“You would turn an old woman from her home?”

“You can go live with Miss Burton. I’ll bet she’s loaded; you wouldn’t cultivate her for her gracious personality. And you probably have plenty stashed away. You’ve been milking this place of its salable antiques for years.”

She stood there looking at me with the Medusa stare that had paralyzed so many luckless victims. It didn’t affect me. She had no power, except over weak minds like Irma’s and Miss Burton’s.

“The police will be here any minute,” I said.

She left.

The local constabulary of Rothenburg, accustomed to drunken brawls and traffic jams, were out of their depth at the Schloss. The case was closed. There was nothing for them to do but gather up the wounded. However, they were understandably confounded by the train of events. Finally one of them settled the matter.

“Mad,” he said, tapping his forehead. “The man was mad, no doubt.”

Everyone agreed. Then, at long last, they led me to my room, and with a groan of voluptuous satisfaction I fell full length on the bed, dirty and half naked as I was, and let my poor old eyes close.

It was late the following afternoon when we all assembled in my room for the denouement. I had slept till noon. Then I washed. That took quite a while. I spent the rest of the time at the hospital with Schmidt, who was coming along nicely. We had a fascinating talk. I was giddy with the implications when I joined the others.

Tony and Blankenhagen were still acting like wounded heroes. I thought Tony had overdone the bandages just a bit, but the effect was impressive.

Irma looked beautiful. She hadn’t dug through forty feet of dirt or fallen down a shaft or crawled through a couple of miles of brambles. She had simply rested peacefully for a few hours. She was safe, rich, beautiful, and surrounded by men who had risked all for her sake—at least that was how she thought of it. No wonder she looked gorgeous. She could even afford to be nice to me. She made me a pretty little speech thanking me for my help.

I looked at my bare arms, which were covered with a network of scratches, and squinted at the tip of my nose, which had a scab on it, and I said dispiritedly, “Oh, no problem. I had a talk with your aunt last night. I was dignified, but convincing.”

“You should not have let her escape,” said Blankenhagen critically.

“It would be hard to prove her guilty of anything except poisoning Irma’s mind. That kind of crime is hard to describe in a court of law.”

“It was a nightmare.” Irma shivered prettily. “To think that the soul of that dead woman could seize my body…”

All of us looked at that astounding portrait.

“Damn it,” Tony muttered. “The resemblance is uncanny.”