1It was so sudden and so unexpected that it took every one's breath away. They remained stupidly staring at the crumpled figure on the ground.

2Then Dr. Armstrong jumped up and went over to him, kneeling beside him.

3When he raised his head his eyes were bewildered.

4He said in a low awestruck whisper: "My God! he's dead!"

5They didn't take it in. Not at once.

6Dead? Dead? That young Norse God in the prime of his health and strength.

7Struck down all in a moment. Healthy young men didn't die like that, choking over a whiskey and soda...

8No, they couldn't take it in.

9Dr. Armstrong was peering into the dead man's face. He sniffed at the blue twisted lips. Then he picked up the glass from which Anthony Marston had been drinking.

10General Macarthur said: "Dead: D'you mean the fellow just choked and and died?"

11The physician said: "You can call it choking if you like. He died of asphyxiation right enough."

12He was sniffing now at the glass. He dipped a finger into the dregs and very cautiously just touched the finger with the tip of his tongue.

13His expression altered.

14General Macarthur said: "Never knew a man could die like that just of a choking fit!"

15Emily Brent said in a clear voice: "In the midst of life we are in death."

16Dr. Armstrong stood up. He said brusquely: "No, a man doesn't die of a mere choking fit. Marston's death wasn't what we call a natural death."

17Vera said almost in a whisper: "Was there something in the whiskey?"

18Armstrong nodded. "Yes. Can't say exactly. Everything points to one of the cyanides. No distinctive smell of Prussic Acid, probably Potassium Cyanide. It acts pretty well instantaneously."

19The judge said sharply: "It was in his glass?" "Yes."

20The doctor strode to the table where the drinks were. He removed the stopper from the whiskey and smelt and tasted it. Then he tasted the soda water. He shook his head. "They're both all right."

21Lombard said: "You mean he must have put the stuff in his glass himself!"

22Armstrong nodded with a curiously dissatisfied expression. He said: "Seems like it."

23Blore said: "Suicide, eh? That's a queer go."

24Vera said slowly: "You'd never think that he would kill himself. He was so alive. He was oh enjoying himself! When he came down the hill in his car this evening he looked he looked oh, I can't explain!"

25But they knew what she meant. Anthony Marston, in the height of his youth and manhood, had seemed like a being who was immortal. And now, crumpled and broken, he lay on the floor.

26Dr. Armstrong said: "Is there any possibility other than suicide?"

27Slowly every one shook his head. There could be no other explanation. The drinks themselves were untampered with. They had all seen Anthony Marston go across and help himself. It followed therefore that any Cyanide in the drink must have been put there by Anthony Marston himself.

28And yet why should Anthony Marston commit suicide?

29Blore said thoughtfully: "You know, doctor, it doesn't seem right to me. I shouldn't have said Mr. Marston was a suicidal type of gentleman."

30Armstrong answered: "I agree."

31II

32They had left it like that. What else was there to say?

33Together Armstrong and Lombard had carried the inert body of Anthony

34Marston to his bedroom and had laid him there covered over with a sheet.

35When they came downstairs again, the others were standing in a group, shivering a little, though the night was not cold.

36Emily Brent said: "We'd better go to bed. It's late."

37It was past twelve o'clock. The suggestion was a wise one yet every one hesitated. It was as though they clung to each other's company for reassurance.

38The judge said: "Yes, we must get some sleep."

39Rogers said: "I haven't cleared yet in the diningroom."

40Lombard said curtly: "Do it in the morning."

41Armstrong said to him: "Is your wife all right?" "I'll go and see, sir."

42He returned a minute or two later. "Sleeping beautiful, she is." "Good," said the doctor. "Don't disturb her." "No, sir. I'll just put things straight in the diningroom and make sure everything' locked up right, and then I'll turn in."

43He went across the hall into the diningroom.

44The others went upstairs, a slow unwilling procession.

45If this had been an old house, with creaking wood, and dark shadows, and heavily panelled walls, there might have been an eerie feeling. But this house was the essence of modernity. There were no dark corners no possible sliding panels it was flooded with electric light everything was new and bright and shining. There was nothing hidden in this house, nothing concealed. It had no atmosphere about it.

46Somehow, that was the most frightening thing of all...

47They exchanged goodnights on the upper landing. Each of them went into his or her own room, and each of them automatically, almost without conscious thought, locked the door...

48Ill

49In his pleasant softly tinted room, Mr. Justice Wargrave removed his garments and prepared himself for bed.

50He was thinking about Edward Seton.

51He remembered Seton very well. His fair hair, his blue eyes, his habit of looking you straight in the face with a pleasant air of straightforwardness. That was what had made so good an impression on the jury.

