Miss Brent was upstairs in her bedroom.

She took up her Bible and went to sit by the window. She opened it. Then, after a minute’s hesitation, she set it aside and went over to the dressing-table. From a drawer in it she took out a small black-covered notebook.

She opened it and began writing. «A terrible thing has happened. General Macarthur is dead. (His cousin married Elsie MacPherson.) There is no doubt but that he was murdered. After luncheon the judge made us a most interesting speech. He is convinced that the murderer is one of us. That means that one of us is possessed by a devil. I had already suspected that. Which of us is it? They are all asking themselves that. I alone know…»

She sat for some time without moving. Her eyes grew vague and filmy. The pencil straggled drunkenly in her fingers. In shaking loose capitals she wrote:

THE MURDERER’S NAME IS BEATRICE TAYLOR…

Her eyes closed.

Suddenly, with a start, she awoke. She looked down at the notebook. With an angry exclamation she scored through the vague unevenly scrawled characters of the last sentence.

She said in a low voice:

«Did I write that? Did I? I must be going mad…»