The tangents and the bypaths were beginning to increase. Lieutenant Valcour tabulated them as he went thoughtfully down the stairs and along the corridor toward Endicott’s room: Mrs. Endicott herself, and the Spartan Mrs. Siddons⁠—both had been partially explored; Roberts, with her astonishing glance that had hinted so definitely at revelations. Then what of Marge Myles? And what of the unknown man with whom Mrs. Endicott, that afternoon, had taken tea? He opened the door to Endicott’s room and went in.

Preparations for the operation were practically complete. Dr. Worth and the medical examiner were beside the bed, and hovering near them were two trained nurses in uniform⁠—middle-aged, competent women, starched and abstract looking, moving a bit aloofly in their private world which was so concisely separated from the sphere of laymen.

Cassidy, who seemed bleaker than ever, still stiffly occupied the chair near the doorway. He continued to inspect with an almost feverish interest an unsullied expanse of white ceiling above his head.

Lieutenant Valcour seated himself on the corner of a long mahogany chest that was placed before the window farthest from the bed and gravely watched Dr. Worth. He began to feel a little sickish and hoped that he wasn’t going to make an ass of himself and faint. He had witnessed any number of accidents and stabbings, but had never been present at an operation, and it worked on his nerves. Even if Endicott weren’t dead, he certainly looked it. Suspended animation and catalepsy were all right as figures of speech, but the human illustration was rather ghastly. Lieutenant Valcour felt justified in believing that he knew his corpses. He wondered why Dr. Worth was delaying⁠—hesitating⁠—no, bending over now, and in his hand, ready to give the injection of adrenaline into the cardiac muscles, was⁠ ⁠…

The response was immediate.

With the aid of the stethoscope Dr. Worth heard Endicott’s heart throbbing again, growing steadily stronger. Quite noticeably beneath the bright white lights a faint flush started to run through Endicott’s skin. Lieutenant Valcour saw it, and he moistened with his tongue the dry pressed surface of his lips.

Dr. Worth straightened up and handed the stethoscope to the medical examiner. “Endicott lives,” he said.

No one had noticed Mrs. Endicott standing in the doorway. No one had even noticed that the door was open. It was her terrific scream, her dropping to the floor, that shocked everyone into instant awareness of her presence. Dr. Worth nodded to one of the nurses. With her aid he lifted Mrs. Endicott and carried her from the room. Everyone else remained quite literally spellbound, still chained within the influence of that extraordinary scream. It didn’t seem more than a second or two before Dr. Worth returned. He went directly to Lieutenant Valcour.

“I have given Mrs. Endicott a narcotic that will keep her quiet for the night,” he said. “It was outrageous⁠—her being here. That guard at the door should have seen to it that it was kept closed.”

“Most outrageous, Dr. Worth. I believe all of us were hypnotized by watching you.”

“And I don’t care what the law is, she can’t be questioned or disturbed in any way at all until I say so.”

“But that is the law, Doctor. You are quite within your rights to dictate concerning your patient.”

“I don’t want to dictate. I’m just as willing as anybody to have the criminal side of this mess cleared up, if there is a criminal side.”

“Endicott would hardly have crawled into a cupboard to have a stroke, would he, Doctor?”

“No.” Dr. Worth’s intelligent eyes stared speculatively at Lieutenant Valcour for a minute. “Not unless he’d hidden in there to overhear something, and did overhear something that gave him a stroke,” he said.

The cesspool, Lieutenant Valcour decided, was beginning to show strange depths within its depth. The medical examiner came over and joined them. He complimented Dr. Worth briefly on the success of his operation, assured Lieutenant Valcour that the homicide chief would be given a full report of Endicott’s recovery, and presumed that from now on the case would be left in Lieutenant Valcour’s hands. Lieutenant Valcour would deal with whatever charges of robbery or assault might develop from it. He said goodbye and left the room, with the fullest intention of going right straight home to bed; and so he promptly did, as soon as he had made the promised report to Andrews.

