The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

The Haunted Chateau

Dennis Wheatley

Location: Cheterau, Eastern France.

Time: Spring, 1940.

Eyewitness Description: “The Thing was in the pentacle! Inside it! There with them; at their elbows, instead of beyond the barrier which should have kept it out. Why had he felt no warning – no indication of evil. . .?”

Author: Dennis Wheatley (1897–1997) was one of the most popular novelists in Britain for almost half of the 20th century. Born into a family of wine merchants, he served as a gunner officer during World War One before being gassed and invalided out. By the thirties, he was the sole owner of the family business, but still determined to pursue his dream of becoming an author. His early best-sellers like The Forbidden Territory (1933) revealed his fascination with espionage and spying and when the Second World War started he offered his considerable prophetic skills to the war effort. Under the rank of a Wing Commander in the Joint Planning Staff of the War Cabinet he wrote a series of Top Secret papers anticipating German strategy, notably Resistance to Invasion, Village Defence and After the Battle. The documents proposed a host of ingenious ideas from setting the Channel on fire to building “tank traps” on the East Coast. Although Wheatley subsequently claimed more credit for his part in British plans than he was entitled to, there was undoubtedly a germ of possibility in everything he proposed. His involvement also inspired him to write one of the first “supernatural stories” of the war, which also harks back to the earlier conflict in its reference to the legend of a crucified soldier.

“France!” Brace Hemmingway raised his eyebrows and looked inquiringly across the table at his curious little host. “Would I like to go on a visit to the front? I’ll say I would; but as an American and a neutral, I’d never get a pass.”

Neils Orsen smiled and scrutinized one of his long slender hands. “I’m a neutral, too, but I’ve been invited to go over there to investigate a little matter. It won’t actually be the Maginot Line, but it’s in the Zone des Armées and I have permission to take an assistant, so I’m sure a pass for you could be arranged.”

“My dear Neils, I’d love to go,” the young international lawyer declared with rising excitement. “Tell me all about it.”

“Two days ago General Hayes, who is an old friend of mine, came to see me,” Orsen began, his cool voice only slightly tinged with a Swedish accent. “He has always been interested in psychical research and is now on leave from France. It seems that an old chateau which had been taken over by the British had to be abandoned as a billet because it is so badly haunted that even the officers refuse to stay in it.”

The big American lit a cigarette. “Then it must be the grandfather of all hauntings. What form does it take?”

“As usual, it does not affect everyone, but at least one or two out of each group of men that has been stationed there have felt its influence, and the manifestations always occur at night. The wretched victim is apparently always taken by surprise, lets out a piercing yell, and throws some sort of fit. Afterwards they state that they heard nothing, saw nothing, but were stabbed through the hands or feet and paralysed, rooted to the spot, transfixed by an agonizing pain which racked their whole bodies. The curious thing is that these attacks have taken place in nearly every room in the house. However, the worst cases have occurred in the one and only bathroom and it was there, about ten days ago, that one victim died – presumably as the result of a heart attack. It was that which finally decided the authorities to evacuate the chateau.”

“How long has the haunting been going on?”

The Swede blinked his large pale-blue eyes, so curiously like those of his Siamese cat, Past. “I’m not sure. You see, the château was empty and in a very dilapidated condition when the Army took over. I gather that it was untenanted for some considerable time before war started.”

“Was your friend able to find out the history of the place from the villagers?”

“Yes, and a most unpleasant story it is. But they seemed vague as to when the haunting began.”

“What was the story?”

“Before the French Revolution the château was owned by a really bad example of the French aristocracy of that time. Cruel, avaricious, and inordinately proud, the Vicomte de Cheterau treated his serfs worse than animals, beating, imprisoning, and torturing them at his pleasure. One day he devised the sadistic idea of adding yet another thong to his whip by placing a local tax on nails. As you know, it’s practically impossible to build anything without them, so the poorest peasants had to revert to the ancient, laborious practice of carving their own from the odd pieces of wood they could gather from the hedge-rows.”

“He must have been a swine.”

“Perhaps,” Neils agreed. “But no man, however cruel, deserved such a frightful death.”

“How did he die?”

Orsen stared at his reflection in the polished table. “One dark night, soon after the Revolution broke loose, his serfs crept into the chateau and pulled him out of bed. They dragged him to his business room and there they crucified him with their wooden nails. It took him three days to die; and they came each night to mock him in his agony with tantalizing jars of water and bowls of food.”

