry prettily, and Prye turned and looked out of the window. He saw the Jenkinses putting the finishing touches on what appeared to be a funeral pyre. Then he saw them gambol over the rocks to the lake, hand in hand, yelling, “Ship ahoy!”

Prye shuddered and turned back to Miss Eustace, whose sobs had degenerated into sniffles.

“Forget Johnny,” he said. “Tell me about Miss Studd.”

Miss Eustace’s professional instincts were aroused. “Miss Studd is having auditory hallucinations,” she said, frowning. “Her symptoms suggest schizophrenia of some sort, but there are so many contradictory factors, aren’t there, doctor? For one thing she’s too old, thirty-eight. For another, the change in her was very sudden. Also, she is well aware of her environment, and remembers all our names and how she came to be here. Her case history is completely free of hallucinations of any kind. She had delusions, of course, but they were mild.”

“Odd,” Prye agreed.

Miss Eustace continued. “At first I thought her hallucinations were the result of the shock of finding Hemingway. But she was perfectly natural when I helped her bandage her forehead. Shock would have affected her immediately, wouldn’t it?”

“I believe so. You were in your room when she heard Myrtle. Did you hear any voices?”

Miss Eustace smiled. “No, I didn’t.”

“But you were crying, of course.”

She nodded.

“You cry vigorously, Miss Eustace. I don’t suppose you heard Miss Studd go out of the lodge and get the knife?”

“Did she do that?”

“She had it, and it was stolen from the kitchen. Besides, her door was unlocked. When I left her earlier, she locked the door behind me. But when Dr. Haller went to see her the door was open and the knife was lying on her bed.”

It was Miss Eustace’s turn to stare out of the window. But in a moment her jaw dropped and her eyes widened.

“What on earth is Mr. Jenkins doing?” she asked.

Prye looked out. For one thing, Mr. Jenkins was removing most of his clothes. He was also shouting in the direction of the lodge. Josephine was jumping up and down, waving her arms.

“What the hell?” Prye said, and strode out, with Miss Eustace at his heels.

“It must be a ship,” Miss Eustace said, as they walked rapidly toward the lake. “It would be just like Mr. Jenkins to try to swim out to it.”

“Look closely,” Prye said. His voice was tired, and Miss Eustace glanced at him sharply. Then she turned her eyes to the lake. Something was bobbing up and down in the water. Occasionally, a wave swept over it and hid it from view, but it always came up again.

By this time Mr. Jenkins had stripped down to his shorts and was poised on a rock ready to dive. He hit the water with a great splash and his arms began to move up and down rhythmically.

Mrs. Jenkins on the shore was going through the motions of an enthusiastic baseball fan during a home run. When she saw Prye and Miss Eustace she dashed toward them, shouting: “A man! A man!”

“Eureka,” Prye said. He didn’t want to see a man; he especially didn’t want to see a dead man.

Mr. Jenkins had reached the thing bobbing up and down in the water. He had put one hand underneath the thing’s chin and was swimming backward, propelled by his other hand and his feet.

“And now there are two,” Prye thought. “Wouldn’t it be funny if Mr. Jenkins died, then I’d go out and put my hand under his chin and then there’d be three. And then Mrs. Jenkins could grab my chin—”

He stood silently on the shore, nodding at whatever Josephine was saying, at whatever the wind blew out of her mouth and carried across the lake.

IV

The water was deep at the shore. Prye pulled the dead man out of the water by his arms and Mr. Jenkins scrambled out after him. He looked as if he felt he ought to get a medal.

Josephine said: “You ought to get a medal. You were wonderful.”

Miss Eustace was staring at the swollen face of the dead man. “I have never seen him before,” she said.

The man was still wearing his clothes, khaki trousers and shirt and rough work boots. He was quite young, with the hands and muscles of a workingman. His skin was deeply tanned.

Prye turned him over on his face. His khaki shirt was slit between the shoulder blades and revealed the wound in his back, gaping like a fish’s mouth.

“Where did he come from?” — Prye thought. “There are no ships and no inhabited islands. He’s been in the water for a long time, fifteen hours perhaps.”

Prye said: “We’ll have to take him up to the lodge, Jenkins.”

“I can take him alone,” Jenkins said.

Prye was a little tired of Mr. Jenkins. He said: “Don’t swing in any trees on your way up.”

Mr. Jenkins looked blank. Miss Eustace swallowed a giggle and a sob, and the procession started back to the lodge in single file. The water from the dead man’s clothes and hair trickled steadily down Mr. Jenkins’ back.

“Where to?” Jenkins asked.

“The sitting room,” Prye said. “I want everyone to get a look at this man.”

Miss Eustace stumbled. When she regained her balance, she said: “Why? Why must they? He’s a stranger. He probably just fell out of a boat and drowned. He wasn’t murdered.”

“Maybe not,” Prye said. “Maybe he was swimming backward and stabbed himself on a swordfish. Please go on ahead and tell the others to remain in the dining room.”

Miss Eustace hesitated, but she had obeyed doctors for too many years to rebel now. A couple of minutes later Prye heard her voice floating out the window in the dining room: “There has been a man found in the lake. Dr. Prye wants you to try and identify him.”

He heard Miss Tyler’s little shriek and Mr. Storm’s groan.

Josephine arranged the settee where half an hour before Miss Eustace had been sitting, and Mr. Jenkins laid the young man on it.

Josephine glanced at him and said softly to herself: “There’s no death.”

Prye said with distaste: “Then this is the next thing to it. Sit down, Mrs. Jenkins.”

“Oh, no, thank you. I prefer to stand.”

“Well, do you mind if I sit down?” Prye asked.

“Not if you really want to. Although I think you coddle yourself too much. All this sitting when you could be standing and standing when you could be walking. Live, Dr. Prye. Live!”

“Look at it this way, Mrs. Jenkins — I’m sitting when I could be lying down. Mr. Jenkins, you may go out, closing the door behind you.”

Mr. Jenkins said jovially: “Ha, ha. You won’t get far with Josephine. Josephine can take care of herself.”

“Ha, ha,” said Josephine. “You bet I can.”

“Ha, ha,” said Prye. “Beat it, Mr. Jenkins.”

Mr. Jenkins went out, and Mrs. Jenkins stood by the window taking deep breathing exercises.

“Do you know this man?” Prye asked.

“I do not. I have never seen him before. He is a complete and utter stranger to me, and to Mr. Jenkins as well.”

“We’ll let Mr. Jenkins speak for himself.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mrs. Jenkins said firmly. “We are one.”

