"Not a thing about that. It's the same as Napier told me, and I've
been trying to remember. Paul, you don't think--?"
I put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back gently. "Don't be a
damned fool, Hal. I know you're no killer."
"But somebody is, Paul. Somebody tried to kill me while I was
unconscious!"
He must have seen my reaction. "They did, Paul. I don't know how I
know--maybe I almost came to--but somebody tried to poke a stick
through the door with a knife on it. They want to kill me."
[Illustration]
I tried to calm him down until Napier came and gave him a sedative.
The doctor seemed as sick about Hal's inability to remember as I was,
though he indicated it was normal enough in concussion cases. "So is
the hallucination," he added. "He'll be all right tomorrow."
In that, Napier was wrong. When the doctor looked in on him the next
time, the big chemist lay behind a door that had been pried open, with
a long galley knife through his heart. On the bloody sheet, his finger
had traced something in his own blood.
"_It was_...." But the last "s" was blurred, and there was nothing
more.