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desire.”
    McDuff had opened his mouth to disclaim anything to do with it, but his professional standing had been called on. It was not what he had been expecting Pitt to say, and he was momentarily off guard.
    “Ah.” He sought to rearrange his thoughts rapidly. “Ah! Now, that’s a very complex matter.” He had been going to say he knew nothing about it either, but he never admitted ignorance outright; after all, his years of experience had given him immense wisdom, knowledge of human behavior in all its comedies and tragedies. “You are quite right; it is an insanity to dig a man’s corpse out of its grave. No question about it.”
    “Do you know of any medical condition that would lead to such a thing?” Pitt inquired with a perfectly sober face. “Perhaps some sort of obsession?”
    “Obsession with the dead?” McDuff turned it over in his mind, casting about for something positive to say. “Necrophilia is the term you are seeking.”
    “Yes,” Pitt agreed. “Perhaps even an obsessive hatred or envy of Lord Augustus himself—after all, the wretched creature has dug him up twice! That hardly seems like coincidence.”
    McDuff’s face stiffened to even harder lines of dislike. It was his own world that was being threatened now, his social circle.
    Pitt saw it and turned it into necessity. “Naturally, your professional ethics would not permit you to mention names, Dr. McDuff,” he said quickly. “Even obliquely. But you can tell me, as a man of long experience in medicine, if there is any such condition—then I must search for myself to see if I can find its victim. It is the duty of both of us to see that Lord Augustus is decently buried and allowed to rest—and of course his unfortunate family. His widow—and his mother—”
    Dr. McDuff remembered the purse strings.
    “Of course,” he said immediately. “I will do everything I can—within the bounds of ethical discretion,” he added. “But I cannot readily think of any disease whatever which would produce such a repulsive form of madness. I will give the matter deep thought, and if you care to call again, I will have a more considered opinion.”
    “Thank you very much.” Pitt stood up and moved to the door; then, just before he opened it, he turned. “By the way, there are some very unpleasant suggestions that Lord Augustus might have been murdered, and someone knows of it and is digging up his body to draw our attention to the fact—force us to investigate. I suppose his death was perfectly natural—expected?”
    McDuff’s face darkened. “Of course it was perfectly natural, man! Do you imagine I would have signed the certificate if it were not?”
    “Expected?” Pitt insisted. “He had been ill for some time?”
    “A week or so. But in a man of sixty that is not unusual. His mother has a weak heart.”
    “But she is still alive,” Pitt pointed out. “And somewhat over eighty, I should judge.”
    “That has nothing to do with it!” McDuff snapped, his fist tightening on the desk top. “Lord Augustus’s death was quite natural, and in a man of his years and health not unusual.”
    “You did a postmortem?” Pitt knew perfectly well he had not.
    McDuff was too angry to think of that. The very idea outraged him. “I did not!” His face mottled heavily with purple. “You have practiced too long in the back streets, Inspector. I would have you remember that my clients have no resemblance whatsoever to yours! There is no murder here, and no crime, except that of grave robbing; and doubtless it is one from your world, not one from mine, who is to blame for that! Good day to you, sir!”
    “Then I shall have to get a postmortem now,” Pitt said softly. “I am obliged to tell you, I shall apply to the magistrate this afternoon.”
    “And I shall oppose you, sir!” McDuff banged his fist down. “And you may allow yourself to be quite certain his family will also! They are not without influence. Now please take yourself