“When did you first meet Hemingway?”

“In Dr. Haller’s office a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t actually meet him; I merely saw him. I remember him because he had such a perfectly developed chest.”

Josephine’s own chest was hardly memorable, but she thumped it to emphasize her words.

“When did you actually meet him?”

“On the boat. He was already on the boat when it picked some of us up at Port Innis.”

“What time did you retire last night?”

“Early to bed and early to rise,” Josephine said archly. “We retired at nine. It is our custom to retire at nine and rise at six. Just like the chickens, you know.”

“I don’t know much about chickens,” said Prye. “Do they sleep soundly? Or do they wake up at the slightest noise?”

“Sound as a bell,” said Josephine. “Eat right and you’ll sleep right.”

“True,” Prye said, sighing a little. It was useless to go on with Josephine, he felt. Whether she was innocent or guilty, her answers would be the same. Her actions were all of a piece; either she was extremely innocent, or doing a fine job of appearing so. In either case, questioning was futile.

“That’s all,” he said. “You may go.”

Her face fell. “You mean that’s all?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Aren’t you even going to ask me who murdered Hemingway?”

“No.”

“Not even if I know?”

“You don’t know,” Prye told her.

“Miss Studd,” Josephine said. “Miss Studd.”

Prye opened the door for her, and she walked out rather huffily. Miss Tyler was at the door in an instant, demanding, “Is it true? Is someone really dead?”

She peered around Prye’s arm into the sitting room and saw the lonely young man lying on the settee. She put her hand to her mouth.

“Come in,” Prye said.

“No, tha-anks,” Miss Tyler said shakily.

“I invite you to come in,” he repeated.

She walked unsteadily toward the settee, glanced at the young man, and closed her eyes.

“I don’t know him,” she said.

“Look again. Make allowance for the fact that his face is bloated by the water.”

“I did,” Miss Tyler said weakly. “I always m-make allowances. I think I’ll go out now.”

“For the love of Heaven, Miss Tyler, open your eyes. Don’t you realize that this man has been in the water for some fifteen hours, that he couldn’t have come off a ship because there was no ship, that his death took place about the same time as Hemingway’s, and that the other islands in this part of the lake are uninhabited?”

Miss Tyler opened her eyes with extreme care. “I still don’t know him,” she said.

She did not go back into the dining room. Instead, she went out the front door. She was breathing hard and her face was very pale. Prye went to the door and looked out after her. She was running down toward the lake and the wind was whipping her hair into a yellow froth.

Prye turned away thoughtfully. “Who killed you?” he said to the lonely young man.

“Suppose he answered me?” — Prye thought. “I think I’d die too. I am very sure he won’t answer me. But if he did, or if I thought he did—

“That would make me like Miss Studd. Did Miss Studd only think she heard Myrtle? Or did Miss Studd hear Myrtle?”

The door opened, and Mr. Jenkins came in, looking almost serious.

“I’ve been thinking,” he announced. “It’s all very well for you to question us, but who questions you, Dr. Prye?”

“I have examined my own conscience and found it clear,” Prye replied.

“Still, don’t psychiatrists frequently develop mental disease? Isn’t that a fact?”

“Life is full of facts, but they don’t all have a bearing on this particular situation. If you want to question me, Mr. Jenkins, go ahead.”

“I don’t want to question you, Dr. Prye, but I feel it’s only fair that you and Dr. Haller suspect each other if you’re going to suspect us. Have you interviewed Dr. Haller?”

“No.”

“Would you like me to get him?”

“I should like you to sit down.”

It was an anticlimax, but Mr. Jenkins sat down.

“All right,” Prye said. “You didn’t know Hemingway, you’d never met the other colonists, you have no motive for murdering anyone, and you don’t know anyone called Myrtle, and you heard nothing suspicious last night.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Jenkins in some surprise. “How did you know?”

“I have heard it before,” Prye said. “You went swimming this morning, Mr. Jenkins. You returned to the dining room and found Miss Tyler in hysterics and Johnny in the doldrums, and you cheered Johnny up. You also picked up a handkerchief from the floor.”

“Did I?” Mr. Jenkins said, frowning.

“Where is it?”

“Well, this is embarrassing,” Mr. Jenkins said. “I don’t even remember picking one up.”

“I can easily search your room and your clothing.”

Mr. Jenkins smiled. “I don’t think you’d find anything and I wouldn’t want you to waste your time; honestly, I wouldn’t.”

“Whose handkerchief was it?”

“I don’t recall seeing it, so I couldn’t say whose it was.”

“It had bloodstains on it,” Prye said. “I saw you pick it up and put it in your pocket.”

“You couldn’t have! You were out of the—” Mr. Jenkins’ jaws jerked shut.

“Sucker,” said Prye.

“You think you’re smart,” Mr. Jenkins said hotly.

“I don’t have to be smart. Why pick up a handkerchief belonging to Mr. Storm?”

“Mr. Storm! That handkerchief was Josephine’s. I saw the initial J in the corner and the blood on it, and I knew right away somebody was trying to implicate Josephine.”

“You’re pretty smart yourself.”

Mr. Jenkins beamed. “Oh, I can add two and two.”

“What did you do with the handkerchief?”

“Wrapped it around a stone and threw it into the lake.”

“You’re sure it was Josephine’s, and not, for instance, Johnny’s? J for Johnny. The handkerchief was a large one, as I remember it.”

Mr. Jenkins’ mouth fell open. “He’s coming up for air,” Prye thought. “I’ve given him a revolutionary idea.”

“I never thought of that,” Mr. Jenkins said at last.

“Call Johnny in here, will you?” Prye said.

Mr. Jenkins went to the door and called, and in a minute Johnny came in. He stopped on the threshold when he saw the body on the settee and said, “Gosh.”

“Do you know him?” Prye said. “Come a little closer.”

Johnny approached the settee, his face red except for a white line around his mouth. He had his hands in the pockets of his gray flannel slacks and Prye could see his fists clenched beneath the cloth.

“I don’t know him,” Johnny, said.

“The phrase,” said Prye, “is becoming irksome.”

Johnny paid no attention. “I should know him. I think I should know him. I think it is not putting too much strain upon the laws of probability to assert that I should know him. His face gives me a familiar twinge of familiarity, if you know what I mean. ‘Oft in the stilly night.’”

“Come here, Prince.”

Johnny took his hands out of his pockets and smiled. His gait was not quite steady when he walked in Prye’s direction, and he seemed to have difficulty in focusing his eyes.

“Blow,” Prye said.

Johnny blew.

