It was nearly midnight when Dr. Bousquet at last took his departure. An hour before that time Esther became conscious, but was so utterly weak he would not allow her to speak or make the smallest effort of any kind. She made no comment on finding herself back in her old quarters, and after a short interval drifted back into a natural sleep. The watchers felt a degree of relief.

"I think I may safely leave her now, monsieur," said the doctor, drawing on his gloves. "I will come again in the morning about ten o'clock, and if any complication should arise in the meantime, you will of course telephone me. She is suffering now from shock, it seems, combined with the after-effects of morphia. Later when she is less exhausted she may be intensely nervous. One must see that she is kept absolutely quiet, with nothing to agitate her. A fresh shock might do great harm."

Roger glanced at the grey-white face on the pillow. It was thin and drawn; it was hard to understand how it could have altered so much in these few days' time. What had happened to her to give her that pinched look? The shadows under the closed eyes were deep violet.

"Tell me, doctor," he whispered. "Have you been able to come to any conclusion on the subject of her mental condition?"

He brought out the last words with a painful hesitation.

"I am not an alienist, at least not an expert," replied the little man cautiously, elevating the reddish tufts of his brows. "Of course I have a general knowledge. During the short interval when she was conscious she did not appear to be other than normal, but that, I fear, is not conclusive evidence. One would have to study her. If, as Dr. Sartorius suggests, she may be suffering from confusional attacks, she would part of the time be so completely sane that one would suspect nothing wrong. Subjects of that kind often live a sort of double life. They are apt to invent romantic or mysterious histories about themselves, intrigues in which they figure, often as a persecuted victim. They make these tales so extremely convincing that they frequently succeed in imposing their belief on other people."

"You mean there would be nothing about her to make one know she was not normal mentally?"

"Quite so, unless one happened to possess proof that her stories were untrue."

Roger's heart sank. Horrible as it was to contemplate the thought of the crime committed in their midst, it was to him infinitely worse to think of Esther as mentally unbalanced.

"Have you noticed anything yourself which you would regard as a suspicious symptom, doctor?" he inquired with difficulty.

"Only her violent antipathy to Dr. Sartorius. I should consider that rather a bad sign. It is the sort of thing these subjects are prone to, monsieur," and the little man shook his head disparagingly.

Roger risked one more question, dreading the answer.

"How can we find out about her? You say she will have to be studied?"

"Very probably, monsieur. There are certain tests. I should suggest that if the young woman is someone in whom you are particularly interested"—he gave a tactful cough which Roger understood well—"the best thing you can do is to place her for a few weeks in a quiet sanatorium. There is one near Grasse; either Dr. Sartorius or I could arrange it, for you."

"I see, doctor. Well, we will think about it."

He watched the little man depart, grimly resolved never to let Esther be placed in a sanatorium, no matter what happened. Sartorius himself had mentioned the quiet place near Grasse. That fact alone was enough to decide him against it. He was alone now with Esther. A few minutes before he had persuaded his aunt to go to her room and try to sleep. She had demurred at first, but he had firmly led her to her door.

"I'll go if you insist," she gave in at last. "But you're so far from well yourself, it will be a great strain on you to sit up all night."

"Nonsense; this business has made me forget all about myself. If you insist on sharing watches, I will call you early in the morning."

She nodded reluctantly, then looked at him with a troubled brow.

"Roger, where in heaven's name do you suppose that poor girl has been these past two days?"

He shook his head slowly.

"If we knew that, Dido, we'd have the key to the whole damned mystery," he said.

Sinking down wearily in the chair beside the bed he painstakingly attempted to organise a plan of action. It was a difficult business when he had so little he could definitely go on. His efforts brought meagre results; moreover he felt confused, curiously fatigued in mind and body. In the dim light of the shaded lamp the figures on the Toile de Jouy danced incessantly before his eyes with an eerie effect; he felt himself enveloped in a phantasmagoria of which it was impossible to tell substance from shadow. Every few seconds his eyes kept gravitating back to the pale, fragile face of Esther, which was troubled even in sleep, the brow furrowed slightly, the muscles about the mouth twitching from time to time. Whatever the cause of her present state, he felt gravely apprehensive for her, afraid that she might be in for a serious nervous illness. Perhaps what she wished to tell him might be buried in oblivion for months, if indeed it ever came to light. It even occurred to him that she might wake up completely ignorant of everything that had preceded her collapse. In that case what should he do? how should he behave? He knew he could never rid his mind entirely of the suspicion she had planted there, yet how to prove it?

The door opened quietly, and Chalmers came in, bringing him a cup of coffee.

"The doctor's gone to his room, now, sir, otherwise I wouldn't be here.
I've stuck about the hall and stairs the whole time, sir."

"What about her ladyship?"

