, and he's
asking for you," he said, too low for the others to hear.

I found the chemist conscious, all right, but sick--and scared. His
face winced, under all the bandages, as I opened the door. Then he saw
who it was, and relaxed. "Paul--what happened to me? The last I
remember is going up to see that second batch of plants poisoned.
But--well, this is something I must have got later...."

I told him, as best I could. "But don't you remember anything?"

"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.

IV

I don't know how many were shocked at Hal's death, or how many looked
around and counted one less pair of lungs. He'd never been one of the
men I'd envied the air he used, though, and I think most felt the
same. For awhile, we didn't even notice that the air was even thicker.

Phil Riggs broke the silence following our inspection of Lomax's
cabin. "That damned Bullard! I'll get him, I'll get him as sure as he
got Hal!"

There was a rustle among the others, and a suddenly crystallized hate
on their faces. But Muller's hoarse shout cut through the babble that
began, and rose over even the anguished shrieking of the cook. "Shut
up, the lot of you! Bullard couldn't have committed the other crimes.
Any one of you is a better suspect. Stop snivelling, Bullard, this
isn't a lynching mob, and it isn't going to be one!"

"What about Grundy?" Walt Harris yelled