Bruce shuddered. “Horrible – did anyone ever live in the chateau again?”

“I believe so; but no tenant has ever stayed for long in recent years. Of course, the villagers won’t go near it. They are convinced that it’s haunted, as the story of the Vicomte de Cheterau has been handed down from father to son for generations.”

Hemmingway leaned forward. “Do you think these stabs the victims feel in their hands and feet are some sort of psychic repetition of the pains the Vicomte felt when the mob drove their wooden nails through his palms and insteps?”

“Quite possibly,” replied Orsen slowly. “There are many well-authenticated cases of monks and nuns who have developed stigmata from too intensive a contemplation of the agony suffered by Jesus Christ at His crucifixion.”

“It sounds a pretty tough proposition, then. When do we leave?”

“The day after tomorrow.” Neils gently stroked the back of his Siamese cat and his big pale eyes were glowing. “I may be able to show you a real Saati manifestation this time, Bruce; but we must take nothing for granted. You can leave all arrangements to me.”

A watery sun was shining through the avenue of lime trees, throwing chequered patterns on the wet gravel below, as the two friends were driven towards the chateau by a cheerful young captain into whose charge they had been given at the local H.Q.

“General Hayes told me about you, Mr Orsen,” he was saying. “I find it difficult to believe in spooks myself, but there’s certainly something devilish going on in the old place, and we shall be jolly grateful if you can find it for us. Those cottages in the village are damned uncomfortable.”

Neils leaned forwards to peer through the window at the rearing pile of grey stone just ahead of them, and the captain added: “Gloomy sort of place, isn’t it?”

As Bruce stepped out of the car he thoroughly agreed. The silence was eerie, broken only by a monotonous sound of water dripping from the rain-sodden trees that surrounded the chateau and almost shut out the sky. A dank, musty smell greeted them as they entered; a rat scurried away into the dark shadows of the hall.

“Well, Neils, old man,” he said with a wry grin. “This place certainly seems to have the right atmosphere.”

The little Swede did not appear to hear him. He was standing quite still, his large head thrown back and his eyes closed as if he were listening. Their guide gave an embarrassed cough, Unlike Bruce, he was not accustomed to Orsen’s peculiarities, and he felt that ghost-hunting was at the best an unhealthy form of amusement.

“Shall we get a move on?” he asked abruptly. “I mean, if you want me to show you round; it’s quite a big place, and the light will be gone in less than an hour.”

Neils blinked, then fluttered one slender hand apologetically. “Forgive me; please lead the way.”

They mounted the twisting stairs and as they passed the windows the evening light threw their shadows, elongated and grotesque, against the damp-sodden walls; no one spoke and the emptiness seemed to close in on them like a fog. As they wandered from room to room Neils followed behind the other two men humming a quaint old-fashioned tune to himself.

After an hour they made their way back to the hall and as they walked out towards the car their guide turned towards Orsen. “Well, now you’ve seen it. Are you really going to spend the night here?”

The little man smiled. “Certainly we are.”

Mentally shrugging his shoulders the captain helped Bruce to carry the luggage upstairs, then ironically wished them good night. When the sound of the car was lost in the distance Bruce returned to the ballroom and found Neils standing by one of the long bow-windows.

“Can you hear the sh-sh-sh of panniered dresses, the brittle laughter of powdered ladies with their gallants, and the tapping of their heels as they dance a minuet to the tinkle of the harpsichord?” he said softly. His eyes stared blindly, and their pupils contracted. “Or do you hear the hoarse cries of those ragged, half-starved creatures as they stumble through these rooms smashing everything in sight, their mouths slobbering with frantic desire for revenge? Can you hear the shrieks, hardly human in their terror, of the wretched Vicomte as he is dragged to his death by those who were once his slaves?”

“No,” said Bruce uneasily, “but I’ll believe you that these walls would have a tale to tell if they could only talk.”

“My friend, they have no need when the seventh child of a seventh child is listening.”

Bruce shivered, as an icy chill seemed to rise up from the bare floor. “I’m hungry,” he said as brightly as he could. “What about unpacking and having a little light on the scene?”

Neils smiled. “Yes, we will eat and sleep here. We shall have to shade the candles though, as there aren’t any black-out precautions. I suppose the Army thought this room too big to bother about. I see they’ve done the bedrooms and everywhere else downstairs.”