"She's never tried to leave her room, sir. I've heard her trying to get on to someone on the telephone, it seems as though she's been at it for hours, but I fancy she hasn't got through."

"Has she had any chance of speaking with the doctor?"

"She has not, sir, at least not without my knowing, and I daresay she didn't want to risk that. Aline, though—that's a woman I never could stick, sir, I don't mind telling you!—Aline has been prowling around the end of the hall near your room a couple of times. I caught her at it, and she pretended to be looking out of the window."

"You think she was trying to get into my room?" Roger asked thoughtfully.

"I'm pretty sure of it, sir."

Roger drank his coffee in silence, mentally reviewing this information.

"There is another little thing I've noticed, sir," Chalmers continued. "There are a number of keys gone from doors about the house. I've counted seven missing, and I could take my oath they were in the locks earlier in the evening. There's never any reason for taking them out."

"Then you think Aline has taken them to see if any of them will open my door?"

"That's it, sir. I could have told her there's no two keys alike in this house," he added grimly. "She came to me very friendly like at about ten o'clock, and tried to pump me to find out what I knew. Had the nurse come to, and was she able to talk yet? Was it true she had staggered in so drunk she couldn't see proper, and had fallen in a heap on the floor? Things like that, sir. Not much change she got out of me. I shut her up in no time, sir. I knew what she was after."

Hours passed. Roger sat on alone in the half-lighted room, analysing his impressions and going over in his mind the whole course of his father's illness, from the moment he had entered the house. To save his life he could not think of one suspicious circumstance, nothing that appeared even particularly unusual. Yet, no! What about that cablegram which was never sent? With a start he recalled it, wondering how it could have slipped his memory till now. What if ThÉrÈse had had another and more vital reason than he had thought of for keeping him away? Was it possible she had been afraid to have him in the house? It was a fact that he alone knew her relations with Holliday, he alone had always to an annoying extent seen through her. He recalled with a feeling akin to nausea her recent attempts to placate him, to turn him from an enemy into an ally. Had she done that in order to blind him the more completely to what was going on? The idea suggested a degree of calculating inhumanity appalling to contemplate. He lived over again the moment when she had clung to him caressingly and pressed her perfumed cheek against his breast…. How could he have been such an utter fool? He set his teeth with a feeling of intolerable disgust….

A smothered scream from the bed caused him to start up.

Esther had suddenly sat up in bed, bolt-upright, her eyes glazed with terror, one thin hand clapped over her open mouth.

"Esther, my dear! What is it?"

She continued to gaze transfixed in the direction of the door, unutterable horror written on her face.

"S'sh," she whispered tensely. "S'sh—listen!"

Roger listened, but could hear nothing. The house was absolutely still. Very gently he took her hand and held it firmly in his. It trembled like a bird imprisoned.

"Darling—there's nothing to be frightened of. What did you think you heard?"

She swallowed twice, then spoke, her voice still strangely hoarse.

"It was the doctor. He was outside there, in the passage. I know he was there."

"Nonsense, there's no one about, or if there is, it's only Chalmers."

"Listen, though!"

Roger obeyed again, and for several seconds they both held their breath, straining their ears. At last from outside there came the very faint creak of a footstep, as though someone who had been standing still was now moving away. Roger made a movement to jump up, but in a panic she pulled him back.

"No, no, don't leave me!"

"Certainly not, if you don't want me to. But you're quite safe now; you have nothing to be afraid of."

She leaned closer to him, trembling.

"No," the hoarse voice whispered, "that's not true. I'm not safe as long as I'm in the same house with him. He is afraid of me. He wants to keep me from talking. He will do anything to keep me quiet, anything. He's only waiting for his chance."

A violent tremor seized her so that her teeth chattered. With his arm about her Roger forced her gently to lie down, noting with growing alarm the fixed glitter of her eyes and the moisture standing in beads upon her forehead, above which her bronze hair ruffled in damp curls. All at once it had become appallingly easy to believe that she was suffering from the delusion of persecution, that her brain, somehow disordered, had fabricated a whole history of terror. Sick at heart he yet recalled the doctor's counsel against allowing her to excite herself.

"Esther, dear," he said soothingly. "You must keep quite quiet and trust to me. Remember your nerves are bound to be upset after all that morphia you have had. You know that."

He stopped, afraid that he had said the wrong thing, but she only frowned thoughtfully as though considering his words.

"Morphia," she repeated to herself. "Yes, I suppose that is what it was. No wonder I feel queer…. And then of course I haven't had anything to eat for two days and a half—that makes it worse."

"Two days and a half!"

He stared at her aghast. This last speech of hers sounded amazingly rational. He burned to question her, yet dared not attempt it.

"The doctor said you were to have something if you waked up," he said quietly, as though there were nothing out of the way. "There's something here ready in a little saucepan. I've only got to heat it up. Shall I give it to you?"