“That’s a mighty pungent breath you’re sporting,” Prye said.

“You’re cute,” Johnny said. “I knew I couldn’t fool you.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Get what?” Johnny said, injured. “I ask you, where did I get what?”

“Miss Tyler might know. I’ll ask her.”

Johnny’s hands grasped Prye’s coat. “No. Don’t ask Kitty. Please don’t tell Kitty. I couldn’t bear it if you told Kitty. You’ve got to promise.”

Prye removed the hands from his coat and said, “I’ll promise nothing. Where did you get the Scotch?”

“Under the water,” Johnny said in a sulky voice. “I found it. I dived into the lake and there it was.”

“Very convenient,” Prye said. “You must be one of Mother Nature’s favorite children.”

“I dived in,” said Johnny, “and there it was.”

“A bottle?”

“A case. A whole damn case. It was a most pleasant surprise.”

“When did you find it?”

“This morning.”

“And where?”

“Well, gosh, you can’t expect me to tell you that. You’d take it away from me.”

“It’s a question of taking it away from you or taking you away from it. How would you like to be strapped to your bed?”

“You couldn’t strap me to a bed,” Johnny said pleasantly. “Nobody can do anything with me except Hemingway.”

“And he’s dead.”

“Yes,” Johnny said.

Prye took out his notebook and flicked over the pages. “Shall I tell you almost the last words Hemingway said before he was killed, Johnny? Miss Studd heard him say, ‘I found the stuff and half of it’s mine.’”

“He didn’t find it!” Johnny shouted. “I found it.”

“Where?”

“Over there.” He pointed through the window toward the rock where they had disembarked the day before. It was there that Miss Eustace had seen the two flashlights.

“You left it there?” said Prye.

“Yes. Except just one bottle. I needed one bottle; you can see that for yourself. I’m a sick man. My nerves are shot. Now I need another bottle, too.”

“All right,” Prye said. “Let’s go and get it.”

Johnny’s feet were difficult to manage, and it was ten minutes before they reached the landing rock. They found Kitty Tyler sitting there, staring out over the lake. She seemed not to hear them coming. Her chin was resting in her hand and her blue eyes were thoughtful.

“Don’t tell Kitty,” Johnny whispered to Prye. His foot slipped and he fell beside Miss Tyler. She turned with a start and eyed him coldly.

“You big souse,” she said distinctly.

Johnny was struggling to his feet. “Oh, Kitty, honestly I haven’t had a drop. Ask Dr. Prye.”

“Not a drop more than one bottle anyway,” Prye said.

Miss Tyler had not taken her eyes from Johnny’s face. “You’re so plastered you can’t lift your feet. You’d better sober up.”

Miss Tyler rose calmly, extended her hand, and pushed. There was a terrific splash, followed by a series of spluttering shouts from Johnny: “You... nasty... little... fiend! You... you—”

“He can’t even swear properly,” Miss Tyler said contemptuously.

“While you’re immersed,” Prye yelled, “bring up that case of Scotch.”

Johnny’s head disappeared under the water.

“So that’s it,” Miss Tyler said.

Prye sat on the ledge peering down into the water. He didn’t see the rope two inches from his hand until Miss Tyler said, “What’s that rope there for?”

The rope looked like a piece of dirty clothesline. It was fastened around the rock and tied in a double knot. It had been cut about a foot from the knot and the cut end was rust-colored.

“That’s funny,” Miss Tyler said. “Isn’t that where the boatman tied the launch yesterday? But his rope was much thicker.”

“Yes,” Prye said, “his rope was much thicker and it didn’t have bloodstains on it.”

Miss Tyler had grown very pale. “Blood? That’s not blood. It doesn’t look in the least like blood. I’m quite sure you’re mistaken.”

“I wish I were,” Prye said.

She drew in her breath and said, “Dr. Prye, listen—”

Johnny’s head appeared at the surface. “I need help!” he shouted.

“You were saying, Miss Tyler?” Prye prompted.

“Nothing,” Miss Tyler said flatly.

Prye leaned over and took the case of whiskey from Johnny and set it down on the rock. Johnny emerged from the water, his trousers clinging to his strong legs, his hair plastered across his forehead, and shook himself like a huge St. Bernard.

“Take the case up to Dr. Haller,” Prye said to him. “I’ll be up shortly.”

“I can’t take it to Haller,” Johnny protested. “He’ll take it away again. Let’s just keep it a secret among the three of us.”

“A secret!” Miss Tyler said nastily. “An anosmic butterfly could smell your breath at twenty paces. Come on. I’ll see that you don’t get lost.”

Johnny slung the case over his shoulder and started to walk. It seemed that the dip had sobered him. Miss Tyler walked behind him, prodding him none too gently.

When they had gone, Prye tugged at the rope until it slipped off the rock. That it had been used to moor a boat was obvious; a small boat, for the rope was thin. No one had heard a motor during the night so probably it had been a rowboat. And it must have come during the night because the rope had not been there yesterday.

But why cut the rope? Why not untie it?

“Someone must have been in a hurry,” Prye thought. “A really frantic hurry, or the rope would have been slipped off the rock as I slipped it off, or else untied. It has been cut with a sharp knife and unless I miss my guess, the same sharp knife that was found beside Hemingway. There was blood on it; it had just been used to stab Hemingway and the boatman—”

Where had the boat come from and why?

“It was no pleasure cruise,” Prye thought. “The lake was rough last night. So the boat had come to the island for a purpose. It had come in the dead of night so its purpose must have been a shady one. And who was in the boat, who was at the oars?”

The lonely young man.

He closed his eyes and pictured the young man. He was very dark, almost as dark as an Indian. His expression, too, was the tight-lipped sullenness of an Indian. There were a lot of Indians at Port Innis, and the motor launch had picked up the colonists at Port Innis yesterday. Someone in the colony had probably talked to the dead young man yesterday, had paid him money to row out to this island last night. Why? Was the young man bringing something to this island, or was he taking something off the island?

Prye put the rope in his pocket and walked back toward the lodge.

Prye slipped quietly into the sitting room by the front door. He stood above the settee, staring down at the quiet, untroubled young man who had come in a boat in the dead of night.

He had tied up his boat, he was standing on the shore a little tired from the row, and someone had crept up behind him and stabbed him in the back. There were no bloodstains on the rocks; he must have fallen directly into the water.

But why kill a man who’s going to do you a favor, who’s going to take something off the island that you want taken off?

The answer is: You wouldn’t. He was bringing something, and when he had brought it he was killed and the rope of his boat was cut. The boat and the young man had been scuttled.

