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

“Sacha never took drugs during her husband’s lifetime!” he exclaimed in positive tones. “It is certainly only since.”

He broke off. A slight flush had come to his pale cheeks.

“Yes?”

“Since she became engaged to Barrington Bryan that this terrible habit has been concentrated.”

“How long ago was that?”

The young man shook his head. “I don’t quite know.”

“Bryan is a local squire, isn’t he?”

“Yes. His place, Redden Hall, is the next one to this.”

Dr. Hailey raised his eyeglass and set it carefully in his eye.

“Have you any reason to think — to fear — that Mrs. Malone’s engagement to this man has been forced on her?” he asked in quiet tones.

“None. How could it be forced on her?”

Dick’s face was innocent of any expression except that of surprise.

“I mean that — that some threat has been used to make her give her consent. When a woman is tormented by her feelings, she is very apt to resort to anodynes.”

“I am sure that is not the explanation.”

Dr. Hailey allowed his eyeglass to drop.

“There was no gossip, was there,” he asked, “about the rather strange manner of her husband’s death? No evilly disposed tongue suggested—”

He broke off. Dick’s cheeks had become ashen in their pallor.

Chapter XXV A Black Streak

Dr. Hailey waited a moment until Dick had so far recovered himself as to be able to answer him. Then he repeated his question. The young man fumbled in the pocket of his dressing gown and produced a cigarette case. He opened it with trembling hands and took out a cigarette. He tapped the cigarette on the side of the case.

“There was no gossip of any kind,” he said, in low tones. “Orme Malone was a drunken ruffian. Nobody was surprised that he should have been thrown from his horse.”

“I was not referring to the manner of his death, so much as to the place where it occurred. Dr. Andrews told me about it yesterday.”

Dick struck a match. He extinguished it with his own breath, while he was trying to light his cigarette. He struck another and waited to allow it to burn up. The flame zigzagged.

“The field where his body was found lies in a direct line between here and Beech Croft,” he declared. “He was coming here without a shadow of doubt. He always took that short cut through the fields.”

He lit his cigarette.

“Is there nothing which can be done,” he demanded abruptly, “to save Sacha from this vampire?”

“Nothing. Unless you take the extreme step of calling in the police. Even then, I doubt if you would accomplish your end. I am nearly certain that it was not cocaine, but Indian hemp, the famous hashish, which Ninon Darelli administered to Lord Templewood last night.”

Dick closed his eyes for an instant. Then he glanced at the cigarette which had burst between his fingers. He threw it into the grate.

“What are the effects of hashish?” he asked, in low tones.

“Illusions. A doctor friend of mine who took some small doses once, as an experiment, saw a race course, with grand stand and bookmakers complete, in the middle of Harley Street. That, however, is not the earliest effect. Most people, at first, experience a wonderful sense of well-being.

“The illusions and hallucinations come later, sometimes when the supply of the drug is suddenly cut off. Then, even the senses of time and distance may be completely lost.

“Big doses, such as Lord Templewood received, bring on convulsions, and lead to insanity. Or they may drive their victim to criminal acts, even to murder. The Malays, who run amuck and kill are all hashish fiends.”

Dick went away. He climbed the stairs to his bedroom with quick steps. A new fear and a new excitement were in his eyes. He dressed, and then hurried to Sacha’s room. He knocked sharply.

“May I come in?”

Sacha was fully dressed; she gave him her hand, in the manner of the old days, and then resumed the brushing of her hair. She brushed in long, steady sweeps which made the surface hair rise up like a golden mist about her brows and temples. She smiled into the looking glass, and so back at Dick.

He blurted out the question which he had come to ask. The brush fell with a thud from Sacha’s hand.

“It is not true,” she declared. “I am marrying Barrington because I wish to marry him. For that reason only.”

She picked up the brush again, and leaned forward closer to the mirror, so as to command a better view of his face. He was frowning.

“Barrington Bryan is quite capable of—”

He stopped.

Sacha brushed her hair again. She knew that in a moment he would compel her to look into his face. She turned to him.

“Why should you doubt me?” she asked.

“Because—” He clasped his brow. “Oh my God! why not, why not?” She felt his hands on her shoulders, gripping them with swift violence. “Say you love Barrington Bryan?”

“I love Barrington Bryan.”

“I do not love you.”

With a quick gesture, he pulled back the sleeve of her dress, exposing the tiny red punctures of Ninon’s hypodermic needle.

“Love,” he commented, “does not fly to drugs.”