She nodded and lay motionless, watching with languid eyes the blue flame of the spirit-lamp as he made ready a cup of broth, then submitted with the docility of a child while he put another pillow under her head and fed her the hot liquid, a spoonful at a time, slowly, for fear of making her sick. When she had finished she sank back with closed eyes, and he thought a faint tinge of warmer colour crept into her cheeks. For what seemed to him a long period there was complete silence. He gazed at her with searching eyes, tortured by doubts and questionings. When he had begun to think she had again fallen asleep, she quietly spoke.

"That was good," she murmured; "I needed that…. It's a long time to go without food, you get so weak."

He could bear the suspense no longer. So cautiously he said:

"My dear, how was it you didn't have anything to eat for two and a half days? What do you mean?"

She looked at him for a long puzzled moment, then drew her hand across her brow.

"Of course," she answered slowly, "you don't know about that. No. How could you?"

He hoped she was going to continue, but instead she raised herself on her elbow and whispered, "Tell me this. What have you done about him?"

"You mean the doctor? Nothing. He's in his room now, asleep, I suppose. It's about three o'clock, you know."

She drew in her breath sharply, her pupils dilating.

"Do you mean you haven't arrested him—after what I told you? Then he was outside that door! I knew it!"

He caught her hands in a reassuring grasp.

"No, no, my dear, you mustn't be frightened. Don't you understand it's impossible to arrest the man—without a reason?"

She gave him a piercing look.

"But I told you! Didn't you hear what I said? He's a murderer! He murdered your father, and he was going to kill you too, if I hadn't found out and got here in time! Oh, aren't people stupid! I thought I'd made it all clear!"

She tore her hands from his hold and covered her face for an instant, crying, "Oh, oh! Why couldn't you have him arrested at once, both of them for that matter? I can't understand! Why didn't you?"

There was no evading the sharpness of her question. He dropped his eyes in embarrassment, unable to reply.

"Oh!" she burst out as though the truth had suddenly dawned on her, "now I know, I see it all! You thought I didn't know what I was saying. You thought I was raving. The doctor made you believe it. He would; he's always prepared for any emergency, even though he never dreamed I should get away!"

"Get away? What do you mean by that, Esther?"

Instead of replying, she lifted his right hand and examined it with feverish interest.

"Are you absolutely sure he didn't touch this place in any way? You didn't let him put anything on it?"

"No, no—nothing at all."

She sank back, exhausted.

"Thank God! I began to be afraid I didn't save you after all," she breathed, and laughed a little hysterically. "Oh, Roger, I shall dream for years of that terrible time I had trying to reach you! I honestly thought I should die on the way."

"Esther," he said, forcing himself to speak calmly, "where were you during those two days and nights? What do you mean by a terrible time trying to reach me?"

Her face contracted with a spasm of pain, as though the memory were unbearable. He pressed her hand, quick to spare her, and afraid, too, that he might do her an injury.

"It doesn't in the least matter; don't tell me now."

She lay silent another moment, then answered slowly:

"No … I will tell you. It won't hurt me now. You see, I have been kept a prisoner … unconscious … in the doctor's laboratory, you know, at the top of his house … in the Route de Grasse."

"A prisoner——!"

For the life of him he could not repress the utter incredulity he felt at this astounding statement.

"I don't think you believe me," she said, smiling the ghost of a smile. "I know it sounds impossible, but it's true. He never meant for me to leave there alive. He was going to do away with me so as to leave no trace."

Suddenly he knew that she was speaking the truth.

"Esther—do you know what you're saying?"

Cold horror gripped him. It seemed unthinkable that this tender young creature so close to him had lately passed through the hell she described. In a daze he listened to the dry, hoarse voice as it continued:

"Oh, I know all right. He kept me stupefied. I never knew how I got there; I didn't even know I was there … it was only through an accident that I came to at all, otherwise… Such a silly accident! All because Captain Holliday didn't give me the injection properly."

"Holliday?"

He wondered if he had heard aright. She did not answer, going off, at first softly, then with increasing vehemence into convulsions of laughter that shook her from head to foot. He clasped her close in his arms and held her to him, smoothing her rough curls and whispering:

"Steady on, Esther dear! It's all over now. You're safe with me; I sha'n't let anything happen to you!"

She subsided at last, the tears spilling over her lashes and down her cheeks unheeded. He wiped them away, realising how spent she was with the effort of relating, even so briefly, her terrible experience.

"Rest now, darling. You must keep absolutely quiet. I don't want to hear any more now, except… Esther, I wonder if I dare ask you one thing. Don't speak if you don't feel like it. But … you realise we can't make a definite charge of any kind until we know what we're about. You understand that, I know. Tell me, dear, are there any proofs of this horrible story? I mean proofs of the plot you spoke of to murder my father, and also of your being sequestered in the laboratory."