Prye went into the dining room. Haller was standing in the middle of the floor talking, and Johnny was sitting in a corner listening. No one else was there.

“Now what?” Haller said, frowning.

“I want to borrow Johnny for a while if you can spare him,” Prye said.

Johnny looked up, startled. “What for?”

“Dr. Haller and Miss Eustace have enough work to do,” Prye said. “I thought I’d ask you to help me with the two autopsies.”

Johnny’s face was as green as an olive. “My God! You... you can’t — I’m not— My God, no!”

“It’s a little messy, of course,” Prye said. “But you’ll live. Chalk it up to experience. Come along. Oh, yes, better get a couple of pails.”

Haller was about to protest, but Prye waved him to silence. “We can’t have our Johnny growing up to be a cissy. Come on, Johnny. If you feel sick, take some long deep breaths.”

Johnny was pushed unceremoniously into the sitting room.

“Go on over and take another look at the man before we start,” Prye said. “He’s a hell of a lot prettier than Hemingway. That’s why we’ll start with him, to break you in. You were quite fond of Hemingway, weren’t you?”

Prye was a little unsteady himself, but he walked over and put his hand on the young man’s hair. “See how young he is, Johnny? Look at his face. He couldn’t be more than twenty-one. He’s even younger than you are, Johnny, and I bet you’re not ready to die. See the calluses on the palms of his hands? He’s been rowing, I think.”

Johnny’s knees folded and he sat down on the floor, covering his face with his hands. His body was shaking.

“Why, Johnny, what’s the matter? Have you recognized him?”

“Yes.” The word was almost inaudible.

“All right.” Prye helped him to his feet. “Come outside and get some air.”

They sat on the veranda. Johnny rested his head against the back of the deck chair, breathing hard.

Prye said: “Let’s have it.”

“I don’t know his name,” Johnny said in a hoarse whisper. “I was on the dock at Port Innis and I saw him standing there. Hemingway was putting the luggage into the motor launch and he wasn’t paying any attention to me. So I—”

“So you went over and gave the young man some money and told him to row out to the island last night with a case of whiskey.”

Johnny choked and said, “Yes. I gave him a hundred dollars. He said he knew the island.”

“Expensive drinking, Johnny,” said Prye. “A hundred dollars and a death.”

“I didn’t know—”

“Go on.”

“That’s about all, except that I told him I’d be waiting at the landing rock at twelve thirty. He told me to bring a flashlight down to the shore and flash it on and off five times.”

“But you didn’t get there at twelve thirty?”

“No. I went to sleep. I was lying on the bed with my clothes on and went to sleep. It was nearly one o’clock when I woke up. I couldn’t get out very fast because I was afraid Miss Eustace would wake up and hear me. I took my flashlight down to the rock and flashed it as he told me to, but he didn’t show up.”

“He showed up,” Prye said grimly. “You got there too late, Johnny.”

“Then I looked around a bit with my flashlight. I didn’t see any sign of the Indian, but I found a flashlight beside the rock and picked it up. I thought maybe one of us had dropped it. But I guess it was his flashlight.”

“I guess it was,” Prye said.

“I guess, in a way, I killed that man.”

“I think so,” Prye said. “I think you’re a great big beautiful, irresponsible boy, and I think somebody should take a crack at that exquisite pan of yours. I’m strongly tempted to do so myself.”

Johnny said nothing, and Prye got to his feet and went back into the lodge. For a long time Johnny sat on the veranda, staring with bleak eyes at the lake.

Miss Tyler found him there at five o’clock, but he refused to talk with her.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked coldly. “Or is something the matter with me?”

“You’re all right,” Johnny told her.

“What did Dr. Prye say to you?”

“Nothing.”

Miss Tyler turned and entered the lodge with an angry twitch of her slacks. She found Prye and Mr. Storm talking in the dining room.

“What did you do to Johnny?” she asked wrathfully.

“What someone should have done long ago,” Prye said. “Bounced him over the head with a fact.”

“You brute beast,” said Miss Tyler.

“I can’t stand any more of this excitement!” Mr. Storm shouted. “I can’t stand any more of it! I’m going crazy.”

“Silver-lining Storm,” Miss Tyler said balefully. “Always a cheerful word and a merry smile.”

“Beat it,” Prye said.

The words were intended for Miss Tyler, but Mr. Storm took them personally. With a shrill cry he whirled, and scurried out of the door.

“He’s always running out of rooms,” Miss Tyler said. “Where does he go?”

“Why don’t you go and find out?” Prye asked.

Miss Tyler went and found out. She returned hastily.

“What an extremely bizarre way to pass the time,” she said. “Why does he sit in the icehouse all the time? Has he a phobia or something?”

“He has a phobia all right,” Prye said. “He’s frightened of the wide open spaces and has an uncontrollable desire to sit in a small inclosed space. It’s not a very common type of phobia.”

“I should hope not,” Miss Tyler said.

“By the way, Miss Tyler, what are you doing up here?”

Miss Tyler had been patting her blond curls, but her hand dropped to her side. “Me? I have a deep-seated neurosis.”

“Now that’s funny,” Prye said.

“Not funny at all. You see, I’m terrified of going batty. I have all sorts of batty aunts and things. My aunt Isabella steals things. We have to buy cheap little gadgets just so she can have the pleasure of stealing them. It’s very sad.”

“You fooled me completely. Now I should have said you were a perfectly normal young lady, that you were not afraid of going insane at all, that Aunt Isabella is a fictitious figure, and that you joined the colony for a very special reason not connected with nerves. See how you fooled me?”

Miss Tyler turned on her heel and walked to the window. Prye watched her for a minute and then went out. He passed Mr. Jenkins sitting on top of his funeral pyre, watching for ships. He judged from the rattles issuing from the kitchen window that Josephine was opening cans for their evening meal, and he quickened his step.

Miss Eustace answered his knock. “Miss Studd is resting,” she said quietly.

“I am not resting,” Miss Studd called loudly from the bed. “I am thinking.”

Miss Eustace’s shrug dismissed resting and thinking as equally unimportant. Prye entered the room and approached the bed. Miss Studd was looking better.

“Want to talk?” he asked her.

“I don’t mind talking,” she replied, “if it can be done in private.”

She flung Miss Eustace a nasty look, and Miss Eustace passed composedly into the hall and closed the door behind her.

“Heard anything more from Myrtle?” Prye asked.

Miss Studd sat up in bed. She was suddenly very dignified. “I’ve heard nothing more.”

