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across it, the counterpane crumpled under him. His arms were flung out on either side, one knee was drawn up, the foot, in a sock through which most of a toe protruded, resting on the edge of the bed. His mouth hung open. Through it he wasdrawing slow, snorting breaths, while his chest rose and fell laboriously.
    “That him?” Mr. Cust asked.
    Margaret nodded.
    “He often like this?”
    “Since his wife left him about three months ago, pretty often.”
    “And before that too,” Mr. Shew said.
    Mr. Cust gave some directions to the sergeant. A quantity of cold water that was pouring uselessly through the house was deflected for the purpose of sobering up the journalist. It took time. Even when he had been roused, Paul Wragge’s brain seemed to be in a cloud. Recently, whenever Margaret had met him, he had seemed to be in a cloud.
    Mr. Cust stood and watched him. When Paul Wragge was sitting up, his head drooping on to his chest, his back a sagging curve, Mr. Cust said, “Been in all day, Mr. Wragge?”
    The third time he asked the question he received an answer of sorts.
    “Been in? Been—in? I don’t know what you’re … Look here, what the hell’s happening?” Paul Wragge’s eyes shifted, wincing, from one face to another. “Where’s all this water coming from? Why don’t you turn it off?”
    “This gentleman says he has turned it off,” Mr. Cust said. “Now, Mr. Wragge, how long have you been in?”
    “You’re the police,” Paul Wragge said.
    “That’s right.”
    “I’ve been in all day.”
    “Had any visitors?”
    “What’s the matter with you? What the hell’s happening? Why are you asking questions? Isn’t a man allowed to get drunk in his own home any more?” Wragge’s hands were kneading at his temples.
    “If you don’t mind,” Mr. Cust said, “there’s something I’d like to show you.”
    He put a hand under Paul Wragge’s elbow.
    He allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He allowed himself, though he walked staggeringly, to be led out on to the landing and up the stairs. He looked where the superintendent’s torch pointed.
    Margaret had been trying to keep her nerves in order to deal with this moment. But in her imaginings nothing had been so shocking as what actually happened.
    Paul Wragge laughed.
    “Whoever would think,” he said in a drawling voice, “that a thing like that could happen to one twice in a life-time?”
    Mr. Cust waited. Paul Wragge merely stood there, staring down.
    Mr. Cust said, “Have you ever seen this man before, Mr. Wragge?”
    There was a slight pause, then the journalist replied, “I’ll tell you something. I’ll tell you something that happened to me years ago. I was a reporter. My first job. I was nineteen. I’d been sent along to the local morgue to get some details about a suicide. The sergeant in charge was awfully bright and breezy, chatted along, told me—”
    “Mr. Wragge, have you ever seen this man before?”
    “—told me all the gory details I wanted. Then suddenly he whipped the cover off one of the corpses. A girl, quite young. She’d got nice, fair hair. And her throat had been cut from ear to ear. He did it just to see me be sick or faint. Nice chap! I didn’t do either.”
    “Have you seen this man before?” Mr. Cust repeated.
    Though water was splashing all over him, Paul Wragge showed no desire to move.
    “No,” he said.
    “Would you swear to that?”
    “My bell!” Mr. Shew cried suddenly. “My door bell—didn’t you hear it? The plumber!” He pelted down into the darkness.
    “My God, what a lot of water!” Paul Wragge muttered. “Yes, I’d swear to it.”
    Mr. Cust said, “I hear your wife left you three months ago.”
    “Yes,” Paul Wragge answered.
    Thickly through his lingers came Mr. Cust’s next question, “What was the name of the man for whom she left you?”
    Paul Wragge’s answer was something very short, very obscene. Margaret turned quickly and went downstairs. She stood in her own