“What made you choose the ballroom?”

“Because Hayes told that it is one of the few rooms in which no one has yet been attacked; so we shall be able to see if the Force possesses harmful powers against humans anywhere in the house, or whether it can only become an evil manifestation in certain spots.”

While Bruce set out an appetizing array of food from the hamper on the floor, Neils unpacked his cameras. The American had seen them keep him company on more than one thrilling adventure, but their process, Orsen’s invention, was a mystery to him. Neils explained them only by saying that their plates were abnormally sensitive. He said the same thing of his sound-recorder, an instrument like a miniature dictaphone.

Having finished their dinner with some excellent coffee, cooked on a primus stove, they went along to the big, old-fashioned bathroom to fix Orsen’s first camera and his sound machine. As they entered the room Bruce wrinkled his nose. “What a filthy smell! The drainage must be terrible.”

Neils agreed as he placed one instrument on the window-sill and one on the broad mahogany ledge that surrounded the old-fashioned bath. He sealed the windows with fine silken threads and did the same to the door. Then, with their footsteps echoing behind them, they made a tour of the silent chateau, leaving the Swede’s cameras in carefully selected places, till they came to the front hall, where Orsen left his last camera, and sealed the door leading to the back stairs with the remains of the reel of silk. Their job done they returned to the ballroom, and having made themselves as comfortable as possible with the rugs and cushions, settled down for the night.

Bruce could not sleep. They had lit a fire with some dry logs found in the kitchen and its dying flames sent a cavalcade of writhing shapes racing across the walls and ceiling.

Presently a moon shone through the uncurtained windows; propping himself on his elbow Bruce started at the unfamiliar lines it etched on Neils’s face as he lay on his back, breathing gently. Orsen’s enormous domed forehead shone like some beautiful Chinese ivory as the cold white light glanced across it, and his heavy blue-veined lids and sensitive mouth were curiously like those of a woman. He was sound asleep, yet Bruce knew that if there were the slightest sound or if an evil presence approached, he would be alert and fully in command of all his faculties in a fraction of a second.

Bruce lay back reassured. He could hear the muffled scuffling of rats behind the wainscoting. At length he dozed off.

Suddenly a shrill scream rent the silence, tearing it apart with devastating hands of terror. Bruce sprang to his feet and rushed to the window. The driveway was brilliantly illuminated by the glare of the moon, but he could see nothing. Orsen sat up slowly. “It’s all right,” he murmured; “only an owl.”

Nodding dumbly, Bruce returned to his couch, his heart thudding against his ribs.

Morning came at last, and after breakfast Orsen went off to examine his cameras. He found their plates negative and his seals all undisturbed, whilst the sound-machine recorded only the scrambling noise of rats. Re-setting his apparatus, he returned to the ballroom. Bruce was staring gloomily out of the window at the steady downpour of rain now falling from a leaden sky. He wheeled round as Neils came in. “Well?”

“Nothing. I think we’ll go down to the village now. We might get a hot bath and you can have a drink. You look pretty done in.”

“Yes,” Bruce agreed laconically.

After lunch in the officers’ mess, Neils arranged with his friend to bring their provisions up to the chateau before dark and left him in the genial company of the officers. As the rain had ceased he had decided to go for a walk and wandered off, a queer little figure in the misty yellow light of the afternoon.

The woods that almost covered the estate were full of a quiet beauty as the dusty sunlight filtered through their branches on to the sharply scented earth below and their calm, ageless indifference to the travails of men filled Orsen with a delightful sense of being in another world.

The evening passed slowly. Bruce played patience, whilst Orsen paced up and down like a small caged animal. He would never have admitted it, but his nerves were badly on edge, for, although they had lit a fire, the cold was intense, a thing that always made him feel ill. After dinner, having made a final inspection of his cameras, he boiled some water on the primus for a hot-water-bottle, and settled down in his improvised bed. Bruce followed suit.

The black moonless night dragged by on crippled feet, its silence disturbed only by the rats and the faint boom of gun-fire in the distance. Morning found the two men pale and haggard. They fried themselves eggs and bacon, then went along to the bathroom, where the stench was now so appalling that they had to hold their noses.

Once again the camera plates proved negative and the seals were untouched; but on the record of the sound-machine there was a new noise. It came at intervals above the scuffling of the rats and was like that of someone beating with his fingernails irregularly against a pane of glass.