“Do you want to?”

“What do you mean? You know—”

“Don’t be frightened. I’ll be back soon.”

He passed Miss Eustace in the hall and went out the back door and around to Miss Studd’s window. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he tied it around his mouth. The sound that floated into Miss Studd’s room was a high-pitched whisper.

“It’s Myrtle. I killed Hemingway. I’ve been waiting for you to come.”

He took his pen from his breast pocket, took aim, and tossed it through Miss Studd’s window.

When he re-entered her room, she was holding it in her hand and staring at it. Her flabby body was shaking with rage.

“Tricked,” she muttered. “Tricked. Tricked.”

“That was Myrtle you heard?” said Prye.

“Yes.”

“May I have my pen, please?”

He replaced the pen in his pocket and called Miss Eustace in from the hall. She was shocked at Miss Studd’s appearance, and gave Prye a reproachful look.

“She’ll be all right now,” Prye said. “So you didn’t hear any voices this morning, Miss Eustace?”

“No,” Miss Eustace said, rather angrily.

Miss Studd was regaining her composure. She said, “I’ve remembered something. It’s not very important, but I told you that Hemingway had called Myrtle a... a girl dog. It wasn’t a girl dog. It was another unpleasant word that begins with a b, too. It signifies illegitimacy. You know the word?”

“Yes,” said Prye. “I have been called it on occasion.”

He was smiling grimly to himself as he went out. He went down to the shore and sat there for some time lost in thought. The sun was beginning to set when Mr. Jenkins’ “Hello!” summoned him to dinner.

Mrs. Jenkins had opened cans with reckless abandon. Having lived on raisins and nuts for a number of years, she had only hazy ideas on the diet of ordinary people.

Prye plowed his way through three different kinds of beans and finished up on raisins, much to the delight of the Jenkins family.

But it was a doleful meal. This way madness lies, Prye thought, looking at Miss Tyler’s downcast eyes and Mr. Storm’s glum face. Perhaps I’ll get the Jenkinses to organize some group games. Or perhaps someone might make up a table of bridge.

The question was put to the others.

“Musical chairs!” Mr. Jenkins cried. “Let’s have musical chairs!”

“There’s no music,” Prye said.

“I could sing,” Josephine offered. “I’d just love to sing.”

“I don’t like musical chairs,” Miss Tyler said coldly. “Somebody hit me over the head with a musical chair when I was a baby. Can’t we be civilized for once and play bridge?”

“Oh, bridge!” Mrs. Jenkins exclaimed with contempt. “There’s no zip to bridge. You just sit. There’s no real joy in it.”

Mr. Storm, too, proved difficult.

“I can’t play bridge,” he announced.

Miss Tyler, who was an expert, made a heroic sacrifice. “I’ll teach you as we go along.”

Mr. Storm shook his head obstinately. “I can only play seven-up, and I only played that once.”

“Seven-up it is,” Miss Tyler said, sighing.

The Jenkinses retired to a corner of the room, to compose a song, they said, and the cards were brought out and the card table set up.

From his chair in front of the fireplace, Prye watched Miss Tyler shuffle the cards with careless ease and distribute them to Miss Eustace, Mr. Storm and Johnny. The others waited patiently while Mr. Storm dropped cards and recovered them and laboriously arranged his hand in suits.

“You must try not to drop your cards,” Miss Eustace said in a resigned voice. “I know your whole hand.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have looked,” Mr. Storm said with some acerbity. “I’m not peering into your hand.”

“I wasn’t peering,” Miss Eustace retorted.

“Who has the seven of hearts?” Miss Tyler asked hastily.

No one admitted having the seven of hearts.

“He’s got it,” Miss Eustace said finally. “I saw it.”

“You see? You were peering,” Mr. Storm said, looking at her darkly.

The game progressed. Miss Eustace handled her cards slowly and carefully. She probably doesn’t play much, Prye thought. Mr. Storm kept on dropping cards. Prye noticed that he shuffled awkwardly, but dealt the cards with the swift proficiency of a teller counting money. Johnny played absently, saying nothing at all.

At the end of the fourth hand, the Jenkinses emerged from their corner in triumph.

“Listen to this!” Josephine cried. “It’s a sort of theme song for the colony.

“Oh, it’s sweet to go and freely flow

From place to beautiful place.

Oh, we live at where we hang our hat

For we love extent of space.

We need no tent but the firmament,

As free as the birds are we.

With a rollicking shout we wander about

With a banjo on our knee!”

Johnny and Miss Eustace clapped politely. Miss Tyler said, “Why a banjo?” Mr. Storm simply walked out.

“Why not a banjo?” Mr. Jenkins demanded.

“It seems silly to me,” Miss Tyler replied coldly. “I think I’ll go to bed.” She, too, walked out.

“There’s no joy in her either,” Mrs. Jenkins said in a mournful voice.

“It’s too late for joy,” Prye said. “Why don’t we go to bed?”

They filed out. Prye saw them all safely into their rooms. He went to his own room, locking the door behind him, and sat down on the bed.

“A long night,” he thought. “It’s going to be a long night.” He did not undress.

V

A quarter moon, like a thin slice of melon, shone through the windows and gradually floated away again. At two o’clock he was still sitting on his bed, listening, hearing nothing but the water and the wind. He got up at last and stretched his cramped legs. A board in the floor creaked and he jumped at the sound.

“The water makes too much noise,” he thought. He went to the window, slung his legs over the sill and dropped to the rocks below.

In the dim light the island was more than ever like an unhappy ghost groaning in protests as the lake tumbled against its sides.

Prye walked around the back of the lodge, keeping close to the wall. Then he saw the flames creeping up the side of Mr. Jenkins’ funeral pyre. In the second that he watched, they grew larger, leaping from log to log, roaring as they towered.

He cried, “Fire! Fire!”

He turned his head and saw the figure running toward the lake, a figure with bright-yellow hair in which the flames were caught.

He yelled again: “Fire! Everybody out! Fire!”

From the lodge came the shrill hysterical screams of Miss Studd. Miss Eustace’s pale face appeared at the window of her room and as quickly disappeared. Her shouting rose above the noise of the fire and the waves.

Miss Tyler was the first to emerge from the lodge. She came stumbling out the front door, clutching a suitcase. Miss Studd came next, clinging fast to Miss Eustace’s arm and half fainting with flight; and then Dr. Haller, a short, squat figure in pajamas. He carried his wallet in one hand and an immense book in the other.

