“Perhaps,” said Drury Lane gently, “perhaps Mr. DeWitt would rather not say.

  “On the contrary.” The broker’s eyes gleamed; his face was alive. “That moment provided me with one of the most startling experiences of my life. An experience that bears out, I think, both Bierce’s principle and the dream- theory which Mr. Lane just mentioned.”

  “You don’t mean to say that your whole life flashed through your mind at that moment?” Ahearn seemed vastly skeptical.

  “Oh, no. Something so isolated, so strange…” DeWitt slumped against the green cushions, speaking rapidly. “A case of identity. About nine years ago I was called for jury duty in a murder trial here in New York. The defendant was an old hulking wreck of a man, accused of stabbing a woman to death in a cheap boarding-house. It was a case of first-degree murder - the District Attorney proved conclusively that the murder was deliberately planned - and there was no question of the man’s guilt. All during the short trial, and even in the jury-room afterward, as we argued his fate, I was haunted by a feeling that somewhere I had seen the defendant before. As people do in such situations, I wrestled mentally with the problem of his identity until I was tired, but I could not recall who he was or where or when I had seen him…” With blasting and straining and rattling the train started. DeWitt raised his voice a little, “To make a long story short, I concurred in the general opinion that the man was guilty on the basis of the evidence brought out, cast my ballot for conviction, we brought in the verdict, and the man was duly sentenced and executed. I dismissed the entire incident from my mind.” The train ground out of the terminal. No one spoke as DeWitt paused, licking his lips. “Now here’s the strange part of it. To the best of my recollection I never once thought of that man or the incident for the nine years that followed. But when, today, the foreman was asked for the verdict which meant so much to me - that ridiculously tiny interval between the last syllable of the official question and the first word of the foreman’s official reply - suddenly, and for no reason that I can offer, the face of that executed man, by now crumbling earth, swung before my mind’s eye and in the same instant I solved the problem of who he was and where I had seen him - nine years, remember, after I had last been disturbed by it.”

  “And who was he?” asked Brooks curiously.

  DeWitt smiled. “I said it was strange… Twenty years ago or so, at the time when I was wandering about South America, I chanced to be in a place called Barinas, in the Zamora country of Venezuela. One night, on my way to my lodgings, as I was passing a dark alley I heard the sounds of a violent scuffle. I was young then and of a more venturesome disposition, I daresay, than I am now.

  “I carried a revolver. I snatched it from the holster and ran into the alley. Two ragged ’breeds were attacking a white man. One of them was brandishing a machete over the head of their victim. I fired, the shot went wild, but the two footpads were alarmed, I suppose, and fled, leaving the white man, already slashed in several places, on the ground. As I went over to him, thinking he was badly wounded, he got to his feet, brushed off his dirty bloody ducks, mumbled surly thanks, and swung off, limping, in the darkness. I had caught just a glimpse of his face.

  “And this man, whose life I had been instrumental in saving twenty years ago, was the man whom more than a decade later I was instrumental in sending to the electric-chair. Sort of divine dispensation, eh?”

  “Worthy,” said Mr. Drury Lane in the silence that followed, “of a place in imperishable folk-lore.”

  The train was pushing through blackness which was dotted here and there by lights - the outskirts of Weehawken.

  “But the peculiar part of it,” continued DeWitt, “was that, of all things, I should solve that tantalizing mystery while my own life was in jeopardy!

  Remember that I’d seen the man’s face only once before, so many years ago… “

  “One of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard,” said Brooks.

  “The human mind is capable of even more amazing things than that, in the instant before death,” said Lane. “Eight months ago I saw in the newspapers a press dispatch from Vienna giving the details of a murder there. The facts were these: A man was found shot to death in a hotel room. The Viennese police easily identified him as an unimportant underworld figure who was known to have served as an informer for the police in the past. The motive for the crime was obviously revenge, probably by some criminal against whom the man’s tips to the law had operated disastrously. The news dispatch stated that the victim had been living in this hotel for months, rarely leaving his room, even having his meals served there. That he was hiding from someone was apparent. When he was found murdered the remains of his last meal were spread on the table. He had been shot while standing seven feet from this table; a fatal shot but not causing instant death. This was determined by the fact that a trail of blood led across the carpet from this spot to the place where he was found dead, sprawled at the foot of the table.