“What do you think it is?” Bruce asked excitedly.

Neils went over to the window and peered out. “It’s possible that it was caused by this branch of creeper,” he said, opening the window and breaking off the branch. “If it was, the noise won’t recur tonight.”

The day passed uneventfully and both men were curiously relieved when darkness fell once more.

Close on midnight Orsen slid out of bed noiselessly and crept along to the bathroom. On reaching it he stood motionless for a second. In the queer half-green light of his torch he resembled a ghost himself.

Not a sound disturbed the silence; even the rats seemed to have disappeared. Putting his ear to the keyhole he listened, but could hear nothing. He hesitated, then, grasping the door-handle, he twisted it sharply and with a vicious kick sent the door flying open, at the same instant flattening himself back against the wall.

Breathlessly, he waited, the unearthly quiet singing in his head. Still nothing happened. Making the sign of the Cross he muttered four words of power and, easing himself forward, peered into the bathroom. Only the horrible stench of decaying life and the heavy tomb-like atmosphere greeted him. He flashed his torch across the ceiling and sent its beams piercing into every corner, but his cameras were all unviolated. With a sigh of disappointment he closed the door softly behind him and retraced his steps.

After breakfast the next morning they developed the plates from those in the bathroom last, having found all the others blank. Those of the one on the window-sill showed the door open and Neils’s head and shoulders. On the other was only the flash of his torch. They tried the sound-machine and a puzzled frown crossed Orsen’s brow as once again they heard the faint noise like fingernails beating against the window.

“This is most peculiar,” he murmured, as the record ceased. “I tore off that branch and I’ll swear there was no sound perceptible to human ears when I was in the room ten hours ago.”

“Perhaps it had started before – or afterwards,” Bruce hazarded.

“No; the sound-machine does not start recording until the cameras operate. On our first night I set them to function automatically at midnight; but last night I fixed them so that they should not operate at all unless someone or something broke the threads across the window or the door. I set them off myself by entering the room, so that noise must have been going on.” He paused. “I shall spend the coming night there myself.”

“Not on your own!” Bruce declared quickly. “Remember, a man died in that room from – well, from unknown causes little more than a fortnight ago.”

A gentle smile illuminated Neils’s face. “I was hoping you would offer to keep me company; but I wouldn’t agree to you doing so unless I felt confident I could protect you. I intend to make a pentacle; one of the oldest forms of protection against evil manifestations, and, fortunately, I brought all the things necessary for it in my luggage. But we must get a change of clothes in the village.”

That afternoon they began their preparations with handkerchiefs soaked in eau-de-Cologne tied over the lower part of their faces to counteract the appalling smell. First, they spring-cleaned the whole room with infinite care, Bruce scrubbing the floor and bath with carbolic soap, whilst Orsen went over the walls and ceiling with a mop which he dipped constantly in a pail of disinfected water.

“There must not be a speck of dust anywhere, particularly on the floor,” the Swede explained, “since evil entities can fasten on any form of dirt to assist their materialization. That is why I asked the captain to lend us blankets, battle-dresses, and issue underclothes straight from new stocks in the quarter-master’s stores. And now,” he went on, “I want two glasses and a jug of water, also fruit and biscuits. We must have no material needs to tempt us from our astral stronghold should any dark force try to corrupt our will-power through our sub-conscious minds.”

When Bruce returned, Neils had opened a suit-case and taken from it a piece of chalk, a length of string, and a foot-rule. Marking a spot approximately in the centre of the room, he asked Bruce to hold the end of the string to it and, using him as a pivot, drew a large circle in chalk.

Next the string was lengthened and an outer circle drawn. Then the most difficult part of the operation began. A five-rayed star had to be made with its points touching the outer circle and its valleys resting upon the inner. But, as Neils pointed out, while such a defence could be highly potent if constructed with geometrical accuracy, should any of the angles vary to any marked degree or the distance of the apexes from the central point differ more than a fraction, the pentacle would prove not only useless, but even dangerous. “This may all be completely unnecessary,” he added. “We have no actual proof yet that an evil power is active here, but I have always thought that it was better not to spill the milk than to have to cry when it was done.”

Bruce smiled at the Swede’s slightly muddled version of the old English proverb, but at the same time he heartily concurred with his friend’s sentiments.

