“No possibility, despite the costume, that he went to his office?”

  “No. He never goes down Saturdays.”

  Master Jonathan jammed his fists into the pockets of his Eton jacket and said bitterly: “I bet he’s drunk again. Makin’ mamma cry. I hope he never comes back.”

  “Jonathan!” screamed Mrs. Mansfield. “You go up to your room this very minute, do you hear, you nasty boy? This minute!”

  No one said anything; Mrs. Owen continued to sob; so Master Jonathan thrust out his lower lip, scowled at his grandmother with unashamed dislike, and stamped upstairs.

  “Where,” said Ellery with a frown, “was your husband when you last saw him, Mrs. Owen? In this room?”

  “In his den,” she said with difficulty. “He went in just as I went upstairs. I saw him go in. That door, there.” She pointed to the door at the right of the library door. Ellery started; it was the door to the room he had almost blundered into during the night in his hunt for the library.

  “Do you think—” began Carolyn Gardner in her husky voice, and stopped. Her lips were dry, and in the gray morning light her hair did not seem so red and her eyes did not seem so green. There was, in fact, a washed-out look about her, as if all the fierce vitality within her had been quenched by what had happened.

  “Keep out of this, Carolyn,” said Paul Gardner harshly. His eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep.

  “Come, come,” murmured Ellery, “we may be, as Miss Willowes has said, making a fuss over nothing at all. If you’ll excuse me…I’ll have a peep at the den.”

  He went into the den, closing the door behind him, and stood with his back squarely against the door. It was a small room, so narrow that it looked long by contrast; it was sparsely furnished and seemed a business-like place. There was a simple neatness about its desk, a modern severity about its furnishings that were reflections of the direct, brutal character of Richard Owen. The room was as trim as a pin; it was almost ludicrous to conceive of its having served as the scene of a crime.

  Ellery gazed long and thoughtfully. Nothing out of place, so far as he could see; and nothing, at least perceptible to a stranger, added. Then his eyes wavered and fixed themselves upon what stood straight before him. That was odd….Facing him as he leaned against the door there was a bold naked mirror set flush into the opposite wall and reaching from floor to ceiling—a startling feature of the room’s decorations. Ellery’s lean figure, and the door behind him, were perfectly reflected in the sparkling glass. And there, above…In the mirror he saw, above the reflection of the door against which he was leaning, the reflection of the face of a modern electric clock. In the dingy grayness of the light there was a curious lambent quality about its dial….He pushed away from the door and turned and stared up. It was a chromium-and-onyx clock, about a foot in diameter, round and simple and startling.

  He opened the door and beckoned Millan, who had joined the silent group in the living room. “Have you a step-ladder?”

  Millan brought one. Ellery smiled, shut the door firmly, mounted the ladder, and examined the clock. Its electric outlet was behind, concealed from view. The plug was in the socket, as he saw at once. The clock was going; the time—he consulted his wrist-watch—was reasonably accurate. But then he cupped his hands as best he could to shut out what light there was and stared hard and saw that the numerals and the hands, as he had suspected, were radium-painted. They glowed faintly.

  He descended, opened the door, gave the ladder into Millan’s keeping, and sauntered into the living room. They looked up at him trustfully.

  “Well,” said Emmy Willowes with a light shrug, “has the Master Mind discovered the all-important clue? Don’t tell us that Dickie Owen is out playing golf at the Meadowbrook links in that Mad Hatter’s get-up!”

  “Well, Mr. Queen?” asked Mrs. Owen anxiously.

  Ellery sank into an armchair and lighted a cigaret. “There’s something curious in there. Mrs. Owen, did you get this house furnished?”

  She was puzzled. “Furnished? Oh, no. We bought it, you know; brought all our own things.”

  “Then the electric clock above the door in the den is yours?”

  “The clock?” They all stared at him. “Why, of course. What has that—”

  “Hmm,” said Ellery. “That clock has a disappearing quality, like the Cheshire Cat—since we may as well continue being Carrollish, Miss Willowes.”

  “But what can the clock possibly have to do with Richard’s—being gone?” asked Mrs. Mansfield with asperity.

  Ellery shrugged. “Je n’ sais. The point is that a little after two this morning, being unable to sleep, I ambled downstairs to look for a book. In the dark I blundered to the door of the den, mistaking it for the library door. I opened it and looked in. But I saw nothing, you see.”

  “But how could you, Mr. Queen?” said Mrs. Gardner in a small voice; her breasts heaved. “If it was dark—”

  “That’s the curious part of it,” drawled Ellery. “I should have seen something because it was so dark, Mrs. Gardner.”

  “But—”

  “The clock over the door.”

  “Did you go in?” murmured Emmy Willowes, frowning. “I can’t say I understand. The clock’s above the door, isn’t it?”

  “There is a mirror facing the door,” explained Ellery absently, “and the fact that it was so dark makes my seeing nothing quite remarkable. Because that clock has luminous hands and numerals. Consequently I should have seen their reflected glow very clearly indeed in that pitchdarkness. But I didn’t, you see. I saw literally nothing at all.”