52Llewellyn, for the Crown, had bungled it a bit. He had been overvehement, had tried to prove too much.

53Matthews, on the other hand, for the Defence, had been good. His points had told. His crossexaminations had been deadly. His handling of his client in the witness box had been masterly.

54And Seton had come through the ordeal of crossexamination well. He had not got excited or overvehement. The jury had been impressed. It had seemed to

55Matthews, perhaps, as though everything had been over bar the shouting.

56The judge wound up his watch carefully and placed it by the bed.

57He remembered exactly how he had felt sitting there listening, making notes, appreciating everything, tabulating every scrap of evidence that told against the prisoner.

58He'd enjoyed that case! Matthews' final speech had been firstclass. Llewellyn, coming after it, had failed to remove the good impression that the defending counsel had made.

59And then had come his own summing up...

60Carefully, Mr. Justice Wargrave removed his false teeth and dropped them into a glass of water. The shrunken lips fell in. It was a cruel mouth now, cruel and predatory.

61Hooding his eyes, the judge smiled to himself.

62He'd cooked Seton's goose all right!

63With a slightly rheumatic grunt, he climbed into bed and turned out the electric light.

64IV

65Downstairs in the diningroom, Rogers stood puzzled.

66He was staring at the china figures in the centre of the table.

67He muttered to himself: "That's a rum go! I could have sworn there were ten of them."

68V

69General Macarthur tossed from side to side.

70Sleep would not come to him.

71In the darkness he kept seeing Arthur Richmond's face.

72He'd liked Arthur he'd been damned fond of Arthur. He'd been pleased that

73Leslie liked him too.

74Leslie was so capricious. Lots of good fellows that Leslie would turn up her nose at and pronounce dull. "Dull!" Just like that.

75But she hadn't found Arthur Richmond dull. They'd got on well together from the beginning. They'd talked of plays and music and pictures together. She'd teased him, made fun of him, ragged him. And he, Macarthur, had been delighted at the thought that Leslie took quite a motherly interest in the boy.

76Motherly indeed! Damn fool not to remember that Richmond was twentyeight to

77Leslie's twentynine.

78He'd loved Leslie. He could see her now. Her heartshaped face, and her dancing deep grey eyes, and the brown curling mass of her hair. He'd loved Leslie and he'd believed in her absolutely.

79Out there in France, in the middle of all the hell of it, he'd sat thinking of her, taken her picture out of the breast pocket of his tunic.

80And then he'd found out!

81It had come about exactly in the way things happened in books. The letter in the wrong envelope. She'd been writing to them both and she'd put her letter to

82Richmond in the envelope addressed to her husband. Even now, all these years later, he could feel the shock of it the pain...

83God, it had hurt!

84And the business had been going on some time. The letter made that clear.

85Weekends! Richmond's last leave...

86Leslie Leslie and Arthur!

87God damn the fellow! Damn his smiling face, his brisk "Yes, sir." Liar and hypocrite! Stealer of another man's wife!

88It had gathered slowly that cold murderous rage.

89He'd managed to carry on as usual to show nothing. He'd tried to make his manner to Richmond just the same.

90Had he succeeded? He thought so. Richmond hadn't suspected. Inequalities of temper were easily accounted for out there, where men's nerves were continually snapping under the strain.

91Only young Armitage had looked at him curiously once or twice. Quite a young chap, but he'd had perceptions, that boy.

92Armitage, perhaps, had guessed when the time came.

93He'd sent Richmond deliberately to death. Only a miracle could have brought him through unhurt. That miracle didn't happen. Yes, he'd sent Richmond to his death and he wasn't sorry. It had been easy enough. Mistakes were being made all the time, officers being sent to death needlessly. All was confusion, panic.

94People might say afterwards, "Old Macarthur lost his nerve a bit, made some colossal blunders, sacrificed some of his best men." They couldn't say more.

95But young Armitage was different. He'd looked at his commanding officer very oddly. He'd known, perhaps, that Richmond was being deliberately sent to death. (And after the War was over had Armitage talked?)

96Leslie hadn't known. Leslie had wept for her lover (he supposed) but her weeping was over by the time he'd come back to England. He'd never told her that he'd found her out. They'd gone on together only, somehow, she hadn't seemed very real any more. And then, three or four years later, she'd got double pneumonia and died.

97That had been a long time ago. Fifteen years sixteen years?

98And he'd left the Army and come to live in Devon bought the sort of little place he'd always meant to have. Nice neighbours pleasant part of the world. There was a bit of shooting and fishing. He'd gone to church on Sundays. (But not the day that the lesson was read about David putting Uriah in the forefront of the battle. Somehow he couldn't face that. Gave him an uncomfortable feeling.)