They were all shouting now, but their voices were lost in the roar as the flames mounted higher and higher. The island glared red. In the wavering light they could see Mr. Storm running toward them, his face terrible with fright, and behind him, running with swift, relentless strides, the figure of Johnny Prince. Suddenly, Johnny stumbled forward on one knee, his face anguished as bone struck rock.

Mr. Storm was blubbering like a maniac, the saliva frothing around his mouth and dribbling down his chin. He fell almost at Prye’s feet. Prye bent over and set him upright again, holding him by the shoulders.

“He wants to kill me!” Storm said through chattering teeth. “He wants to kill me. Oh, God, save me!”

Miss Tyler screamed, “Johnny!” and ran toward him. Dr. Haller was after her like a shot. “Keep away from him!” he cried. He caught hold of Kitty’s hair and they stood struggling for a moment until she collapsed in Haller’s arms.

“Save me!” Storm was crying. “Oh, save me!”

Prye slapped him hard across the cheek and he stopped, dazed and swaying in Prye’s grip.

Johnny was on his feet again, limping toward them with his shoulders hunched together. The firelight gleamed on the knife he held in his hand.

Mr. Jenkins had emerged from the lodge. “Shall I rush him?” he shouted to Prye.

“Don’t be a fool,” Prye said. “You can’t rush a man with a knife.”

Johnny was approaching steadily over the rocks, bent double like a blond ape, clasping his wounded knee in one hand.

“He did it all,” Mr. Storm was gibbering. “He killed Hemingway. Don’t let him kill me. He killed the man in the boat, and he wants to kill me. Oh, God, save me!”

Prye’s hands tightened on Storm’s shoulders and shook him back and forth. “What man in the boat?”

“The man with the whiskey. He brought a case of whiskey. Johnny killed him and now he’s going to kill me. He chased me down to the lake.”

Prye shook him again. “Why did he kill Hemingway?”

“Money,” Storm whispered. “The money. The money.”

Johnny’s voice rose above the roar of the flames. “Let me at him. Stand back, all of you. I want Storm!”

Jenkins was tearing off his bathrobe, breathing hard. He crouched like a runner waiting for the starting gun. With a sudden jerk, Prye sent Storm catapulting into Jenkins’ rear, and Jenkins fell on his face.

“O. K., Johnny,” said Prye.

Johnny straightened up, tossed the knife to the ground, and came limping toward Jenkins. Miss Studd joined Miss Tyler in a dead faint. Jenkins was picking himself up, trying to stanch the flow of blood from the cut on his forehead. Storm sat quietly on a rock, opening and closing his mouth like a fish.

Prye touched his arm. “It’s all over, Storm,” he said, but Storm didn’t hear him. “Get up, Storm.”

Jenkins was wiping the blood from his forehead and repeating, “Goodness gracious, what happened? Goodness gracious.”

Storm did not move, and Prye took his arm quite gently and raised him to his feet.

Johnny was very pale. “I guess he’s just crazy,” he said. “What happened?” asked Mr. Jenkins again.

Mr. Storm said nothing.

“Sure, he’s crazy,” Prye said. “He thought he was pretending to be crazy, but—”

Mr. Storm began to laugh. “Crazy? Me? Fifty thousand dollars’ worth crazy, that’s how crazy I am. Fifty thousand dollars, I tell you, fifty thousand dollars!”

“See, Johnny?” Prye said. “He is crazy. He thinks he’s got fifty thousand dollars.”

“I have got fifty thousand dollars!” Storm screamed. “I’ve got it and I’m as sane as you are. I’ll show you!”

“They all get like that occasionally,” Prye said. “Of course, you have it, Mr. Storm; certainly you have. Don’t irritate him, Johnny. Pretend you think he has it. Of course, he has it, haven’t you, Mr. Storm?”

With a swift motion, Storm shook off Prye’s hand, and ran toward the icehouse. “I’m not crazy!” he screamed. “I’ve got it, I tell you, and I’m not crazy!”

Johnny and Prye followed him into the icehouse. Mr. Jenkins saw the three of them troop into the icehouse and passed his hand across his bloody brow.

“Maybe,” Mr. Jenkins said wonderingly, “I’m crazy.”

Miss Tyler was returning to consciousness. Dr. Haller chafed her hands briskly and spoke to her in an encouraging bedside voice.

“I love you,” she said.

Haller dropped her hands as if they were twin rattlesnakes. “You... you... what?” he gasped.

“I love you, Johnny,” Miss Tyler said dreamily. “I don’t care what you’ve done. I love you. We’ll go to Polynesia.”

Mrs. Jenkins was ministering to her stricken mate. “A fine thing,” she sniffed. “It wasn’t fair play at all. A deliberate trip.”

“I could have rushed him,” Mr. Jenkins said.

“Certainly you could,” Mrs. Jenkins said heartily. “You could have rushed him.”

Miss Studd opened her eyes and said, “Myrtle.”

“It’s all right, Miss Studd,” said Miss Eustace. “They’ve got him.”

“Him?”

“Mr. Storm.”

“Mr. Storm!” Miss Studd immediately had a relapse.

The three men emerged from the icehouse. Two of them were looking dazed. The third was saying in a triumphant voice:

“Crazy, eh? Crazy! How about that? And that? And that?”

Every time Mr. Storm said “that” he tossed a package of bills to the ground with great emphasis. It was, Prye decided, a most impressive gesture.

Johnny choked. “How... I mean, where—”

Prye smiled and took Mr. Storm’s arm. “Mr. Storm is tired now. He and I are going to have a little chat and then he’s going to bed. You may have my room for the rest of the night, Mr. Storm. It has a lock and key. I don’t think you’ll be bothered by wide open spaces for some time.”

Mr. Storm seemed not unhappy at the prospect. He trotted obediently into the lodge. Johnny and Miss Tyler picked up the money and locked it in Miss Tyler’s room. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins put out the bonfire, and Dr. Haller and Miss Eustace took Miss Studd back to bed. It was four o’clock in the morning.

Breakfast was served an hour late the next day. Mr. Storm, of course, was absent, but Miss Studd took his place. The bandage on her forehead had dwindled to a pad of cotton and some adhesive tape. She was herself again, having suddenly developed a severe case of tuberculosis during the night. She coughed happily throughout the meal.

“Really,” Mrs. Jenkins said to Prye. “I do think you owe us some explanation for the unwarranted attack on my husband.”

“And how you got on to Mr. Storm,” Mr. Jenkins said.

Prye put down the piece of toast he was about to eat. He preferred talking to eating, anyway.