  “There was a peculiar circumstance. The sugar-bowl on the table had been overturned, the granulated sugar was scattered on the cloth, and in the victim’s dead hand, tightly clenched, was a handful of this granulated sugar.”

  “Interesting,” murmured DeWitt.

  “The explanation seemed simple enough. He had been shot seven feet from the table, had crawled to the table, and by superhuman effort managed to raise himself sufficiently to take a fistful of sugar from the bowl before collapsing, dead, on the floor. But why? What was the significance of the sugar? How explain this last desperate act of a dying man? The Viennese police were baffled, concluded the dispatch.” Mr. Drury Lane smiled at his audience. “The answer to these provocative questions occurred to me, and I wrote to Vienna. A few weeks later I received a reply from the prefect of police there, saying that the murderer had been arrested before the arrival of my letter, but that my solution had clarified the incident of the dead man and the sugar - which even after the murderer’s apprehension had remained inexplicable to the police.”

  “And what was your solution?” asked Ahearn. “From the meager details I for one can’t see a possible explanation.”

  “Nor I,” said Brooks.

  DeWitt’s mouth was screwed into a weird shape; he was frowning.

  “And you, Mr. DeWitt?” asked Lane, smiling again.

  “I’m afraid I can’t see the significance of the sugar itself,” replied the broker thoughtfully. “But one thing seems perfectly obvious. That is, that the dying man was leaving a clue to his assassin’s identity.”

  “Excellent!” cried Lane. “That’s it exactly, Mr. DeWitt. Very well - observe. Was the sugar, as sugar, the clue? That is, was the victim indicating that his murderer was - to stretch the point to its most farcical implication - a lover of sweets? On the other hand, did it imply that the murderer was a diabetic? Far-fetched, of course. I did not believe this; for the clue was undoubtedly left for the edification of the police, and it would seem that the dying man would leave a clue on which the police could work with a fair chance of success. On the other hand, what else could the sugar have meant - what does granulated sugar resemble physically? Well, it is a white crystalline substance… I thereupon wrote the Viennese prefect that while the sugar might have indicated that the murderer was a diabetic, the more probable explanation was that the murderer was a cocaine addict.”

  They were staring at him. DeWitt chuckled, slapping his thigh softly. “Cocaine, of course. A white crystalline powder!”

  “The man arrested,” continued Lane, “was what our tabloids amusingly refer to as a cocaine fiend. So wrote my official correspondent, and offered many flowery expressions of admiration. Yet it seems to me that the explanation was an elementary one. What interested me was the psychology of the murdered man. He could not have possessed an ordinary intellect. Somewhere within his brain was the spark of ingenuity. He left the only clue to his murderer’s identity which was available to him in the brief interval before he died. So you see - there are no limits to which the human mind cannot soar in that unique, god-like instant before the end of life.”

  “No, that is perfectly true,” said DeWitt. “That’s an interesting story, Mr. Lane. And despite your dismissal of the deduction as elementary, I think the entire affair is a tribute to your peculiar talent for getting beneath the surface of things.”

  “Should have been there in Vienna, and he’d have saved the police a heap of trouble,” said Ahearn.

  North Bergen disappeared in the darkness.

  Lane sighed. “I have often thought that the entire problem of crime and punishment would be simplified if human beings, confronted by their potential murderers, could leave a sign, no matter how obscure, to the identity of their nemeses.”

  “No matter how obscure?” asked Brooks argumentatively.

  “Of course, Mr. Brooks. Isn’t any sign better than no sign at all?”

  A tall burly man, hat pulled down low over his eyes, face white and pinched, had entered the car from the forward end. He lurched over to the four conversing men, leaned heavily against the green diced fabric of a seat- back, swaying with the rock of the train, glowering over them at John DeWitt.

