The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants

'Well, you know… if you eat too much pork you'll get like a pig, and I suppose you'll get pretty fishy if you eat nothing but fish… In fact, if you concentrate on one food, I think pretty soon you'll look exactly like it.'

There was a thud. Everybody looked up.

'It's all right,' Collier said with a curious expression, 'I just dropped my spoon, that's all. If I could have another one—'

'I always like vegetables,' Bond interrupted quickly, 'so what does that make me?'

'Well, Mr Bond,' said Barbara, 'nobody could call you exactly vital…'

'Here's a spoon, Mr Collier,' Emily said. 'Have all the rest of you finished? — What, don't want any more either, Mr Collier? In that case, we may as well all go into the lounge.'

The lawyer was the last to leave the dining-room, and he found Terence waiting for him in the hall.

'You know, I think there's something wrong about that fellow,' Brooke confided. 'I have a feeling he may be an imposter.'

'But what about his appearance? And the letter, if he has it.'

'As for the letter—' Brooke lowered his voice. 'Suppose if when we went upstairs, he got it from somewhere Stanley had hidden it?'

'Hardly. Besides,' Bond pointed out, 'surely that proves his claim must be genuine, or he wouldn't have known where to find the letter.'

They entered the lounge. Bond decided to get the night's business over at once.

'Mr Collier,' he asked, 'do you have any proof of your identity?'

'Why, yes. I believe this is what you want.' And the lawyer took from the pale fat hand an envelope which, he found, contained the appropriate document.

'Yes, this seems right enough,' he admitted. 'Well, then, I'd better get the reading over with.'

Collier showed no emotion when Bond reached the relevant passage:

'To my closest friend, William Collier: the property at 19 King Edward's Way, the furnishings thereof, and any others of my possessions remaining after payment of death duties, &c.'

'But — is that all?' Emily asked, seemingly incredulous.

'Yes,' replied Bond rather coldly, 'I'm afraid it is.'

'You were his closest friend?' Emily said to Collier. 'Surely you're shocked that he was so mean — I realise it's natural to see your friends are provided for, but we were his family, and we did quite a bit for him too…'

'Oh, please don't try to be subtle,' Collier advised her. 'I know what you're after, and I can tell you now that I wouldn't dream of splashing my money about.'

'Why, you worm—' began Emily. Collier recoiled and collided with the sideboard, overturning a vase.

'My God,' Bond said tonelessly.

'What's wrong, Mr Bond?' asked Pamela.

'It doesn't matter now — nothing… I don't think you need me here any more tonight — I'd better be off… But could I just speak to you a minute, Mr Collier? Alone?'

Collier followed him into the hall, and the lawyer remarked:

'I'm afraid they don't feel very friendly towards you at the moment. I'm driving into the town centre, so if you'd like a lift somewhere to let them simmer down… Yes?' He called into the lounge: 'Mr Collier's leaving with me — he'll be back in a couple of hours.'

They drove away into the night. Collier dozed in the back seat but woke when the car began to slow down.

'But surely we're not in Brichester now! Haven't you come the wrong way?'

'Oh, no,' Bond said, stopping the car at the edge of a quarry. 'I assure you this is the right way.'

Two weeks later, Terence Brooke arrived at the lawyer's house in Almshouse Gardens, and found the owner at work in the greenhouse.

'Why, hello,' Bond greeted him. 'Any word about Collier yet?'

'No, none,' said Brooke. 'Nobody seems to know what to do about it.'

'Well, as I told the police at the time,' Bond went on, 'I took him to my office and told him how generally hated he'd be if he did you all out of your legacies, and he left, and that was the last I saw of him.'

'Somehow,' Brooke mused, 'I have the feeling he won't be back… But anyway, I didn't really come here about that-what-?'

'Bloody worms,' said Bond, driving his spade down again and again while something pale writhed. 'I can't stand the things… Oh, sorry. Go on.'

'I was going to say that my car's broken down just at the end of the road,' continued Brooke, looking away from the still descending spade, 'and I was wondering if you had a spanner I could borrow.'

'Well, I've got a heavy one in the back of the car,' began the lawyer, '…oh — oh, no, I'm afraid I lost it some time ago.'

'Never mind,' Brooke said, 'I'll have it towed to the nearest garage. But you ought to get yourself a new spanner, you know.'

'Oh, it doesn't really matter,' Bond assured him, wrenching his spade at last out of the ground. 'I never use it except in an emergency.'

The Moon-Lens

Sitting in his office in Mercy Hill hospital, Dr James Linwood read the headline again:

PROMINENT BRICHESTER SURGEON TO ADVOCATE EUTHANASIA AT CONVENTION

…Prominent, eh? And on the front page too! But it was the Brichester Weekly News, of course, and anything local had automatic preference.

He glanced at his watch and saw that it showed five past midnight. Out of habit, he changed his desk calendar from April 2 to April 3, 1961. He leaned back in his desk and considered: should he go home to bed or stay to work on his convention speech? He decided on the latter, and switched on the tape-recorder.

At that moment there came a tap on the door — someone else working late, no doubt. He called out 'Good night,' but the shadow on the frosted glass panel did not move. Dr Linwood stood up and opened the door.

A man he had never seen before was standing outside. The doctor felt somehow instinctively repelled; whether by the man's dirty, ridiculously baggy trousers and long raincoat, or by a faint reptilian odour which he caught, he could not say. The other did not speak — and the silence began to unnerve Dr Linwood.

'Visiting time's over, I'm afraid,' he finally said.

'I'm not a visitor,' said the other in an abnormally deep and slow voice.

'Well, if you're a patient, you want the other side of the building.'

'No, I don't,' contradicted the visitor. 'I want to see you, Dr Linwood — you are the Dr Linwood? The one who's in favour of mercy killing?'

'That's correct,' confirmed the doctor, 'but at this time of night—'

'I want you to kill me,' the other said.

The doctor regarded him carefully, and decided he was not joking. 'I'm sorry — I advocate it, I don't carry it out — not yet, anyway. And I must say that you don't look like a euthanasia case.'

'But surely — if you thought somebody really needed it, you might… do it privately so nobody would know? I'd do it myself, but the thought of pain… I thought maybe an overdose of chloroform—'

'I'm sorry,' repeated the doctor more coldly, 'it's impossible at the moment, and anyway I do not intend it to make suicide legal.'

'But I need it,' insisted the man. 'I have a condition which makes living completely unbearable.'

'Maybe if I examined you—' suggested Dr Linwood.

The visitor shrank away from the doctor's hand. 'You mustn't see — it'd be too much… But perhaps I could convince you. If I can just tell you what's happened to me—'

'I don't really have the time—' protested the doctor, but the other had already pushed into the office and sat down before the desk. Well, perhaps he could use this in his speech to stress his aversion to legalised suicide. He