Jane opened her mouth to reply, but Mrs. Shane grasped her firmly by the arm and propelled her toward the dining room, murmuring soothing sentences. “So glad you’re all right again. We were all worried to death. No, my dear, you’re not to think about Duncan. I’m quite sure he’s off just getting quietly drunk.” She went on talking while the rest filed into the dining room and sat down.
To her intense annoyance, Aspasia found herself sitting beside Dennis Williams. She did the best she could under the circumstances. She kept her head turned to the person on her other side, like a robin studying a worm. It was unfortunate that the worm she was to study turned out to be Dinah. Aspasia violently disapproved of Dinah.
Dennis was no less uncomfortable but the thought of his bags already packed and three strong cocktails had improved his state of mind.
She doesn’t know anything, he thought. She was guessing. I was a fool to pay any attention to her.
He smiled rather sheepishly at Mrs. Shane and said, “Afraid I’ll have to pull out tomorrow morning, Mrs. Shane. Business, you know. It’s been awfully good of you to have me—”
“Dennis!” Dinah’s voice was sharp.
He looked past Aspasia at Dinah, sitting bolt upright in her chair staring at him.
“But I told you, Dinah. I have to get back to the office. I’m a workingman.”
Jane smiled sweetly across the table. “Of course. We understand even if Dinah doesn’t. I don’t think Dinah is feeling very well tonight. Perhaps she had a wee droppie too much this afternoon.”
“I don’t think any of us is feeling very well,” Mrs. Shane said hastily. “It’s the strain of having Jane poisoned on our hands, as it were.”
Jane’s smile faded. “Really, Aunt Jennifer, I think I have had most of the strain. I’m sorry I’ve put you all to so much trouble, but if you can’t stand the strain of poisoning people, why did one of you poison me?”
There was a short, grim silence broken finally by Dinah’s dry voice:
“It’s not impossible that someone may dislike you, my dear. It’s not even impossible that you fixed yourself up a nice dose of poison—”
Jane began to weep. Jackson was coming in the door with a platter of meat and he stopped short, his eyes moving warily along the table and coming to rest at last on Jane.
“That’s quite an accusation, Jane,” Mrs. Shane said, “against your own relatives!”
“There are the servants too,” Dennis said, looking at Jackson. “Three of them, are there not?”
Jackson looked at him woodenly. “The servants would have no object in poisoning Miss Stevens.”
“We are not asking you to defend yourself, Jackson,” Mrs. Shane said. She turned to Jane and patted her hand. “After all, there’s no use in crying over spilt milk. As long as we’re all together we shan’t any of us get a chance to perform the dire deeds which would give Aspasia such satisfaction.” She favored Aspasia with a cold glare and went on talking. “And since you’ve already been poisoned once, Jane, the laws of chance make it extremely unlikely that you’ll be poisoned again.”
“I don’t think I want any dinner.” Jane’s voice was injured and reproachful.
“Wise girl,” Dinah said approvingly. “I wouldn’t depend on the laws of chance either if I were you.”
Nora got up and went over to Jane. “You’d be better off upstairs, Jane.”
Jane rose, clinging to Nora’s arm, and they went out of the room. Aspasia resumed her robin pose, its effect marred somewhat by a series of nervous hiccoughs.
Prye leaned over and whispered to Mrs. Shane. She nodded, dubiously, and he got up and stood behind his chair.
“Now that Jane has gone upstairs,” he said, “I can speak frankly to you. It’s fairly unlikely that a perfect stranger could walk into the house and poison the pitcher of water that was intended for Duncan.”
Aspasia’s head jerked to the front. “Then it really was — then Duncan was the one—”
“The inspector thinks so, and I agree,” Prye said.
“Not guilty,” Dennis said loudly. “I wouldn’t have any object in doing—”
Dinah said, “Be quiet, Dennis,” in a warning voice.
“Why should I be quiet?” Dennis demanded. “I didn’t do it. I know everyone will blame me. I’m the only one who’s not a member of this precious family of yours.”
Mrs. Shane said, smiling, “That’s quite beside the point, Dennis. Go on, Paul.”
Prye went on.
“Sands thinks that the poison may have been intended to warn or frighten Duncan. If any of you did this, I suggest an immediate confession to Sands. I’m sure Duncan and Jane would not prosecute.”
“Ha ha,” Dinah said. “Duncan would send his own grandmother to the chair for stealing a safety pin.”
Prye frowned at her. “You’re being helpful, Dinah.”
“Well, don’t try kidding us. No one will admit anything. We all know that Duncan is the most vindictive man who ever lived. And I know there isn’t one of us who’d be sorry if he forgot to come back—”
Duncan thought he was dead. He was in hell, of course. He always knew he’d go to hell when he died and here he was, and the devil was tapping his head smartly with a hammer. Once he struck Duncan’s chin by mistake so it hurt there too. Duncan said, “O God!” but this didn’t seem to frighten the devil at all. The hammering went on.
He opened one eye tentatively and discovered that he was blind.
Possibly, Duncan thought, my eyes have been plucked out. Maybe they do it to everyone down here or maybe I’m a special case. I wish I knew whether I was a special case or not, it would make it easier for me to know how to act. But I don’t know. I’ll have to be very casual until I find out. There is plenty of time. I’m going to be here forever and ever and ever—
“Stop that hammering!” Duncan shouted, not casually at all.
He hadn’t moved yet except for one eyelid. Now his hand slowly came to his head and found his eyes. He had two eyes anyway, and a hand. Then his leg twitched and he had a leg and another leg, and pretty soon he was all there, right down to the silk hat and the carnation.
So I’m all there.
All where? What is this place? Has it any time, and if it has what is the time? And who is this man who is all there in this place that has no time?
I am Duncan Stevens.
I am a short, powerful young man with some shares of International Paper.
How many shares of International Paper?
Two hundred.
Then you must be Duncan Stevens?
Yes, I am. I am Duncan Stevens, a short, powerful young man with a silk hat.
This seemed very satisfactory. Duncan propped himself on one elbow to survey the place that had no time. He was probably the only man who would ever see it. When he had seen it he would go and tell Mr. Einstein about it, he would win the Nobel prize, he would have his picture in the Christian Herald, and the devil would never dare lay hands on him.
He struck a match.
The room was filled with shapes, precise, geometrical shapes. They looked like boxes.
The match went out. So mathematics is at the bottom of everything, after all. I don’t dare tell anyone this. It will revolutionize the revolution. I will be burned as a witch. I will go home, and I will never tell anyone anything about this place.
He lit another match and found the door.
There were lights in the corridor outside, strong lights, and a clock. The clock said twelve-thirty.
Duncan was very sad about this. He stood in the corridor blinking at the lights and thinking of the other place with no lights and no time.
He went up the marble steps, clinging to the railing. At the top of the stairs a man came up and asked him if he wanted a cab. He followed the man without protest.