99Everybody had been very friendly. At first, that is. Later, he'd had an uneasy feeling that people were talking about him behind his back. They eyed him differently, somehow. As though they'd heard something some lying rumour... (Armitage? Supposing Armitage had talked?)

100He'd avoided people after that withdrawn into himself. Unpleasant to feel that people were discussing you.

101And all so long ago. So so purposeless now. Leslie had faded into the distance and Arthur Richmond, too. Nothing of what had happened seemed to matter any more.

102It made life lonely, though. He'd taken to shunning his old Army friends. (If Armitage had talked, they'd know about it.)

103And now this evening a hidden voice had blared out that old hidden story.

104Had he dealt with it all right? Kept a stiff upper lip? Betrayed the right amount of feeling indignation, disgust but no guilt, no discomfiture? Difficult to tell.

105Surely nobody could have taken the accusation seriously. There had been a pack of other nonsense, just as farfetched. That charming girl the voice had accused her of drowning a child! Idiotic! Some madman throwing crazy accusations about!

106Emily Brent, too actually a niece of old Tom Brent of the Regiment. It had accused her of murder! Any one could see with half an eye that the woman was as pious as could be the kind that was hand and glove with parsons.

107Damned curious business the whole thing! Crazy, nothing less.

108Ever since they had got there when was that? Why, damn it, it was only this afternoon! Seemed a good bit longer than that.

109He thought: "I wonder when we shall get away again."

110Tomorrow, of course, when the motor boat came from the mainland.

111Funny, just this minute he didn't want much to get away from the island... To go back to the mainland, back to his little house, back to all the troubles and worries. Through the open window he could hear the waves breaking on the rocks a little louder now than earlier in the evening. Wind was getting up, too.

112He thought: "Peaceful sound. Peaceful place..."

113He thought: "Best of an island is once you get there you can't go any further... you've come to the end of things..."

114He knew, suddenly, that he didn't want to leave the island.

115VI

116Vera Claythorne lay in bed, wide awake, staring up at the ceiling.

117The light beside her was on. She was frightened of the dark.

118She was thinking: "Hugo... Hugo... Why do I feel you're so near to me tonight?... Somewhere quite close... "Where is he really? I don't know. I never shall know. He just went away right away out of my life!"

119It was no good trying not to think of Hugo. He was close to her. She had to think of him to remember...

120Cornwall...

121The black rocks, the smooth yellow sand. Mrs. Hamilton, stout, goodhumoured.

122Cyril, whining a little always, pulling at her hand. "I want to swim out to the rock. Miss Claythorne. Why can't I swim out to the rock?"

123Looking up meeting Hugo's eyes watching her.

124The evenings after Cyril was in bed... "Come out for a stroll, Miss Claythorne." "I think perhaps I will."

125The decorous stroll down to the beach. The moonlight the soft Atlantic air.

126And then, Hugo's arm round her. "I love you, I love you. You know I love you, Vera?"

127Yes, she knew. (Or thought she knew.) "I can't ask you to marry me. I've not got a penny. Its all I can do to keep myself.

128Queer, you know, once, for three months I had the chance of being a rich man to look forward to. Cyril wasn't born until three months after Maurice died. If he'd been a girl..."

129If the child has been a girl, Hugo would have come into everything. He'd been disappointed, he admitted. "I hadn't built on it, of course. But it was a bit of a knock. Oh, well, luck's luck!

130Cyril's a nice kid. I'm awfully fond of him. "

131And he was fond of him, too. Always ready to play games or amuse his small nephew. No rancour in Hugo's nature.

132Cyril wasn't really strong. A puny child no stamina. The kind of child, perhaps, who wouldn't live to grow up...

133And then ? "Miss Claythorne, why can't I swim to the rock?"

134Irritating whiney repetition. "It s too far, Cyril." "But, Miss Claythorne..."

135Vera got up. She went to the dressingtable and swallowed three aspirins.

136She thought: "I wish I had some proper sleeping stuff."

137She thought: "If I were doing away with myself I'd take an overdose of veronal something like that not cyanide!"

138She shuddered as she remembered Anthony Marston's convulsed purple face.

139As she passed the mantelpiece, she looked up at the framed doggerel.

140Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;

141One choked his little self and then there were nine.

142She thought to herself: "It's horrible just like us this evening..."

143Why had Anthony Marston wanted to die?

144She didn't want to die.

145She couldn't imagine wanting to die...

146Death was for the other people...