  They were silent, bewildered. Then Gardner muttered: “I still don’t see—You mean something, somebody was standing in front of the mirror, obscuring the reflection of the clock?”

  “Oh, no. The clock’s above the door—a good seven feet or more from the floor. The mirror reaches to the ceiling. There isn’t a piece of furniture in that room seven feet high, and certainly we may dismiss the possibility of an intruder seven feet or more tall. No, no, Gardner. It does seem as if the clock wasn’t above the door at all when I looked in.”

  “Are you sure, young man,” snapped Mrs. Mansfield, “that you know what you’re talking about? I thought we were concerned with my son-in-law’s absence. And how on earth could the clock not have been there?”

  Ellery closed his eyes. “Fundamental. It was moved from its position. Wasn’t above the door when I looked in. After I left, it was returned.”

  “But why on earth,” murmured the actress, “should any one want to move a mere clock from a wall, Mr. Queen? That’s almost as nonsensical as some of the things in Alice.”

  “That,” said Ellery, “is the question I’m propounding to myself. Frankly I don’t know.” Then he opened his eyes. “By the way, has any one seen the Mad Hatter’s hat?”

  Mrs. Owen shivered. “No, that—that’s gone, too.”

  “You’ve looked for it?”

  “Yes. Would you like to look yours—”

  “No, no, I’ll take your word for it, Mrs. Owen. Oh, yes. Your husband has no enemies?” He smiled. “That’s the routine question, Miss Willowes. I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything startling in the way of technique.”

  “Enemies? Oh, I’m sure not,” quavered Mrs. Owen. “Richard was—is strong and—and sometimes rather curt and contemptuous, but I’m sure no one would hate him enough to—to kill him.” She shivered again and drew the silk of her négligé closer about her plump shoulders.

  “Don’t say that, Laura,” said Mrs. Mansfield sharply. “I do declare, you people are like children! It probably has the simplest explanation.”

  “Quite possible,” said Ellery in a cheerful voice. “It’s the depressing weather, I suppose….There! I believe the rain’s stopped.” They dully looked out the windows. The rain had perversely ceased, and the sky was growing brighter. “Of course,” continued Ellery, “there are certain possibilities. It’s conceivable—I say conceivable, Mrs. Owen—that your husband has been…well, kidnaped. Now, now, don’t look so frightened. It’s a theory only. The fact that he has disappeared in the costume does seem to point to a very abrupt—and therefore possibly enforced—departure. You haven’t found a note of some kind? Nothing in your letter-box? The morning mail—”

  “Kidnaped,” whispered Mrs. Owen feebly.

  “Kidnaped?” breathed Mrs. Gardner, and bit her lip. But there was a brightness in her eye, like the brightness of the sky outdoors.

  “No note, no mail,” snapped Mrs. Mansfield. “Personally, I think this is ridiculous. Laura, this is your house, but I think I have a duty….You should do one of two things. Either take this seriously and telephone the regular police, or forget all about it. I’m inclined to believe Richard got befuddled—he had a lot to drink last night, dear—and wandered off drunk somewhere. He’s probably sleeping it off in a field somewhere and won’t come back with anything worse than a bad cold.”

  “Excellent suggestion,” drawled Ellery. “All except for the summoning of the regular police, Mrs. Mansfield. I assure you I possess—er—ex officio qualifications. Let’s not call the police and say we did. If there’s any explaining to do—afterward—I’ll do it. Meanwhile, I suggest we try to forget all this unpleasantness and wait. If Mr. Owen hasn’t returned by nightfall, we can go into conference and decide what measures to take. Agreed?”

  “Sounds reasonable,” said Gardner disconsolately. “May I—” he smiled and shrugged—“this is exciting!—telephone my office, Queen?”

  “Lord, yes.”

  Mrs. Owen shrieked suddenly, rising and tottering toward the stairs. “Jonathan’s birthday party! I forgot all about it! And all those children invited—What will I say?”

  “I suggest,” said Ellery in a sad voice, “that Master Jonathan is indisposed, Mrs. Owen. Harsh, but necessary. You might ’phone all the potential spectators of the mad tea-party and voice your regrets.” And Ellery rose and wandered into the library.

  It was a depressing day for all the lightening skies and the crisp sun. The morning wore on and nothing whatever happened. Mrs. Mansfield firmly tucked her daughter into bed, made her swallow a small dose of luminol from a big bottle in the medicine-chest, and remained with her until she dropped off to exhausted sleep. Then the old lady telephoned to all and sundry the collective Owen regrets over the unfortunate turn of events. Jonathan would have to run a fever when…Master Jonathan, apprised later by his grandmother of the débâcle, sent up an ululating howl of surprisingly healthy anguish that caused Ellery, poking about downstairs in the library, to feel prickles slither up and down his spine. It took the combined labors of Mrs. Mansfield, Millan, the maid, and the cook to pacify the Owen hope. A five-dollar bill ultimately restored a rather strained entente….Emmy Willowes spent the day serenely in reading. The Gardners listlessly played two-handed bridge.

