A Man Lay Dead Read Online Free PDF

wrote the necessary phrase and signed it. Nigel and Wilde witnessed, and Rankin handed it to Handesley.
    “You’d much better sell it to me,” said Handesley coolly.
    “Excuse me, please,” boomed Doctor Tokareff. “I do not entirely understand.”
    “No?” The note of antagonism had crept into Rankin’s voice. “I merely leave instructions that if a sticky end should overtake me—”
    “Excuse me, please… a sticky end?”
    “Oh, damn! If I should die, or be murdered, or disappear from view, this knife which you, Doctor Tokareff, consider has no business to be in my possession, shall become the property of our host.”
    “Thank you,” said Doctor Tokareff composedly.
    “You do not approve?”
    “
Niet
. No. By my standpoint of view, zis knoife does not belong by you.”
    “The knife was given to me.”
    “Such indiscretion has doubtless been suitably chastised,” remarked the Russian peacefully.
    “Well,” broke in Handesley, noting perhaps the two little scarlet danger signals in Rankin’s cheeks, “let us hope it will give no offence by hanging for to-night at the foot of my stairs. Come and have a cocktail.”
    Charles Rankin lingered in the drawing-room with his cousin. He slipped his arm through Nigel’s.
    “Not a very delicious gentleman, that dago,” he said loudly.
    “Look out, he’ll hear you!”
    “I don’t give a damn.”
    Wilde paused in the doorway and detained them.
    “I shouldn’t let it worry you, Charles,” he said in his diffident voice. “His point of view is not unreasonable. I know something of these societies.”
    “Oh, hell, what’s it matter anyway? Come and let’s drink. This murder’s got to be done.”
    Nigel glanced at him sharply.
    “No, no,” laughed Rankin, “not by me… I didn’t mean that. By someone.”
    “I’m not going to be left alone with anyone,” Mrs. Wilde was announcing.
    “I wonder,” speculated Handesley, “if that’s true— or is it a bluff? Or am I bluffing?”
    “I’m going to take my drink up with me,” said Rosamund. “No one will try to murder me in my bath, I hope, and I shan’t come down till I hear voices in the hall.”
    “I’ll come up with you, Rosamund,” said Mrs. Wilde and Angela simultaneously.
    “I also will make myself for the dining,” announced Doctor Tokareff.
    “Wait a bit!” called Handesley. “I’m coming up. I won’t go down that passage alone!”
    There was a concerted stampede upstairs, only Nigel, Rankin, and Wilde being left in the hall.
    “Shall I bath first?” Nigel asked Wilde.
    “Yes, do,” he agreed. “It’s safe enough for Charles and me to be left together. Whichever of us tries to do in the other would be accused by you as the last person to see the corpse alive. I claim the bath in ten minutes.”
    Nigel ran upstairs, leaving the two men to finish their drinks. He bathed quickly and dressed at leisure. The Murder Game was distinctly amusing. For some reason he rather thought that Vassily had given the scarlet plaque to his compatriot. Nigel determined not to go down until he heard Doctor Tokareff’s voice. “After all,” he thought, “it would be easy enough for him to catch me as I opened my door and then go downstairs as if nothing had happened, choose his moment to put out the lights, sound the gong, and then move away in the darkness and stand still for the two minutes, asking at the top of his voice who had done it. That wouldn’t be a bad plan of action, by Jove.”
    He heard the bathroom door opened. A moment later the taps were turned on, and Wilde’s voice called out to him.
    “No bloodshed yet, Bathgate?”
    “Not yet,” shouted Nigel; “but I’m much too frightened to go down.”
    “Let’s wait till Majorie is ready,” suggested Wilde, “and all go down together. If you don’t agree, I’ll know you are the murderer.”
    “All right, I’ll agree,” yelled Nigel cheerfully, and he heard Wilde laugh to himself and shout the suggestion through to