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"But what?"

"Ill bet you a hundred dollars to an old shoe," H.M. retorted calmly, "he's not in the pool now."

District Attorney Byles stood motionless, looking at him with steady narrow eyes.

There were small beads of sweat on Byles's skull, where the black hair had retreated. His jaw was outthrust, and he moved his lower lip like one who considers many things. But the queer, disquieting humour had returned to his brown eyes.

"He's down in the pool, all right," Byles said. "But do you want me to believe in magic?" ... O'Casey!"

"Yes, sir?"

It was that voice, not the name, which made Cy Norton spin round. Two motorcycle policemen stood just behind the District Attorney. Cy, with a collapsing feeling in his chest, found himself looking into the eyes of the policeman who yesterday afternoon had been mobbed and knocked out during l'affaire du subway.

Officer O'Casey, in fact, for some time had been looking like a policeman who wants to shout but does not dare. His eyes had been fixed on H.M., who remained as bland and expressionless as a holy man from the East. When Officer O'Casey heard that word "magic," together with his own name, he could not restrain himself.

"Sir," his hoarse voice addressed the District Attorney, "can I see you in private?"

"Later, man, later! I want you to..."

"Sir, it's important!"

Byles, puzzled but endlessly patient, looked at him and yielded. With sinister beckoning gestures of both hands, Officer O'Casey drew him back about twenty feet

Soundlessly, running lightly on grass, Jean Manning and Huntington Davis ran round two sides of the pool and joined Crystal. Then all three of them hurried towards Cy Norton and H.M. All three were badly shaken, though perhaps for different reasons. They tried their best to speak in low voices.

"Suppose," said Jean, who was the most nervous of all and had tears in her eyes, "he did have an accident? And we didn't go down and save him?"

"Nonsense, angel!" protested Davis, though himself not easy in mind. "Besides, what happened exactly?" For perhaps the first time in his life, he showed deep respect for Manning. "And how in blazes did the old buzzard do it?"

Crystal, still wrapped in her black robe with the gold flowers, gave a curious, speculative glance at Cy, smiled in an obscure way, and then seemed to dream. "Did you hear that charge they made against my father?" she asked.

"Naturally!"

"If he ever stole as much as the contents of a toy bank," Crystal said quietly, "I'll give up men and enter a convent. If s absolutely ridiculous."

"Be quiet, can't you?" Cy urged fiercely. "I'm trying to hear what the cop is saying to the D.A.!"

Cy couldn't hear the policeman. He saw only frantic gestures. But Byles's well-modulated voice rose clearly, as he glanced back towards H.M.

"Well, suppose he did criticize the subway? Lots of people do!"

The gestures became more expansive. Byles was growing impatient

"What do you mean, he magicked the turnstiles?"

This time the pantomime was really impressive. Officer O'Casey made mesmeric passes; he struck pugilistic attitudes; his sweeping hand movement suggested kangaroos over hurdles; and then, with a rapid rotary motion of his arms round each other, he seemed to suggest that about a thousand people were rolling down the steps of the New York Public Library.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Byles. "Sir Henry Merrivale is a distinguished man of many achievements. He wouldn't be mixed up in a thing like that. And even if he were"—here an odd note suggested that Byles knew all about it—"I'm sure the city of New York would overlook it. Now come with me!"

He marched the speechless policeman to the group beside the pool.

It was Cy Norton who performed sketchy introductions. Byles nodded politely at each.

"Thank you. Many people, Mr. Norton, remember you as being the only foreign correspondent who never lost his head or grew hysterical. — O'Casey!"

"S-sir?"

"I understand," said Byles, "you're one of the champion swimmers in the Force. Take your clothes off and dive in and find Manning!"

Officer O'Casey's ears turned the colour of a tomato.

"Listen!" he gulped, trying to stave off the inevitable. "I read a story once..."

"So did I." Byles spoke patiently. "I'm always doing it."

"But, look! This was about a guy who disappeared from the swimming pool too!" "Oh?"

'Yes, sir. Only it wasn't daylight, it was night; and they couldn't see one end of the pool. This guy (I mean the murderer, now, not the other guy) got in and out in a diving suit."

Sir Henry Merrivale rolled his eyes to heaven, and then closed them.

"Y' know," he observed meditatively, "the most fetchin' image I can think of now is Fred Manning sittin' down there in a diver's suit and blowin' bubbles."

"If you think he's down there, O'Casey, go and get him. —Yes, yes, you can keep on your underwear!"

"I can lend him a pair of trunks," Davis offered good-naturedly.

Davis and O'Casey, the latter gulping with relief, hurried round the pool towards the bathing cabins. At the same moment a new voice struck in.

"Good morning, Mr. Byles," said Howard Betterton, his voice now suave. "I understand you wish to see my client?"

Betterton, fully dressed in tennis flannels, shirt, and sports coat, had adjusted his pince-nez. His skeins of black hair were brushed back over his head with a nicety.

"Good morning, Mr. Betterton," said the District Attorney.

It was as though two duellists had come to salute, or two chess players sat down at the board.

"But I'm afraid I can't see your client," Byles added. "The police will have to do that now."

"Oh, I don't know," Betterton remarked, frowningly critical.

"I'd better tell you we've taken over Mr. Manning's office..."

"Before I can permit you to do that," Betterton interposed smoothly, "I think it would be wiser if we discussed the legal aspect in private."

Byles nodded. "After this pool business," he said, his brown eyes narrowing still more, "I want to have a little private talk with Sir Henry Merrivale. Following that, I'm at your disposal. Will that do?"

"That suits me," agreed Betterton almost smugly.

"All right, O'Casey," Byles shouted across the pool. "In you go!" And in he went

The next fifteen minutes were perhaps the most nerve-racking of all. O'Casey's head would rear up, mouth gasping for breath, blond hair flung back, then he would go down headfirst again.

When you looked at that stone pool with its opaque water, Cy thought you realized it seemed no longer a hoax or a quirk of ingenuity. Manning's clothes—the hat and the shoes and the coat and the rest of them—were bobbing away from each other, as though Manning himself were disintegrating. It was not amusing; it was horrible. Everybody seemed to feel that except Crystal, who slid closer to Cy Norton.

"It's too bad, isn't it" she whispered, "that they probably won't let us go for a swim today?"

And, as though carelessly, she slipped off her robe.

Crystal's skin was that smooth white, tinged with pink, which has seldom been exposed to the sun. Her two-piece bathing suit black and gold, was probably the scantiest ever devised. She looked up at Cy in a secretive sort of way, dark blue eyes provocative and a half-smile on her mouth. Her hair, parted in the middle and drawn over the ears, seemed now a lighter brown. Cy could feel the intense nearness of her presence, even when he did not look at her.

(Damn you, thought Cy. Damn you for disturbing my life. Damn you for...)

Now, with a flop and splash, Officer O'Casey crawled halfway out of the pool at Byles's feet. He lay there panting and exhausted, face down.

"I've covered every inch of it," he gasped, still face down. "He's not there."