Dr. Worth pointedly raised his eyebrows. “Then there will be charges, Lieutenant?”

“That will depend largely upon Endicott, Doctor. As he is now revived he will tell us himself who attacked him, or the nature of the circumstance that gave him the shock.”

“I trust so.”

“There isn’t any doubt, is there?”

Dr. Worth grew expansive. “Certainly there is a doubt,” he said. “While it is true that Endicott has been revived, it is impossible to state definitely that he will recover consciousness. And even granting that he should recover consciousness, there is also a chance that he might prefer not to make any statement at all. What would you do then, Lieutenant?”

“Fold my tents, Doctor, and fade away.”

Dr. Worth looked down a long straight nose for a minute at tips of low patent-leather shoes. “And if Endicott does not recover consciousness,” he said softly, “what will you do then?”

“You’ll be surprised at the number of things I will do then.”

Dr. Worth’s eyes, surfeited with patent leather, snapped up sharply. “I must impress on you that Mrs. Endicott is not to be disturbed,” he said.

“She won’t be, Doctor.”

“Nurse Vickers, who helped me into her room with her, is going to stay with Mrs. Endicott all night. Two day nurses will come in the morning: one for her, if necessary, and surely one for Endicott. I need scarcely impress upon you the seriousness of his condition.” Dr. Worth made a gesture of irritated bewilderment. “I wish I knew him more intimately⁠—who his friends are, I mean.”

“He never talked with you about them?”

“Never. He seems an unusually reticent man, with an almost abnormally developed feeling for privacy concerning his intimate affairs.” Dr. Worth’s manner grew definitely severe. Mentally, he wagged a finger under Lieutenant Valcour’s nose. “He mustn’t have any further shock. There must be nothing, absolutely nothing that will shock him when, and if, he regains consciousness.” He directed his attention momentarily to the nurse. “Get those shades back on the lamps, please, Miss Murrow, and turn out the ceiling lights. And now, Lieutenant, to continue about Endicott. As she is under the influence of the narcotic I gave her, it is out of the question that his wife be here. I wish she could be. I want the first person he sees to be someone he knows⁠—loves. His mind, you see, will pick up functioning at the precise second where it left off⁠—at least, such is my conclusion.”

“And that was one of shock.”

“Yes, Lieutenant, evidently one of shock or of great fear. We cannot overestimate the importance of getting him past it safely. Personally, I shall sleep here in the house tonight, and Nurse Murrow will call me if Endicott shows any signs of coming to. That may not be before morning. I hope so, in a way, as the effect of the narcotic will have worn off by then, and Mrs. Endicott can be in here with him.”

“One of the servants might know of some friend,” Lieutenant Valcour suggested. “I take it you would like a friend to sit here with him during the night?”

Dr. Worth was emphatic. “It is almost a necessity that there should be. The mental and nervous viewpoints, you see, predominate in the case.”

“There is just one thing that I would like to arrange, too, Doctor.”

“Yes?”

“I want to keep a couple of men posted all night in the bathroom. They can sit on chairs just inside the doorway there, where they can watch the bed, but where Endicott can’t see them. He need never know they are there.”

“What on earth would be the need for that?”

“Why, it’s quite simple, Doctor. When Endicott comes to he will be in a position to tell us who gave him the shock⁠—a shock sufficient almost to kill him⁠—one which would have killed him if we hadn’t found him tonight⁠—and if,” he added thoughtfully, “Mrs. Endicott hadn’t had her suspicions.”

“But why the men in the bathroom?”

“Because I don’t want to take any chances of there being a repetition before Endicott makes his statement.”

Dr. Worth pursed his lips and looked very wise indeed. “I see,” he said. “I see. You are afraid that the same person might get at him again and, well, silence him before he could talk.”

“Something like that, Doctor.” Lieutenant Valcour became courteously formal. “As the physician in charge of this case, sir, have you any objection to my stationing the two men in the bathroom?”

“Providing Endicott isn’t able to see them and won’t be disturbed by them in any way at all.”

“Then that’s settled. You’ll have a nurse in here all the time, I suppose?”

