Seeing is Believing

loosened and uncurled from the trigger. The revolver dropped with a crash and clatter on the hardwood floor.

She could not do it.

Dr. Richard Rich, expelling his breath slowly, closed up his eyes with relief. It was a second or two before he could smile again.

Though he remained impassive, Arthur Fane could not help the flicker of a complacent smirk which crossed his face. He tried to look cool and unconcerned, yet the other expression intruded, welling up from deep in vanity.

'Ah!' smiled Rich. 'You refuse to use the revolver, then. But perhaps it isn't suited to you. Perhaps you can force yourself to use a dagger. A dagger is a woman's weapon. There is a dagger on the table. Get it.'

Rather unsteadily, Vicky moved towards the table.

'Good. Pick it up. Grasp the handle firmly. Now return here, and.. stop.'

He shaded his eyes with his hand.

'Your hate for the man in front of you is increased. The weapon you hold is just as deadly as the revolver. There is his heart. Strike.'

Without hesitation Vicky lifted her arm and struck like a snake.

Grandly, like a satisfied showman, Dr. Richard Rich turned round on his heel to look at Sharpless and Ann Browning. He was smiling. His hand was extended, palm upwards, like one who says, 'Well?'

But he did not say it.

Behind him, the door to the hall opened. Hubert Fane, effulgent and self-satisfied, opened the door; and then stopped short. Rich saw the expression on his face as Hubert stared from behind Sharpless and Ann Browning, beyond them to Arthur.

And Rich himself whirled round.

Arthur Fane coughed only once. A black handle, which looked like rubber but could not have been rubber, was protruding from Arthur's white shirt just over the cross Rich had drawn there. But the shirt was no longer white. A moving stain, dull red, widened and deepened round the handle as its edges soaked through the thin fabric.

Arthur, his elbows dug into the arms of the chair, tried to push himself forward. His knees shook. His lips drew back, writhing, for what must have been a second of intense agony. Then he pitched forward on his face.

Five

Nobody moved. It may be accounted as doubtful whether anybody could have moved. Such a sight as this had first of all to be understood.

The seconds ticked by: ten, twenty, thirty. Arthur Fane lay partly on his side and partly on his face, also without moving. The light of the lamp was reflected in patches from the polished hardwood floor.

Presently, Dr. Rich went down on one knee beside Arthur. He rolled Arthur over on his back. First he felt for a pulse at the wrist; then he took his watch out of his pocket, and held it so that the crystal almost touched Arthur's lips. No breath clouded the glass. After consulting the watch as to the time, Rich replaced it in his pocket.

'Incredible as it seems, this man is dead.'

'Dead?' echoed Sharpless.

'Dead. Stabbed through the heart.'

'Oh, no,' said Hubert Fane. 'No, no, no, no, no!'

Uncle Hubert's tone, at the moment, was merely one of frightened skepticism. His manner indicated that the world couldn't play him a dirty trick like this.

'No, really, now!' he said, as though determined to stop such nonsense at once. 'This is too much. I must really protest. Get up, my dear boy! Get up and—'

'He won't hear you,' said Rich, as Hubert began to chafe at one of Arthur's wrists. 'I tell you he's dead.'

Then Rich reached out and touched the black handle projecting from Arthur's chest. He pressed it between his fingers.

'And I'll tell you something else,' he added, his color going up.

'That's not the dagger I brought to this house.'

'I shouldn't touch it, if I were you,' warned Sharpless. 'The police always kick up a row if you mess about with the evidence. At least, they do in the stories. Don't touch it!'

'But why not?' asked Ann Browning. 'After all— we know who stabbed him, don't we?'

For the first time they felt the full shock.

Vicky Fane was standing quietly a few feet away from the man she had killed. Her hands hung down at her sides. She was not looking at him, or at anything else. The sight of that witless creature, with intellect removed and eyes as dead as blue china, where formerly there had been a vital, laughing, attractive girl, was almost too much for Frank Sharpless. The grimy marks of tears still streaked her cheeks, though she showed no emotion now.

'Dr. Rich,' said Sharpless, 'the celebrated Dr. Frankenstein had nothing on you.'

Rich put his hands to his forehead.

'Don't wake her up!' snapped Sharpless, misinterpreting the gesture. 'For God's sake don't wake her up!'

'I wasn't going to wake her up, young man.'

'Can she hear us?'

'No.'

'But even if you don't wake her up' — Sharpless swallowed hard—'can't you do something?'

'Yes. One moment.' Rich turned to Vicky. His voice was slow and heavy. 'Victoria Fane, go over to the sofa. Put a pillow under your head. Lie down.'

With instant obedience Vicky went to the sofa. She shuddered violently as she touched it, and Rich was after her in an instant. He put his fingers lightly on her temples; the shuddering died away, and she lay down.

'Now sleep,' murmured Rich, in the voice that could influence them all. 'You are yourself again, Victoria Fane. But sleep. You will not awaken until I tell you to. When you wake up, you will have forgotten everything that happened here. Now sleep. Sleep.. '

Sharpless hurried to her side. And in a moment or two he breathed something like a strangled prayer.

It was like watching a blurred image come into focus, or cold clay warmed again with humanity. Something (mind? heart? soul?) seemed to flow into her, altering even the lines of the face. Vicky Fane lay where the dummy had lain, the smudged marks of the tears incongruous on her cheeks.

Her color was back, the faint tan of health, the familiar curve of the lips. Her breathing was slow and easy, and she smiled in sleep.

'Thank.. God. If anybody ever does that to her again—'

Rich looked round.

'Captain Sharpless, has Mrs. Fane any unpleasant mental association with this sofa?' 'I'll swear I don't know.'

'Mr. Hubert Fane, has she any unpleasant mental association with this sofa?'

'My dear doctor, you must not ask me.' For all his elegance and poise, Hubert's complexion was muddy gray under the gray-white hair. 'I can scarcely imagine that an inanimate piece of furniture could so affect anybody. Does — does the girl know what has happened?'

'No,' snapped Rich. 'Do you?'

'I'm beginning to think I do,' said Sharpless.

'Yes. And I,' agreed Rich. 'Somebody switched the daggers. Look here.'

Again he knelt beside Arthur's body. With some difficulty, and despite an instinctive protest from everyone, he pulled the weapon out of the wound. Since the heart had stopped pumping, only a little blood followed it.

It was a knife made of very light, very thin steel, with a blade perhaps four inches long. When Rich cleaned it on a handkerchief, they saw that the blade had been painted over a dirty silver-gray. A covering of soft black rubber had been gummed round and over what was presumably a very thin handle.

Moved a little away from the light, it looked very much like the rubber dagger they had seen.