He saw her eyes narrow with thought. She lay very still, as though to focus all her strength to give him a connected answer.

"I understand, of course, there must be more than my word, for he'll do his utmost to discredit me. Listen: If the police or someone will go to the Route de Grasse before the doctor can get there, they'll find a good deal of evidence. Of course he'll get there as soon as he can—I'm surprised he hasn't gone already—and he'll do his best to cover up the signs. He can't mend that skylight in a hurry, though," she added thoughtfully.

"Esther, how does Holliday come into this? Was he in the plot?"

"No, not at all—not actively, that is. He was dragged into it at the last simply to stand guard over me and see I didn't get away. Even he had to see that it was absolutely necessary to dispose of me," she finished coolly. "It would have ruined everything if they hadn't."

"Good God…"

"Now about the proofs. I believe Lady Clifford has been giving you typhoid culture in your mineral water. I heard the doctor say so. I don't know that we can prove that, or that she gave it to your father in his milk, either; that's all done with. But there's one thing we can prove. There's a little chemist named Cailler—I can tell you where the shop is—who has an analysis of a hypodermic needle the doctor used on your father. It was what caused that sudden relapse. The needle had pure toxin of typhoid in it. I know, because I took it to the chemist myself."

"You did?"

"Certainly. It was too late to save your poor father—nothing could have saved him—but I was afraid they were trying to get you as well, and I had to be sure before I dared say anything. I didn't get the report till after the funeral, when I heard it over the telephone. Then I sent you that message by Chalmers."

"I see! Then what happened? I was only three minutes getting downstairs, but you were nowhere to be seen."

"Of course, that was because the doctor was waiting behind the door to grab me. He stuck that awful needle of his in my arm, and after that I can't tell you anything. I didn't know any more until two days later, when I found myself lying on a bed in the laboratory."

A slight fit of trembling overtook her again. He took her two limp hands in his and kissed them, moved by a new and overpowering emotion. With startling vividness he realised the whole stupendous thing, what she had done, what she had risked and suffered. Even that stupid incident of what the servant-girl had told about seeing her with Holliday in his car became clear as day. Of course—and he had suspected her of a flirtation!

"Esther, my own Esther—you splendid, marvellous girl! To think that I never knew, that you might have died, and I should never have known what became of you! Do you know what I was thinking? I spent two days searching for you in every hotel and pension in Cannes…"

"I know," she said softly, her eyes suddenly misty.

"I can't take it in yet, Esther; it's too overwhelming."

He buried his head in the covers beside her. She put her hand upon his hair and caressed it with a clinging touch that sent a thrill through him. Like this they remained for long minutes, and the communion was to him the sweetest he had ever known. Strange that this complete ecstasy should come to him at the very moment when he was shocked to the depths of his being by the disclosure of the vile crime perpetrated in their midst.

After a little while Esther drifted off to sleep once more, leaving him to face again the problem of those two murderers, as he now knew them to be, still at large and still under the roof with him. What was to be done? Would they make any attempt to escape, or would they brazen it out till the last? He had a strong suspicion that they would both adopt this latter course. He foresaw a long and difficult trail, a defence skilfully engineered by Sartorius, whose reputation would stand him in good stead. In his imagination he pictured a French jury swayed by the beauty and emotional appeal of ThÉrÈse. Why, they might easily win; it was perfectly possible. He had an Englishman's contempt for French jurisdiction. As for the doctor, he felt sure that that man would employ every diabolical means in his power to discredit Esther's statement, to blacken her character; he would impute false motives to her or make a convincing case against her sanity, perhaps both. The very notion made him boil with rage. The cold-blooded infamy of the plot to do away with his father was as nothing compared with the wanton brutality of the attempt on Esther's life. To think of this fresh and lovely body, so near to him now that he could feel the throbbing of her heart, dismembered, defiled in the work of annihilation, filled him with unspeakable horror. He had to take a firm grip on himself to keep from forcing his way into the neighbouring room and wreaking personal vengeance on the author of so bestial an outrage. The man's stolid calm, which had appeared a proof of innocence, now made him seem a monster of insensibility. Sartorius was not human; he was the python of Esther's dream, slow-blooded, impersonal, relentless….

The clock struck four. Some time after this he must have lost consciousness, for gradually his waking thoughts blurred imperceptibly into unreal, his head resting heavily on the bed beside the sleeping girl. He was roused by a touch on his shoulder and a voice saying tensely in his ear:

"Mr. Roger! Mr. Roger, sir!"

Dizzily he raised his head, blinking in the grey daylight that filled the room. Then he struggled to his feet, stiff and cramped.

"Yes, Chalmers, what is it?"

"Her ladyship, sir—she's not in her room. She's not in the house.
She's gone, sir!"