  Lane paused, glancing up at him in annoyance. But DeWitt said, in a disgusted voice: “Collins,” and the actor regarded the man with newborn interest. Brooks said: “You’re drunk, Collins. What do you want?”

  “Not talking to you, shyster,” said Collins in a thick voice. His eyes were bloodshot and maniacal; they focused with difficulty on DeWitt. “DeWitt,” he said with an attempt at civility, “like to see you alone.” He pushed his hat back on his head, endeavoring to smile in a pleasant manner. He achieved only the sick mockery of a smile, and DeWitt looked at him with pity and distaste.

  Drury Lane’s gray eyes went from Collins’s heavy face to DeWitt’s delicately lined one, unceasingly, as each man talked.

  “Now look here, Collins,” said DeWitt in a gentler tone. “I’ve told you repeatedly that I can’t do anything for you on that matter. You know why, and you’re making yourself very disagreeable. Can’t you see that you’re interrupting a private party? Be a good chap and go away.”

  Collins’s mouth was slack. His red-rimmed eyes became bleared and teary. “Listen, DeWitt,” he muttered, “you’ve got to let me talk to you. You don’t know what this means to me, DeWitt. It’s - it’s life or death.” DeWitt wavered; the others did not look at each other. The spectacle of this man and his naked humility was embarrassing. Collins rushed on, snatching at the faint hope promised by DeWitt’s hesitation. “I promise, I swear I won’t bother you again if you let me talk to you privately - just this once. Please, DeWitt, please!”

  DeWitt measured him coolly. “You mean that, Collins? You won’t bother me again? Won’t hound me this way?”

  “Yes! You can rely on it!” The hope that flared in those bloody eyes was ghastly. DeWitt rose with a sigh, excused himself; and the two men, DeWitt with bent head, Collins speaking rapidly, violently, gesticulating, pleading, peering into DeWitt’s averted face - walked up the aisle toward the rear of the car. DeWitt suddenly left Collins standing in the aisle and returned to his three companions.

  The broker put his hand into his upper left vest pocket and took out the single tickets he had purchased in the terminal, leaving the new trip-book in the pocket. He gave them to Ahearn. “Might as well give them to the conductor, Frank,” he said. “I don’t know how long this pest will take. Conductor will get me later.”

  Ahearn nodded, and DeWitt retraced his steps to the rear of the car, where Collins stood in an attitude of dejection. He lumbered to life at DeWitt’s approach, and again he began to plead. They passed through the doorway to the rear platform, were indistinctly visible for a moment, and then the three men saw Collins and DeWitt cross over to stand on the front platform of the last, dim car, passing from view.

  Brooks said: “There’s a man who played with fire and got his fingers badly burned. He’s through. DeWitt would be a fool to help him.”

  “Still wants DeWitt to make good Longstreet’s disastrous advice, I suppose,” remarked Ahearn. “I shouldn’t be surprised if John relents, do you know? He’s in high spirits and he’s liable to make Longstreet’s foolishness good out of sheer joy of living.”

  Drury Lane said nothing; he turned his head and looked toward the rear platform, but the two men were not in sight. At this moment the conductor entered from the forward door, beginning to collect and punch tickets, and the men turned back, the moment of tension gone. Lord referred the conductor to the group of three men in the center of the car, looking around and seeming surprised at DeWitt’s absence. The conductor approached: Ahearn offered him the six single tickets, explaining that there was another man in the party who had stepped out a moment and would be back shortly.

  “Right,” said the conductor, punching the tickets and jabbing them into one of the ticket-holders on the top of the seat in which Ahearn was sitting, and he moved on up the car.

  The three men engaged in desultory conversation. The talk petered out in a few moments, and Ahearn, excusing himself, rose, thrust his hands into his pockets, and began to pace up and down the aisle. Lane and Brooks became involved in a discussion of testaments: Lane cited a curious case which he had run across many years before while he was touring the Continent in Shakespearean repertoire; Brooks countered with several instances of ambiguous wills which had raised complicated questions of law.

