"I think not," said Keane, voice soft but bleak. He looked at a night table, heaped with jewelry, handkerchiefs, wallets, small change. "That collection?" "The personal effects of these people," said Gest, wiping sweat from his pale face. Keane went to the pile, and sorted it over. He was struck at once by a curious lack. He couldn't place it for an instant; then he did. "Their watches!" he said. "Where are they?" "Watches?" said Gest. "I don't know. Hadn't thought of it." "There are ten people here," said Keane. "And only one watch! Normally at least eight of them would have had them, including the women with their jeweled trinkets. But there's only one.... Do you remember who owned this, and where he wore it?" He picked up the watch, a man's with no chain. "That's Weems' watch. He had it in his trousers pocket." "Odd place for it," said Keane. "I see it has stopped." He wound the watch. But the little second hand did not move, and he could only turn the winding-stem a little, proving that it had not run down. The hands said eleven thirty-one. "That was the time Weems was--paralyzed?" said Keane. Gest nodded. "Funny. His watch stopped just when he did!" "Very funny," said Keane expressionlessly. "Send this to a jeweler right away and have him find out what's wrong with it. Now, you say your assistant manager was struck dead just as he said something about the roulette wheel?" "Yes," said Gest. "It was as though this Doctor Satan were right there with us and killed him with a soundless bullet just before he could talk." Keane's eyes glittered. "I'd like to look over the roulette room." "The police are here," said Grays, turning from his phone. Keane stared at Gest. "Keep them out of the roulette room for a few minutes." He strode out to the elevators.... * * * * * His first concern, after locking himself into the room where nine people had been stricken with something which, if it persisted, was worse than any death, was the thing the assistant manager had mentioned before death hit him. The roulette wheel. He bent over this, with a frown of concentration on his face. And his quick eyes caught at once a thing another person might have overlooked for quite a while. The wheel was dish-shaped, as all roulette wheels are. In its rounded bottom were numbered slots, where the little ivory ball was to end its journey and proclaim gambler's luck. But the little ball was not in one of the bottom slots! The tiny ivory sphere was half up the rounded side of the wheel, like a pea clinging alone high up on the slant of a dish! An exclamation came from Keane's lips. He stared at the ball. What in heaven's name kept it from rolling down the steep slant and into the rounded bottom? Why would a sphere stay on a slant? It was as if a bowl of water had been tilted--and the water's surface had taken and retained the tilt of the vessel it was in instead of remaining level!