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

“If you don’t mind waiting for a moment,” she said, “I’ll run upstairs and take my things off.”

He glanced round the pretty room, with its rosewood furniture and quiet decoration. Sacha, he knew, had rented it after her husband’s death. It suggested, somehow, bereavement without mourning. He walked to the window and looked out, across the deep well of the area, on the darkening street.

The mourning, nevertheless, had come of its own accord. And the cup of mourning was not yet full. He watched a taxicab crawling along the curb, its lamps gleaming like eyes in the twilight. If only he could read the riddle of Ninon Darelli’s relations to Lord Templewood.

He turned. Sacha had reentered the room. He saw that, already, she had succeeded in obliterating the scar on her forehead.

“Isn’t it funny,” she said, “the mark had nearly all gone. I had no idea a bruise could heal up so quickly.”

Dr. Hailey took the seat which she offered him. He waited till she also had seated herself. Then he leaned toward her.

“That scar,” he said, in low tones, “was not in fact the result of injury. It came while you were dreaming.”

He paused. Sacha raised her hand swiftly to her brow, shutting off, by that action, his view of the injured place. She uttered an exclamation of surprise in which, however, he detected the note of fear.

“My dear Mrs. Malone, when we have suffered any very dreadful experience involving actual injury to the body, and when, later on, that experience is recalled in circumstances of bodily weakness or of bodily poisoning, the injured place sometimes reacts once again.

“That is the explanation of a large number of so-called nervous diseases. And that, too, I think, is the explanation of the weal which appeared on your forehead, though I admit that you may have drawn your finger across the place while you were dreaming.”

His tones were very kind and very earnest. But they exercised on the girl the effect of a sharp rebuke. She paled and then flushed.

“It certainly does not apply in my case,” she exclaimed. “I have never suffered any injury to my forehead.”

She turned her head to the door and then glanced at the clock. He saw her lips curve in a hard smile.

“Then I am at a loss to explain the cause of your scar. Unless, indeed, it be the effect of the drug which you are taking.” He lowered his voice. “As a doctor,” he urged, “it is my duty to warn you that in taking those injections of hashish, you are incurring a terrible danger.”

“I am not afraid.”

“Not now. Because you are still under the influence of the drug.”

Sacha rose.

“I do hope,” she exclaimed, “that you won’t think me rude, but if I am to get to Beech Croft in time for the ball—”

Dr. Hailey rose also. There was a determined light in his eyes.

“Mlle. Darelli,” he said, measuring his words as he spoke, “told me this afternoon that two nights ago, at The Black Tower, you attempted to put an end to your life. I should like you to tell me why.”

“It is not true.”

Sacha’s right hand moved in small jerks across her breast. The points of her fingers were pressed into the flesh.

“She gave me a very circumstantial account of it. She said she found you in bed with the gas turned on.”

“It is a wicked falsehood!” The girl’s eyes sought in vain some resting point on the wall opposite her. Dr. Hailey resumed his seat.

“Undoubtedly,” he declared, “the statement, if untrue, is wicked. On the other hand, that is not the only piece of evidence suggesting that, during the last days, some great, some overwhelming sorrow has come to you.”

He raised his hand because she seemed to be about to protest again.

“There is, for example, your sudden resort to crystal gazing. There is your resort to drugs. And there are your own terrible words uttered at the moment when the weal was developing on your brow.”

Sacha stumbled. She sat down and rested one of her elbows on the polished surface of the table. The doctor noticed that that surface was not encumbered by so much as a speck of dust. Daffodils in an exquisite Venetian glass added to the effect of the spotless luster.

“If you are trying to insinuate anything,” she declared, in low tones, “I think it would be better to be open and above board about it.”

Her eyes were steady. They glowed as they watched him. She might be afraid; but it was certainly not for herself that she feared. He decided to take her at her word.

“During your hypnotic sleep,” he said, “you acted a part — a part which my knowledge of hypnosis leads me to think, to believe, you must have acted on a former occasion in real life. You called on your late husband, by name, to show you mercy. Then you called on Mr. Lovelace not to kill your husband. After that, you described your husband’s death.”

Dr. Hailey broke off. He moved forward in his chair.

And then, suddenly, he sat back again. Sacha began to laugh.

Her laughter rang, clear and hard, in the emptiness of the house.