"Ellen, lock up upstairs for me, will you? Call the police; tell them to talk to that man Gawdy!" She was already at the door. "I'll be back, I don't know when!"

The Delaunay house sat stately and brooding among twilight shadows when Sandra rang the bell under its aristocratic portico. The lank, grave face of a butler answered the soft sound of its triple door chime. Sandra burst out: "Do you have a housemaid here named Helen Ying?"

The butler stared. "Why, yes, miss."

"Let me speak to Mr Delaunay."

The butler blinked. "Who shall I say is-"

A deep voice said from behind: "Who is it, Sanders?"

Sandra pushed in. "You're Mr Delaunay?"

"I'm John Delaunay, yes."

He was an old man, as thin as a gra.s.shopper, leaning on a thick blackthorn cane. His mild and benignant face was filled with wrinkles like transparent wax paper that has been crumpled and then flattened out.

"I'm Sandra Grey. I run the welfare office for St. Luke's charities. Something terrible has happened, and if I could speak to you a moment-"

"Of course. Of course."

He guided her into the paneled entrance of a library. The first thing Sandra saw as she came in the room was a man on a sofa with his arms around a girl trying to kiss her. They both sprang up; Sandra backed out; the old man gently impelled her in again and snapped on the wall switch.

"Well, bless me," he said mildly, "I didn't know you two were in here Miss Grey, this is my daughter Marceline."

Marceline was a flashily pretty brunette with brilliant black eyes. The brilliant eyes glared at Sandra. She did not say anything. She sat down at the extreme end of the sofa and gave her whole attention to a bowl of goldfish. The man was sitting in an armchair leafing through the pages of a book. He was hawk-faced, olive-cheeked, with a Vand.y.k.e beard cupping his chin like a spearhead. It was a ridiculous and awkward second for Sandra. She turned to speak to Mr Delaunay, but the old man was puttering forward to take the Vand.y.k.ed man by the arm.

"This is Miss Grey. Miss Grey, this is Rupert de Saules, a long-lost distant relative."

De Saules rose, bowed with the greatest aplomb.

"Delighted."

He had cool, sly eyes, that traveled over Sandra with insolent appreciation. Sandra hardly looked at him. She sat down, burst at once into an account of what had happened. The old man sat down, looked at her agape. De Saules' hawklike head came forward sharply. Even Marceline turned from her preoccupation with the goldfish.

The old man gasped: "Acid! To the Chinese maid! How frightful!" He tugged a bell pull. "We'll have her in here." The butler put in his lank head. "Send the Chinese maid in at once."

Sandra was taking the rice-paper envelope from her bag. "The Chinese, Dow, gave me this surrept.i.tiously. It's for you, Mr Delaunay."

"For me!" The astounded old man took it with a blue-veined hand." 'Give this to her employer' you're right." He set it in his lap, unsnapped a spectacles case, set his gla.s.ses on his nose.

A Chinese girl stood in the door.

"You sent for me, sir?"

"Ah . . . oh . . . yes."

Sandra sprang up.

"You're Helen Ying?" she asked.

The girl turned her oval face to her. She was comely, with jetblack, long-lashed, modest eyes. She curtseyed. "Yes, ma'am."

"Do you know who would try to send acid to you?"

"Acid!" The girl's eyes went wide. "To me! No, ma'am!"

"A Chinese man just came to my office and tried to get me to bring you a bamboo tube filled with sulphuric acid. It was fixed so that if you held it toward you, the natural way to open it, the acid would have spurted all over your face and throat."

The girl clutched at herself, aghast. Her eyes were like saucers.

"He said his name was Dow. He claimed to be your cousin. Do you know him?"

The girl shook her head dumbly. Sandra searched the wide jet-black eyes. They were as candid as her own.

"A young, flashily dressed man, very well educated, smoked gold-tipped cigarettes. Have you any idea who he was?"

"No, ma'am. None . . . none at all."

The Vand.y.k.ed De Saules asked with a sly smile: "No love affairs, or anything like that?"

"No, sir." The girl did not raise her eyes. "I do not know any men here in the city at all."