“I think I’ll answer Mr. Jenkins’ question first. I didn’t get on to Mr. Storm all at once, but there were a number of things which led me to suspect him — his occupation of the icehouse, his fear of space, the handkerchief episode, and lastly, the way he dealt cards.

“Now Mr. Storm, when he came to Dr. Haller about a month ago, gave his profession as retired teacher. He had two fears — first, fear of people, which is a fear not uncommon among teachers who are not qualified emotionally for their work; and second, fear of space. The fear of people, then, was consistent with Mr. Storm’s story of himself, but the second and more powerful fear was not. Fear of space is frequently an occupational neurosis: that is, a man who had worked in a small inclosed area for a considerable time may miss his inclosure when he leaves it to such an extent that he develops an unreasoning fear of open places. This is usually most pronounced when the man has left his job under unpleasant circumstances.

“Mr. Storm was not feigning this symptom. He frequently went and sat in the icehouse, a small inclosed space. But why, I wondered, should Mr. Storm have developed an occupational neurosis which had nothing to do with his occupation as a teacher? Suppose, however, that Mr. Storm had not been a teacher but a bank teller, for instance, who spent his time in a kind of cage in a bank? Suppose he had left his job under unpleasant circumstances? Bank tellers are respectable people. Why lie about the fact that you had been one unless you had something to conceal?

“That was the thin edge of the wedge — the suspicion that Mr. Storm had not told the truth about his profession. That is all I had to begin with, a small and possibly unimportant lie. I felt fairly sure Storm, or Murrell as his name is, had not been a teacher, but something else, maybe a bank teller.

“The second suspicious thing about Storm was the handkerchief episode. He professed to know nothing about the blood on the handkerchief and interpreted it as a sign from Heaven that he had helped to kill Hemingway by not going out for a walk with him the night he was killed. He felt very badly about that. But why? He was an irascible and unpleasant man with no sympathy in him at all. Why the sudden grief? Why, moreover, would Hemingway have chosen to confide in him? I had then two more odd things about Storm — his sudden attack of conscience over Hemingway’s death, and his story that Hemingway had planned to tell him something important shortly before Hemingway was murdered. Once again, I suspected Storm of lying if of nothing worse. We come now to the words Hemingway said.”

Prye took out his notebook and read aloud: “‘I found the stuff and half of it’s mine.’ ‘We can get away together, Myrtle. You can’t keep it up long.’ ‘I’ve got the dope on you, Myrtle.’ The first point that occurred to me was not what Hemingway had found, but when he had the opportunity to find it. From the moment that Hemingway disembarked he was busy unpacking, treating his poison ivy, and looking after Johnny and the rest of you. It was probable, I decided, that whatever he found he did not find on the island.

“When, then, did he find it? When, in fact, had he done any searching? At this point, I remembered the scene on the motor launch shortly before we disembarked. Hemingway took Johnny to the cabin to search his clothes and luggage for contraband. As the male attendant, he was responsible also for searching the other men of the colony, Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Storm. It seemed most likely that this was the time Hemingway found ‘the stuff,’ and that he had found it in the luggage of either Johnny or Mr. Storm or Mr. Jenkins.

“But what was the stuff? It was something valuable enough to induce Hemingway to give up his job — ‘We can get away together, Myrtle’ — and since it was necessary to get away, the stuff must have been obtained in some shady manner. It couldn’t, as Miss Studd suggested, have been dope. Hemingway, as a competent attendant, would have immediately reported it to Dr. Haller because he knew the dangers of dope in a colony of this sort. My first thought was money, although stolen jewels were a possibility.

“But whose money was it? Obviously, Myrtle’s. And who was Myrtle?

“There was no one by that name in the colony. It was a woman’s name, but was Myrtle a woman? There were two thin pieces of evidence to the contrary — the first was the probability that Hemingway had found the stuff in the luggage of one of the three men. The second was Miss Eustace’s report of Hemingway’s manners in front of women; he was formal, she said, and he never swore. But Miss Studd heard Hemingway call Myrtle a violent name. Both pieces of evidence were slim but they pointed the way.

“My assumptions added up to this — that Myrtle was a man in possession of illegally obtained money or valuables. I struck Johnny off the list immediately, since he already has more money than he can ever spend. I had left Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Storm.

“The last and most important clue leading to Storm was his method of dealing cards. He was obviously an incompetent player, but he dealt the cards swiftly and easily with a peculiar motion that reminded me instantly of a bank teller counting out money. This, too, was thin, taken by itself, but add to that his phobia, his occupation of the icehouse, his lying about his profession, and the probability that what Hemingway found was money. If Mr. Storm was an absconding bank teller it all fitted perfectly.

“I had no tangible case against the man, so I asked Johnny to help me build one up and I gave him certain instructions. As you all know, Mr. Storm’s bedroom window faces south; that is, the funeral pyre built by Mr. Jenkins yesterday afternoon was visible from Storm’s window. My idea was this — suppose the pyre was lit and Mr. Storm thought his money or whatever it was — I still wasn’t sure, you see — was in danger of being destroyed, he would probably rush out to save it. It’s the first thought anyone has under the circumstances, to save what is most valuable. Notice that Dr. Haller brought out his wallet and his autographed copy of ‘The Psychiatry of Multiple Personalities.’

“Mr. Storm was not sleeping well, anyway, and as soon as Johnny lit the fire shortly before two o’clock, Storm saw it and climbed out his window. Naturally, he did not raise the alarm. He ran toward the icehouse where he had hidden his money, saw Johnny, and turned back. Johnny had a knife in his hand and he was, as you know, a fearful figure. Mr. Storm, who was firmly convinced that the rest of you were insane, ran down to the lake in terror. Johnny chased him, being careful not to catch him.

“Meanwhile, I came out as arranged and gave the alarm, and everyone came running out of the lodge. Mr. Storm saw us and came back toward the lodge with Johnny still at his heels. By this time Storm was nearly crazy with fright, but not so crazy that he didn’t see his opportunity to throw the blame for everything on Johnny.

“When Storm reached us, Johnny conveniently stumbled, giving me a chance to ask Storm two questions. His answers gave him away completely. He said that Johnny had killed the boatman who had brought whiskey, and that the motive for killing Hemingway was the money. But only Johnny and I and the murderer knew that the dead man was a boatman and that he had brought whiskey. As soon as Storm had given himself away, I told Johnny he could quit playing the maniac.”

Prye turned to Jenkins. “Sorry I had to trip you, but you would have ruined the set-up.”

“I forgive you,” Mr. Jenkins said handsomely.

“Certainly. We forgive you,” said Josephine.

