f Flanders, believing something pretty
definite----

One night I was called to the telephone by the Grimshaws' physician.
I'll tell you his name, because he has a lot to do with the rest of
the story--Doctor Waram, Douglas Waram--an Australian.

"Grimshaw has murdered a man," he said briefly. "I want you to help
me. Come to Cheyne Walk. Take a cab. Hurry."

Of course I went, with a very clear vision of the future of Dagmar,
Lady Cooper, to occupy my thoughts during that lurching drive through
the slippery streets. I knew that she was at Broadenham, holding up
her head in seclusion.

Grimshaw's house was one of a row of red brick buildings not far from
the river. Doctor Waram himself opened the door to me.

"I say, this is an awful mess," he said, in a shocked voice. "The
woman sent for me--Levenson, that actress. There's some mystery. A man
dead--his head knocked in. And Grimshaw sound asleep. It may be
hysterical, but I can't wake him. Have a look before I get the
police."

I followed him into the studio, the famous Pompeian room, on the
second floor. I shall never forget the frozen immobility of the three
actors in the tragedy. Esther Levenson, wrapped in peacock-blue
scarves, stood upright before the black mantel, her hands crossed on
her breast. Cecil Grimshaw was lying full length on a brick-red satin
couch, his head thrown back, his eyes closed. The dead man sprawled on
the floor, face down, between them. Two lamps made of sapphire glass
swung from the gilded ceiling.... Bowls of perfumed, waxen flowers. A
silver statuette of a nude girl. A tessellated floor strewn with rugs.
Orange trees in tubs. Cigarette smoke hanging motionless in the still,
overheated air....

I stooped over the dead man. "Who is he?"

"Tucker. Leading man in 'The Sunken City.' Look at Grimshaw, will you?
We mustn't be too long--"

I went to the poet. The inevitable monocle was still caught and held
by the yellow thatch of his thick brow. He was breathing slowly.

"Grimshaw," I said, touching his forehead, "open your eyes."

He did so, and I was startled by the expression of despair in their
depths. "Ah," he-said, "it's the psychopathologist."

"How did this happen?"

He sat up--I am convinced that he had been faking that drunken
sleep--and stared at the sprawling figure on the floor. "Tucker
quarrelled with me," he said. "I knocked him down and his forehead
struck against the table. Then he crawled over here and died. From