"My dear girl, don't lie." De Saules fingered his point of beard. "You must know him, otherwise there'd be no point-"

"Suppose we hear what this says," said old Mr Delaunay, ripping open the rice-paper envelope. He took out a typed sheet of paper, read in a slow, loud voice: Mr John Delaunay: You are about to die.

The acid sent to the maid is merely a subordinate matter.

Do not stay alone by yourself.

Do not eat or drink anything.

This is the only way to show that your death is not suicide, but murder.

No human agency can prevent your death.

"What's this?" For an instant the old man's tongue moved speechlessly in his open mouth. "Me! My death! What infernal madness is this?"

His daughter Marceline gasped: "It's a death threat!"

De Saules cried to Sandra: "This Chinaman, this Dow, gave that to you?"

"Yes! Yes!" Sandra was stunned, bewildered. "Dow Dow, the same one that gave me the acid tube!"

"Who would dare do such a thing!" With the quick irascibility of age the old man flew into a rage. His mild eyes flashed, he banged his cane on the floor, he ground his teeth, flung the note down and stamped on it. "Call the police! I'll have that scoundrel if it's the last thing-"

He lurched suddenly sideways. It was not a step; it was as though he had been struck from the side. The blackthorn cane flew from him. He screamed out: "My tongue! My throat!"

Sandra could only see his face, twisted, demoniac. He was tearing at his mouth in a frenzy. Then he fell backward in a frightful spasm, struck a floor lamp, plunged like a senseless blind hammer to the floor.

II.

It was so horrible and swift it left them riveted. Sandra felt only a jar in both shoulder blades, as though she had been driven back in her chair. Then De Saules was plunging at the body.

"Mr Delaunay! Mr Delaunay!"

He had one arm beneath the old man's neck, lifting his head. He froze. It was when the head came into the glare of the overturned lamp. The mult.i.tudinously wrinkled face lolled at them, eyeb.a.l.l.s bulging, staring, glazed. It was not that which cut the breath in their throats; not the hideous grimace on his face not even the fact of his death.

The old man's tongue protruded from his lips. It was the color of paper. It had a coa.r.s.e, pitted texture; it looked like a spongy head of swollen fungus, plugged like a stopper between his lips.

The butler was there. The maid was rocking back and forth like someone on the edge of a precipice. The bell was ringing its triple musical chime. n.o.body paid any attention to it.

Marceline reeled against Sandra, clutched her arm with hands that almost tore the muscle out.

"Poisoned!" the girl gasped. "He's poisoned!"

"Poisoned!" De Saules whipped to her. "You're mad! How could he be?"

"The note!" Marceline screamed the words. "The note! It said he would die!"

Sandra grabbed the butler by the arm. It was like shaking a wooden image.

"Call the police! The police!"

"They're" the butler waved one arm wildly; he was trying, to indicate the door "coming up-"

Sandra flashed by him, darted down the hall. Men were hammering at the door. She saw two detectives, behind them the gold bulk of Gawdy's topcoat, his florid handsome face. She s.n.a.t.c.hed open the door; the hard-eyed man in the lead touched his hat.

"Hullo, Miss Grey. We're following up that acid business-"

Sandra caught him by the arm. "Captain Corrigan! There's a dead man in here! Come on!"

The hard-eyed detective captain went by her in two strides. He turned long enough to snap to his companion: "Get the M.E. He's in the car."

Gawdy got Sandra by the arm. His bright-blue eyes were wide.

"What's the matter? What's happened?"

"Mr Delaunay's dead! Murdered! That note Dow gave me it said he would die!"

Gawdy's high-colored features blanched. He said only one word: "Marceline!" He plunged by Sandra into the library.

The library was a scene of confusion. Marceline was screaming; the loud, continuous screams of hysteria. De Saules was ineffectually shouting at her, pleading with her. Captain Corrigan took one look out of his hard eyes, walked up and slapped her across the face.

"Shut up!" he said. "Sit down."

It acted like magic. Marceline fell onto the sofa, stopped screaming. The room jolted into calm as if ice water had been sluiced through it.