  The train clanked on. Twice Lane turned his head and peered backward; but neither DeWitt nor Collins was visible. A tiny furrow appeared between the actor’s eyes, and he sat thoughtfully during a lull in his conversation with Brooks; then he smiled, shook his head as if dismissing the nonsense of his thoughts, and resumed the discussion.

  The local staggered to a stop at the station of Bogota, a suburb of Hackensack. Lane stared out of the window. As the train started again, the furrow between his eyes returned, more deeply now. He looked at the dial of his watch. The hands stood at 12:36. Brooks was regarding him with a puzzled expression.

  Lane sprang to his feet so suddenly that Brooks uttered a grunt of astonishment. “Please excuse me, Mr. Brooks,” he said rapidly. “Perhaps my nerves are ragged, but I can’t help feeling extraordinarily disturbed by the failure of DeWitt to return. I am going back there to investigate.”

  “You think there’s something wrong?” Brooks was alarmed. He rose and strode up the aisle with Lane.

  “I sincerely hope not.” They passed Ahearn, pacing fretfully.

  “Anything wrong, gentlemen?” he inquired.

  “Mr. Lane thinks there’s something funny about DeWitt’s absence,” snapped the lawyer. “Come along, Ahearn.”

  Lane in the van, they went through the rear door of their car and stopped short. There was no one on the platform. They stepped across the swaying junction of the two cars; there was no one on the rear platform of the last car either.

  They looked at each other. “Well, where the devil could they have gone to?” muttered Ahearn. “I didn’t see either of them come back, did you?”

  “I wasn’t noticing particularly,” said Brooks, “but I don’t think they did.”

  Lane paid them not the slightest attention. He went to the glass top of one of the doors and looked out at the rushing black countryside. Then he returned and surveyed the door of the dim, almost indistinguishable rear car. He peered through the glass into the interior; it was evidently an extra coach being hauled to Newburgh, the end of the local line, to be ready for an early morning rush-hour run back to Weehawken. His jaw hardened, and he said distinctly: “I am going in here, gentlemen. Mr. Brooks, will you please hold the door open? There’s very little light.”

  He grasped the knob of the door and pushed. The door responded readily enough; it was unlocked. For a moment as the three men stood there squinting, to accustom their eyes to the almost total absence of illumination, they could see nothing. Then Lane turned his head abruptly, sucked in his breath…

  To the left of the door was a walled compartment - the usual cubicle found at the entrance to railroad day-coaches. The front wall of the car and a wall backing up the first seat in the car beyond formed two of the boundaries; on the outer side there was a regular car-window, and opposite it, where Lane stood, the open area. In the compartment, as in other portions of the car, were two long seats facing each other. On the seat opposite the front wall, sitting on the cushions close to the window-wall, head sunk on his breast, was the figure of John DeWitt.

  Lane’s eyes narrowed in the murk; the broker seemed asleep. Brooks and Ahearn pressing behind, he edged into the area between the two seats and touched DeWitt gently on the shoulder. There was no response. “DeWitt!” he said in a steely rapier voice, shaking the quiet figure. Still no response. But this time DeWitt’s head rolled slightly, bringing his eyes into view; then they rolled to rest again…

  The eyes, even in the dimness, were the open blank eyes of a corpse.

  Lane crouched and his hand hovered about the man’s heart.

  He straightened up, rubbed his fingers together and backed out of the compartment. Ahearn was shaking like an aspen, staring down at the still shadowy figure. Brooks quavered: “He’s - he’s dead.”

  “There’s blood on my hand,” said Lane. “Please keep that door open, Mr. Brooks; we need light. At least until we can get someone to turn on the proper switch.” He stepped past Ahearn and Brooks to the platform. “Please do not touch him. Either of you,” he said sharply. Neither replied; they cowered together instinctively, keeping their eyes with a sort of horrified fascination on the dead man.

  Looking overhead, Lane located what he sought and stretched his long arm upward. He pulled vigorously several times - it was the emergency signal-cord. With a crashing and grinding of brakes the train slid, jerked, shivered to a stop. Ahearn and Brooks clutched at each other to keep from falling.