Page:The Greene Murder Case (1928).pdf/273

 here a little out of alignment. Moreover, they're innocent of dust. . . . 'Pon my soul, Markham, here's a coincidence for your sceptical legal mind! Lend an ear to these titles: 'Poisons: Their Effects and Detection,' by Alexander Wynter Blyth, and 'Textbook of Medical Jurisprudence, Toxicology, and Public Health,' by John Glaister, professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Glasgow. And here we have Friedrich Brügelmann's 'Über hysterische Dämmerzustände,' and Schwarzwald's 'Über Hystero-Paralyse und Somnambulismus.'—I say! That's deuced queer. . . ."

He rose and walked up and down agitatedly.

"No—no; absolutely not," he muttered. "It simply can't be. . . . Why should Von Blon lie to us about her?"

We all knew what was in his mind. Even Heath sensed it at once, for, though he did not speak German, the titles of the two German books—especially the latter—needed no translation to be understood. Hysteria and twilight sleep! Hysterical paralysis and somnambulism! The gruesome and terrible implication in these two titles, and their possible relation to the sinister tragedies of the Greene mansion, sent a chill of horror over me.

Vance stopped his restless pacing and fixed a grave gaze on Markham.

"This thing gets deeper and deeper. Something unthinkable is going on here.—Come, let us get out of this polluted room. It has told us its gibbering, nightmarish story. And now we will have to inter-