"They won't bother you until daylight, I suppose," said Doctor Bushnell, little thinking that already a madly speeding taxi was bearing Wiggly Price toward Greenacres. "They'll descend upon you in droves with morning, and they're a persistent lot, those chaps." The two men in the den again lapsed into silence; Gilmore's muscles twitched spasmodically. It looked as if he were about to crack under the strain. "I think I will give you an opiate of some sort and then get you in bed," the physician said gently. "You've about gone your limit, I'm afraid." "That reminds me of something," Gilmore told him. "My stepmother fainted; I promised to send you to her when you came. And as for my going to bed--my room is next to Helen's. You couldn't expect me to spend the rest of the night there. But I will let you give me something, doctor; I feel as if my body were about to separate into atoms. Yes, give me something that will let me forget--for just a few hours." Doctor Bushnell reached for a compact pocket medicine case and selected a vial containing some small white pellets. "The constable ought to be here any moment now," he said. "Not that I expect Ham Griggs is going to be of very much help to us; catching speeders is about the limit of his abilities. But he had to be notified, and in the morning we'll notify the district attorney's office. We may get an intelligent investigation from that source. Ah, that must be Griggs now." There had reached his ears the sound of the constable's approaching motor cycle. "I'll have Bates let him in and keep him waiting downstairs until I have a look at Mrs. Gilmore. One of these pellets, Kirklan, and you'll be falling asleep in no time." The doctor left the den and went upstairs, after pausing in the hall to instruct Bates that Ham Griggs should wait; passing the tragedy chamber, he tested the door and found it, as he had left it, locked. Then he made his way around the hall toward the room which, from previous professional calls, he knew to be the elder Mrs. Gilmore's. Kirklan had neglected to tell him that she had been taken to Joan's part of the house. Ahead a gleam of light sliced out into the hall from a half-open door, the room occupied by Sarbella. The doctor's footsteps were audible, and the guest of Greenacres appeared at the opening. "You were looking for me?" he inquired. Doctor Bushnell paused, wondering if Sarbella had left the door open in an effort to keep in touch with what was going on; a guilty man, it was reasonable to presume, would be nervously anxious to know the progress of the investigation, to be forewarned of any suspicion turning in his direction. "No, Mr. Sarbella, I am on my way to Mrs. Gilmore's room. Kirklan has just told me that she fainted some time since." "Oh, but you're in the wrong part of the house, doctor; Gilmore and I took his stepmother to Miss Sheridan's room." He paused for a moment, and then added: "It has been a terrible night for all of us."