For an hour they measured and checked till eventually the broad white lines were drawn to Neils’s satisfaction, forming the magical star in which it was his intention they should remain while darkness lasted. He then drew certain ancient symbols in its valleys and mounts, and when he had finished Bruce laid the blankets, glasses, water jug, and food in its centre. Meanwhile, Orsen was producing further impedimenta from his case. With lengths of asafcetida grass and blue wax he sealed the windows and bath-waste, making the Sign of the Cross over each seal as he completed it.

“That’ll do for now. I must leave the door till we’re settled in,” he said. “I think we might as well go out and get some fresh air while we can.”

It was then nearly six o’clock. An hour later they returned to the chateau for an early supper. Almost before they had finished eating, dusk began to fall and Orsen glanced anxiously at the lengthening shadows. “We’d better go now,” he said, gulping down the remains of his coffee.

Shivering with cold they undressed and reclothed themselves outside the bathroom. Once inside, the Swede sealed the door; then turning to Bruce gave him a long wreath of garlic flowers and a gold crucifix on a chain which he told him to hang round his neck. Unquestioningly the American obeyed and watched the little man follow suit. As they stepped into the pentacle, Neils gripped his friend by the hand, and said urgently:

“Now, whatever happens and whatever ideas you get about all this being nonsense, you must on no account leave the circle. The evil force, if there is one, is almost certain to try to undermine our defences through you, owing to your spiritual inexperience. Please remember what I’ve said.”

Having huddled into their blankets and tied the handkerchiefs newly soaked in eau-de-Cologne over their faces, they settled down to wait.

Time plodded wearily by and as they had left their watches outside with their clothes they had no means of checking it. Conversation soon flagged owing to the difficulty of speaking through the wet masks, so the two men crouched in silence, each longing desperately for the coming of dawn. Outside, the trees sighed quietly and darkness held the chateau in its thrall.

“It’s very odd, I can’t sense any evil presence here; and if there were one I should have by now,” Orsen whispered after a long silence.

Bruce stiffened and peered through the darkness at the white blob that was Neils’s face. “Now don’t you start talking like that. Remember what you told me. It looks as though those things you mentioned a while ago are having a dig at you.”

“No,” Orsen muttered after a moment, “no, it’s not that. Will you give me some water, please, it’s over on your side.”

Bruce put out his hand to feel for the jug. Without the least warning his strangled yell shattered the deep quiet of the night and he collapsed in a limp tangle over the Swede’s legs.

Orsen stumbled to his feet, his mind reeling – the Thing was in the pentacle. Inside it! There, with them; at their elbows, instead of beyond the barrier which should have kept it out. Why had he felt no warning – no indication of evil?

Shouting aloud a Latin exorcism which would keep the evil at bay for a space of eleven human heart-beats, he stooped, grabbed Bruce under the armpits, and dragged him from the circle.

Once outside it he allowed himself a pause to get back his breath; knowing that since the Thing was in the pentacle the magic barrier would act like the bars of a cage and keep it from getting out. But would it? Even Neils was scared by such an unusual and extraordinarily potent phenomenon.

Wrenching the door open he seized Brace’s unconscious form again and, exerting all his frail physical strength, hauled it along the passage. When at last he reached the ballroom sweat was pouring down his face and he was gasping as though his lungs would burst. Feverishly he searched for his torch and finding it threw its beams on Bruce’s face. It was deathly pale, but with a sob of relief Neils felt the faintly beating heart beneath his hand.

A few minutes later Bruce came out of his faint, but he could remember nothing, save that when he had put out his hand for the water-jug it seemed as though a thousand knives had pierced his body; then everything had gone black.

Neils nodded as his friend finished. “It’s a good thing we left our blankets here. We’ll try and get some sleep!” But he himself did not attempt to sleep. Puzzled and anxious, he remained on watch all night, and as the first rays of dawn crept through the windows he returned to the bathroom.

Two hours later he told Bruce: “I think I’ve found the root of the evil, and I’m going down the village to borrow the largest electric battery I can find.”

“Whatever for?”

“Electric force can be used for many purposes,” was all Neils would say.

It was not until they had completed their evening meal that Neils undid a parcel and produced four bottles of champagne.

“Hullo! What’s this?” Bruce exclaimed.

“I got them from the local estaminet this morning as I thought it was time we returned hospitality to some of the officers in the mess. They’re coming in about ten o’clock.”