Captain Corrigan turned around, looked at the dead man. Sandra saw even the scalp on his blunt bullet head move with surprise as he observed that outthrust paper white tongue.

"When'd this happen?" His hard eyes swiveled like turret guns at De Saules.

"Just now, not two minutes ago!"

"What had he been drinking?"

"Drinking!" De Saules' point of beard jabbed up and down with the irregular movement of his jaw. "Nothing! He was reading that note that note that prophesied his death!" He darted across, picked up the crumpled rice paper from the rug. "Here! This!"

Corrigan read it. A little man with a black bag bustled in and kneeled down by the corpse, but Corrigan paid no attention. The mouth in his blunt face opened with a jerk as he looked up at De Saules.

"Where'd this come from?"

"I brought it!" Sandra's eyes were like vivid stars. "It's from that Chinese, Dow the one that gave me the acid tube!"

"What!" The difference in tone as Corrigan spoke to Sandra was noticeable. "That Chinaman who brought you the acid tube! You mean he's mixed up in this?"

"Yes! Yes! Mr Delaunay had just read it. He got very angry. He jumped up and-" She groped for words. "He simply fell over, crying out something about his tongue! That was all! He didn't take anything; he didn't drink anything; we all saw him!"

Corrigan looked from her to De Saules to Marceline. He looked at the note. His hard eyes had an expression as if he were surrounded by a group of lunatics. His voice reflected it. "He's dead of a corrosive poison. He must have swallowed it right in front of you."

"Perfectly correct." The medical examiner's voice was as precise as an icicle. "Absolutely typical reaction the white tongue, the serrated mucous membrane. The throat shows the same bleaching, all the way to the head of the pharynx. It's oxalic acid, the quickest-acting of the common poisons."

Corrigan's eyes shot to the group. "The quickest-acting! You hear that?" His glance swung back to the doctor. "Could it be used for murder?"

"Impossible." The doctor pursed his lips flatly. "Not unless one of them fed it to him a moment before he fell dead. He's a feeble old man. The reaction was instantaneous."

Marceline burst in. It sounded for a moment as if her hysteria were about to recur. "But we saw him! We saw him! He didn't take anything! He didn't!"

"Yes!" De Saules' hawklike head jabbed out. "Two, three, four of us saw it! Are you telling us we're all mad?"

Corrigan's eyes looked jarred in their hard depths. This weight of testimony was beginning to tell on him. His glance shot to the doctor.

"Could he have held it in his mouth?"

The doctor gave an incredulous thin snort. "My dear man, this is a corrosive acid. It serrates the mucous membrane. The first touch of it would erode his tongue."

"But this is impossible! Impossible!" Corrigan's eyes battered everyone in savage bewilderment. "Do you realize this is not a poison like a.r.s.enic that's tasteless, that you can take an hour or so before it acts this is a corrosive, it acts instantly! He couldn't have held it in his mouth! He couldn't! Yet you say he didn't take anything! How did he get it?"

"The only possibility is a capsule," said the doctor's thin, piercing voice. He was primly polishing a pair of half-moon gla.s.ses. "Suppose an absurdity even on the face of it that in some manner a capsule had been lodged in his mouth. With the swelling of the tongue, the membranes, the capsule would still be there. There is no capsule. I have examined his mouth and throat thoroughly."

There was entire silence. Captain Corrigan sat down on the table, a slow, jarring movement. The manifest impossibility of what was before them locked them all in a kind of mental blankness. A man had been killed, before the eyes of four witnesses, in a perfectly obvious way he had swallowed a corrosive poison yet the thing was as impossible as that a railroad tie could be put into the mouth of a milk bottle.

Into the silence a man stumbled, executing an unsteady semicircle through the library door like the reel of a dervish. A dressing gown made a disheveled scarlet circle around him. He came up at sight of the corpse, grabbing hold of a chair and staring down with haggard, puffy eyes.

"Who's this?" snapped Corrigan.

Marceline spoke rapidly. "He's a guest. His name's Lonnie Wyatt. He's been asleep all afternoon."