Afterward she was to time that absence of hers; to do it with the police holding a stop watch on her. Three minutes, almost to the dot. Time to drive a knife into an old woman’s thin chest, but hardly time to reach the room, commit the crime, and escape. And who could know that she would go upstairs at all? Eileen drowsy or asleep, her door closed and her light out. Susie and Jan far back along the hall, and the two men in the library below.

Yet then or later—

It was half past twelve when Eileen opened her door. She looked panicky.

“I’ve got a pain,” she said. “Do you think any-thing’s wrong?”

“What sort of pain?”

Eileen described it, and Hilda got up.

“The doctor’s still here,” she said. “I’ll get him.”

Eileen, however, was not listening. She was doubled over, holding herself, and Hilda put her back to bed. She lay there, softly moaning, while Hilda went downstairs. The two men were still in the library. Carlton, a highball in his hand, was looking strained, Courtney Brooke was at the telephone. He put it down when she told him about Eileen, and got briskly to his feet.

“I’d better look at her,” he said. “We don’t want her to abort. Not here, anyhow.”

“No. For God’s sake, get her out of the house before that happens. Or before Marian comes back.” Carlton looked alarmed.

Eileen was watching the door as they came in. She was a pathetic figure as she lay there in her worn nightgown, her face contorted with pain.

“I’m sorry to be such a bother,” she said. “I suppose it’s the excitement. And my suitcase is heavy. I carried it to the bus.”

He examined her briefly and straightened.

“You’ll be all right. I’ll give you a hypo,” he said. “Do you mind boiling some water, Miss Adams?”

He followed her out into the hall. Carlton had come up the stairs. He asked briefly about Eileen and then went into his room. Hilda hesitated.

“I don’t usually leave Mrs. Fairbanks alone,” she said. “If I do I lock the door. But if you’ll watch her—”

He grinned at her.

“Old Cerberus will have nothing on me,” he said. “Do you think I want anything to happen to my best patient?”

“Something did happen. Once.”

She left him with that, his bag open on the table, his hands fumbling in it for his hypodermic case and the tube of morphia sulphate. But his lightness had gone. He looked thoughtful, even grave.

Downstairs the house was dark, and the huge dingy kitchen eerie even when she had turned on the lights. It was a quarter to one, she saw by the kitchen clock. She was there for some time. The fire in the range was low, and it was perhaps fifteen minutes before she succeeded in boiling the water in a small aluminum pot and carried it up the stairs.

Courtney Brooke was where she had left him. He had poured himself a cup of coffee from her Thermos jug, and was holding it But he was not drinking it. Some of the coffee had spilled into the saucer, and he was staring up at the landing on the third floor. He said nothing, however. He fixed the hypodermic and gave it to Eileen, still moaning in her bed.