“That’s fine,” Bruce grinned. “I reckon I deserve a party after last night.”

Soon after ten their friend the captain, a colonel, and three other officers arrived and they immediately began to make half-humorous inquiries about the ghost.

“Gentlemen,” replied Neils, “I asked you up here because I hope to lay the ghost tonight; but we can’t start work for an hour or two, and in the meantime, as I am a teetotaller, I hope you’ll join Bruce Hemmingway in a glass of wine.”

For two hours Neils kept them enthralled with stories of Saati manifestations he had encountered, so that even the most sceptical was secretly glad that the party numbered seven resolute men; but he would say nothing of his discoveries in the chateau until, glancing at his watch, he saw that it was half-past twelve. Then he began to recount the experiences of Bruce and himself since their arrival.

Turning to Bruce, he went on: “My suspicions were aroused last night when you were attacked in the pentacle. Mentally you were unharmed, but your hand was red and inflamed, as though it had been burnt. Early this morning I returned to the bathroom and pulled up the boards upon which the water-jug was resting, taking care not to touch the floor anywhere near it. Underneath there were the decaying bodies of two rats and three electric wires, the naked leads of which were inserted in the plank to look from above like nails. You remember that curious sound of tapping fingers on the recording machine, which is so much more sensitive than our ears. When I saw those wires I suddenly realized what it meant. Somewhere in the chateau a person was working a morse transmitter.”

“By Jove!” The Colonel jumped to his feet. “A spy!”

Neils nodded. “Yes. Long before the war, no doubt, the Germans laid a secret cable from their own lines to the chateau, reckoning that their agent here would be able to work undisturbed because no one would come to the place on account of its sinister reputation. But to make quite certain of being able to scare away any intruders they ran electric wires to a dozen different points in the building, mainly to door-knobs; but the lavatory seats and bathroom also particularly lent themselves to such a purpose.”

“But we’ve searched every room in the place,” Bruce exclaimed, “so where does the spy conceal himself?”

The officers were now all on their feet. “Grand work, Mr Orsen!” cried the Colonel. “He may even be sending a message now. Let’s go and get him.”

It was after one o’clock when Orsen led the way out of the château. They stumbled through tangled undergrowth, barking their shins on unseen obstacles for nearly twenty minutes until Neils halted in a clearing among the trees which was almost filled by a large grassy mound.

“What’s this?” the captain asked, flashing his torch.

“It’s an ice-house,” the little man replied as he pulled open a thick, slanting wooden trap almost hidden by moss and ivy. “In the old days, before refrigerators were invented, people used to cut blocks of ice out of their lakes when they were frozen in the winter and store them in these places. The temperature remained constant owing to the fact that they were underground and invariably in woods, which always retain moisture, so the ice was preserved right through the summer.”

A dank musty smell filled their nostrils as, almost bent double, they followed Neils inside. Ahead of them in the far corner of the cellar loomed a dark cavity. “This is the way the ghost comes,” Orsen murmured. “Mind how you go; there’ll be one or two holes, I expect.”

The silence seemed to bear down on them as they crept forward through a dark tunnel and the deathly chill penetrated their thick overcoats. No one spoke. On and on they went. The passage seemed to wind interminably before them; occasionally a rat scurried across their path. Suddenly, as they rounded a bend, a bright shaft of light struck their eyes. For a second they stood practically blinded and two of the officers produced revolvers.

Neils let them precede him into the secret cellar, but they did not need their weapons. At its far end, sprawled over the table which held a big telegraphic transmitting-set, was the body of a man.

“There, gentlemen, is your ghost,” Orsen announced quietly. “No, don’t touch him, you fool!” he snapped, as the captain stretched out a hand towards the corpse. “He’s been electrocuted and the current isn’t switched off yet.”

“Electrocuted?” the captain gasped. “But how did that happen?”

“The powerful battery you borrowed for me this morning from the Air Force people,” Neils said. “I attached it to the leads in the bathroom, then came down here and fixed the other end of the wires to the side of the transmitter key.”

“Good God!” exclaimed the colonel. “But this is most irregular.”

“Quite,” Neils agreed, “and, of course, I’m neutral in this war, but I’m not neutral in the greater war that is always going on between good and evil. This man murdered that poor fellow who died in the bathroom. So I decided to save you a shooting party.”