“Under ordinary circumstances,” Prye went on, “Storm wouldn’t have fallen for the next bit of horseplay, my pretending that he was crazy. But remember, he had joined this colony for neurotics thinking the rest of you were crazy and that he himself was perfectly sane; and he had just been chased by a maniac with a knife. His one desire was to convince me and himself that he was perfectly sane and that he had killed for a perfectly sane motive — money.”

“But why did he have to kill Hemingway?” Miss Tyler asked. “Why didn’t he divide the money?”

“He probably would have if he could have been sure Hemingway would never give him away. He had gone to some pains to steal the money and to avoid discovery. He thought the colony would make an ideal hide-out for him until the affair blew over. Dr. Haller’s scheme for the colony received some publicity in the newspapers — that is why Murrell or Storm went to him in the first place. The police department of Philadelphia, he figured, wouldn’t be looking for an absconding teller in a colony of neurotics headed by a doctor from Detroit.

“The mutilation of Hemingway’s body was done to cast suspicion on the rest of you, notably Johnny. His chief attempt to implicate Johnny was thwarted by Mr. Jenkins. Hemingway had apparently borrowed one of Johnny’s handkerchiefs and when Storm killed him he found the handkerchief in Hemingway’s coat pocket. It had blood on it by this time. Storm put the handkerchief in his own pocket, wanting to make it appear as though it had been planted there. It was an impulsive idea and the whole thing was spoiled anyway by Mr. Jenkins. Thinking the J on it stood for Josephine, Jenkins wrapped the handkerchief around a rock and threw it in the lake, although he ought to have known it was too large for a woman’s handkerchief.”

“How sweet!” Mrs. Jenkins said, beaming on her mate. “How true-blue!”

Miss Studd began to cough hollowly, and when everyone’s attention was fixed on her, she said: “Why did he whisper outside my window and throw the knife into my room?”

“Because,” Prye said, “his attempt to implicate Johnny having failed, he decided that perhaps you could be made to believe that you yourself were guilty. He knew you were suggestible. He came out of the icehouse around the side of the lodge, heard Miss Eustace crying in her room and knew she wouldn’t hear him whispering outside your window. He had already taken the bread knife from the kitchen as a means of protecting himself if necessary.

“The whole performance took very little time and Miss Studd reacted as he thought she would. At first she leaped out of her bed in terror, unlocked her door and was on the point of running out. But before she got out she heard the voice tell her that she was guilty, that she was Myrtle. Dr. Haller found her in bed, dazed with shock, and quite firmly convinced of her own guilt. That was one of the places where Storm overplayed his hand. Miss Studd’s auditory hallucination looked suspicious right from the start. It wasn’t in accord with the rest of her symptoms and so I sought another explanation and found it.”

Miss Tyler’s blue eyes were very thoughtful. “Why did he kill the young man in the boat?”

“Sheer panic,” Prye said. “About midnight Storm had left Hemingway’s room. Hemingway had demanded half the money and Storm was ostensibly going out to get it. What he actually got was the meat knife from the kitchen. When he didn’t come back to Hemingway’s room, Hemingway went out to look for him. He found him down near the south shore apparently recovering the money from beneath some rocks. Actually, he expected Hemingway to come after him and Hemingway did. When Hemingway was off guard he stabbed him. It was at this point that he saw the light flashing across the water near the northeast shore. It was the boatman’s signal to Johnny. Storm, of course, knew nothing of the business arrangement between Johnny and the boatman.

“Thoroughly frightened, he crept over to the northeast shore, still holding the bloody knife in his hand. By this time the boatman, receiving no answering flash from Johnny, had tied up his boat and come ashore to investigate. He unloaded the case of whiskey and sat down to wait for Johnny.”

“I’d promised him another fifty,” Johnny said in a low voice.

“Storm was in a panic by this time. The boatman continued to sit, his flashlight turned on beside him. Storm had not yet had time to arrange Hemingway’s body or take off the clothes and dispose of them. At any moment someone might come from the lodge to meet the boatman, or the boatman himself might decide to look around the island. And if Storm tried to get back into his room, maybe he’d run into the man or woman whom the boatman was obviously expecting. In a sudden fury, he crept up behind the man and stabbed him and pushed him over into the water. Then he cut the boat loose with the bloody knife.

“This was not done, as I had supposed, because he had no time to untie the rope, but because he saw the case of whiskey and decided that it was Johnny who had arranged for the boatman to come. Therefore, it was Johnny on whom suspicion was most likely to fall. So he deliberately left the bloodstained rope where it was, and put the case of whiskey under the water in a place where it would probably be found. He couldn’t leave it on the rocks, you see, because if Johnny were the murderer he would have hidden the whiskey. Storm is a fairly subtle man.”

“How did Hemingway know Storm’s real name?” Mr. Jenkins asked.

“Probably he read the papers more carefully than I do,” Prye replied, “and added two and two. A man named Murrell robbed a Philadelphia bank of fifty thousand dollars. A man of the same description named Storm had fifty thousand dollars in his luggage. Hemingway probably connected the two facts and taxed Murrell with them.”

There was a short pause. Miss Tyler rose to her feet suddenly and cried, “There’s the boat! Look!”

The launch was approaching the island.

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Jenkins said unhappily. “I don’t want to leave. It seems a shame to let all this beautiful fresh air and sunshine go to waste.”

“A crying shame,” her husband agreed.

“I’m afraid,” Haller confessed, flushing, “that I’ll have to give up the colony, at least temporarily. But there’s no reason why you two shouldn’t stay on.”

“Oh, joy!” Mrs. Jenkins shouted.

Prye smiled. “True children of nature,” he thought, “of which I am not one. I wonder if the boatman on the launch will give me a cigarette.”

Miss Tyler drew Johnny out to the veranda, and they sat down on the steps.

“Johnny,” Miss Tyler said.

“Yes,” Johnny said.

“I’ve got a confession.”

“Have you?”

“I’m not really crazy.”

“Of course you aren’t.”

“Not even a little crazy. I just came up here because of you.”

Johnny blushed. “How could you? I mean, I never even saw you before I came here.”

“I saw you, though. I saw you playing polo twice. I fell in love with you right away. I’ve always been crazy about horses anyway.”

“I like horses, too,” Johnny said.

“I read about the colony in the papers, about you going along, I mean. I thought I’d come, too, and look after you.”

“Oh.”

“You won’t need looking after any more, Dr. Prye said, but just the same—” She paused and added dreamily: “I think love is wonderful.”

“It’s fine,” Johnny said.