“Naturally.”

“Then I’m going to ask her to keep this hall door locked on the inside. She can open it if anyone knocks, and my men will keep their eyes on whoever comes in.”

“The precautions seem extraordinary, Lieutenant.”

“And so does the case. I’ll go downstairs now and try to find out something from the servants about his friends. I’ll tell them, if you like, about your staying here, in case there is anything that has to be got ready.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Not at all, Doctor.”

Lieutenant Valcour went outside. He found the maid Jane in the hallway, seated on a chair near the stairs, trembling. A tray with an empty glass was on the floor beside her. She saw him, picked up the tray, and stood up.

“I’m that upset, sir,” she said, “that upset.”

“Something has startled you?”

“Startled! Glory be, sir⁠—what with this bringing back of the dead and the missus gone into a coma⁠—if it wasn’t for them three cops at the downstairs doors I’d be out of this house this minute, and so would the rest of us, too.”

“How many of the ‘rest of you’ are there?”

“Sure and including the housekeeper there’s eight of us, sir.”

The Endicotts, Lieutenant Valcour was now quite certain, must be multimillionaires.

“All women?”

“Except for the houseman and chauffeur.”

“And do they sleep in the house?”

“The chauffeur does not, sir. He has an apartment for himself and his wife and his three-year-old child, named Katie, over the garage in East Sixty-sixth Street, sir.”

“Have all of you been in service here a long time?”

“Indeed and we haven’t, sir⁠—except for Roberts and the housekeeper. I’ve been here a month myself, and the rest of us not more than two or three.”

“And Roberts has been Mrs. Endicott’s maid for the past several years, say?”

“And sure and ever since she landed here from England, sir.”

“Roberts is an Englishwoman?”

“Hold your whisht, sir, and I’ll tell you that she’s of the aristocracy, no less.”

Lieutenant Valcour considered this gravely. It was not improbable. Many English families were utterly wrecked financially by the war, and the children had scattered whither they could, like sparrows, in search of bread. “You’re sure of this?” he said.

“And indeed it is common knowledge, sir. The housekeeper herself, it was, who told me.”

Lieutenant Valcour switched suddenly. “I wonder whether you could tell me who Mr. Endicott’s intimate friends were,” he said.

“Well, sir, there’s quite a few people have called on the madam off and on, and a few on Mr. Endicott, too. I couldn’t say, though, as to just how intimate.”

“But didn’t he ever discuss his friends?”

“Not before me, sir. I’m one of the downstairs girls. Perhaps Roberts would know. She’s often in the room with the madam and Mr. Endicott even when the pair of them is quarrelling that hard that⁠—Glory be to⁠—”

“Tut, tut,” said Lieutenant Valcour gently. “Married couples are always quarrelling together. There’s nothing unusual in that.”

“Indeed and there ain’t.”

“I wonder whether you’d ask Roberts to come out here and see me.”

“I will, sir.”

“Oh⁠—and will you also tell whoever has to know about it that Dr. Worth plans to stay here all night? And then let him know, please, where he is to sleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jane went to the door of Mrs. Endicott’s room and knocked. Nurse Vickers opened it and stepped halfway out, blocking the entrance. Their voices were too low for Lieutenant Valcour to hear, but he saw the nurse retreat into the room, caught an affirmative nod from Jane, and presently Roberts came out and toward him.

“You wished to see me, Lieutenant?”

There was still that curious shielding in her eyes⁠—a hinting at definite information kept closely guarded behind twin gates.

“I want you to tell me,” he said quietly, “why you compelled me a while ago in Mrs. Endicott’s room to say ‘Later.’ ”

“I don’t believe I quite understand.”

“And I believe that you do.”

Roberts became coolly detached. “One is justified in having one’s beliefs.”

“Just why do you hate Mrs. Endicott so?”

She flinched as if he had struck her physically.

“Is that why you sent for me?” she said.

Lieutenant Valcour himself indulged in a veiling of eyes. “I wish,” he said, “that you would sit down.”