Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

He slipped it into his pocket, and searched carefully around the spot where he had found it. There was nothing else which might afford a clew to the manner in which it had come to this resting place. He turned back to the castle, and ascended to his bedroom.

Dr. Andrews had told him, during his visit the morning before, how Orme Malone had met his death, and had even pointed out the field in which the body of the unfortunate young man was found. The cigarette case had been lying directly between that field and the door of the castle!

Probably it had fallen from the dead man’s pocket when he was being carried to The Black Tower. But no, that was exceedingly unlikely, because a stretcher of some sort must almost certainly have been employed. Dr. Hailey started.

Most men carried their cigarette cases in their waistcoat pockets. Such a position practically insured against loss in all ordinary circumstances. But if the owner of the waistcoat happened to bend down—

Had Orme Malone visited The Black Tower, then, before he met his death? Was this yet another case of a horseman who had come at night to these tragic portals?

He began to pace the floor of the room. Dr. Andrews had said that Lord Temple wood’s mental breakdown really dated from Orme Malone’s death. On the night following Orme’s death, the old man had walked in his sleep and fallen down the stairs from the first gallery to the great hall. He had been severely bruised.

Had that attack of somnambulism originated, like the attack of two nights before, in the fear inspired by a horseman riding after dark to the castle? In that case—

Dr. Hailey leaned his elbows on the mantelpiece and rested his head between his hands. Sacha, he knew, had been staying at The Black Tower at the time of her husband’s death. She had come there a fugitive, seeking sanctuary from his violence and brutality.

According to Dr. Andrews, it was a kind of Providence which had intervened to prevent Orme from reaching her, since the fellow had been drinking heavily for some days, and had actually told his groom that he was going to give his wife a thrashing because of her fancied relations with Dick Lovelace.

He took the cigarette case from his pocket, and examined it again. There could be no doubt that it had lain during long months where he had found it; the tarnish was very heavy, and the contents had been subjected to all kinds of weather conditions.

A look of horror dawned in his eyes. Was it this coming of the dead man to The Black Tower on the night of his death at which Lord Templewood had been hinting when he ordered Sacha to leave the castle and return to Beech Croft, her husband’s home? Was it this dreadful knowledge which had made him so wildly apprehensive about his own safety, and so sure that his niece and Lovelace were plotting his death?

He walked to the window, and looked out with vacant eyes on the smiling day. He turned sharply. Some one had knocked on the door of the room.

“Come in!”

He slipped Orme Malone’s cigarette case back into his pocket.

Dick Lovelace entered the room and closed the door behind him.

Dick was in his dressing gown. His hair was still wet from his morning bath, but his cheeks lacked the glow which the cold water should have imparted to them.

“May I speak to you?”

Dr. Hailey inclined his head. He scrutinized this handsome young man as he advanced across the room with a thrill of swift apprehension. Dick Lovelace did not look the part which inexorable circumstance seemed to be assigning to him, but that, as bitter experience had demonstrated, was no proof of guiltlessness. Dick’s agitation was painful.

“Last night,” he stammered, “I discovered that Ninon Darelli is giving Mrs. Malone injections of drugs.”

His voice shook as he spoke. This revelation, following the awful experience with Lord Templewood, had unnerved him. The doctor’s expression remained rather vacant.

“I couldn’t sleep. I heard footsteps passing my door. I got out and listened. Somehow I knew it was Sacha. She went down to the woman’s bedroom, and I followed her. The door had not been closed; I heard her ask for an injection.” He paused.

His eyes were wide with fear and dismay. He raised his hand to his brow, and Dr. Hailey saw that his fingers were twitching. The horror of his failure to prevent the injection being given was in his face.

“What does it mean?” he asked, in accents of dread.

“I don’t know.” The doctor spoke deliberately, as if he were weighing every word. He came to the mantelpiece and rested one of his arms on it.

“Mrs. Malone,” he asked, “was very unhappy with her husband, was she not? It is just possible that, during his lifetime—”

Dr. Hailey’s face was in the shadow. Dick’s face, on the contrary, was turned toward the window.