  Luncheon was a dismal affair. No one spoke in more than monosyllables, and the strained atmosphere grew positively taut.

  During the afternoon they wandered about, restless ghosts. Even the actress began to show signs of tension: she consumed innumerable cigarets and cocktails and lapsed into almost sullen silence. No word came; the telephone rang only once, and then it was merely the local confectioner protesting the cancellation of the ice-cream order. Ellery spent most of the afternoon in mysterious activity in the library and den. What he was looking for remained his secret. At five o’clock he emerged from the den, rather gray of face. There was a deep crease between his brows. He went out onto the porch and leaned against a pillar, sunk in thought. The gravel was dry; the sun had quickly sopped up the rain. When he went back into the house it was already dusk and growing darker each moment with the swiftness of the country nightfall.

  There was no one about; the house was quiet, its miserable occupants having retired to their rooms. Ellery sought a chair. He buried his face in his hands and thought for long minutes, completely still.

  And then at last something happened to his face and he went to the foot of the stairs and listened. No sound. He tiptoed back, reached for the telephone, and spent the next fifteen minutes in low-voiced, earnest conversation with some one in New York. When he had finished, he went upstairs to his room.

  An hour later, while the others were downstairs gathering for dinner, he slipped down the rear stairway and out of the house unobserved even by the cook in the kitchen. He spent some time in the thick darkness of the grounds.

  How it happened Ellery never knew. He felt its effects soon after dinner; and on retrospection he recalled that the others, too, had seemed drowsy at approximately the same time. It was a late dinner and a cold one, Owen’s disappearance apparently having disrupted the culinary organization as well; so that it was not until a little after eight that the coffee—Ellery was certain later it had been the coffee—was served by the trim-legged maid. The drowsiness came on less than half an hour later. They were seated in the living room, chatting dully about nothing at all. Mrs. Owen, pale and silent, had gulped her coffee thirstily; had called for a second cup, in fact. Only Mrs. Mansfield had been belligerent. She had been definitely of a mind, it appeared, to telephone the police. She had great faith in the local constabulary of Long Island, particularly in one Chief Naughton, the local prefect; and she left no doubt in Ellery’s mind of his incompetency. Gardner had been restless and a little, rebellious; he had tinkered with the piano in the alcove. Emmy Willowes had drawn herself into a slant-eyed shell, no longer amused and very, very quiet. Mrs. Gardner had been nervous. Jonathan, packed off screaming to bed….

  It came over their senses like a soft insidious blanket of snow. Just a pleasant sleepiness. The room was warm, too, and Ellery rather hazily felt beads of perspiration on his forehead. He was half-gone before his dulled brain sounded a warning note. And then, trying in panic to rise; to use his muscles, he felt himself slipping, slipping into unconsciousness, his body as leaden and remote as Vega. His last conscious thought, as the room whirled dizzily before his eyes and he saw blearily the expressions of his companions, was that they had all been drugged….

  The dizziness seemed merely to have taken up where it had left off, almost without hiatus. Specks danced before his closed eyes and somebody was hammering petulantly at his temples. Then he opened his eyes and saw glittering sun fixed upon the floor at his feet. Good God, all night….

  He sat up groaning and feeling his head. The others were sprawled in various attitudes of labored-breathing coma about him—without exception. Some one—his aching brain took it in dully; it was Emmy Willowes—stirred and sighed. He got to his feet and stumbled toward a portable bar and poured himself a stiff, nasty drink of Scotch. Then, with his throat burning, he felt unaccountably better; and he went to the actress and pummeled her gently until she opened her eyes and gave him a sick, dazed, troubled look.

  “What—when—”

  “Drugged,” croaked Ellery. “The crew of us. Try to revive these people, Miss Willowes, while I scout about a bit. And see if any one’s shamming.”

  He wove his way a little uncertainly, but with purpose, toward the rear of the house. Groping, he found the kitchen. And there were the trim-legged maid and Millan and the cook unconscious in chairs about the kitchen table over cold cups of coffee. He made his way back to the living room, nodded at Miss Willowes working over Gardner at the piano, and staggered upstairs. He discovered Master Jonathan’s bedroom after a short search; the boy was still sleeping—a deep natural sleep punctuated by nasal snuffles. Lord, he did snuffle! Groaning, Ellery visited the lavatory adjoining the master-bedroom. After a little while he went downstairs and into the den. He came out almost at once, haggard and wild-eyed. He took his hat from the foyer-closet and hurried outdoors into the warm sunshine. He spent fifteen minutes poking about the grounds; the Owen house was shallowly surrounded by timber and seemed isolated as a Western ranch….When he returned to the house, looking grim and disappointed, the others were all conscious, making mewing little sounds and holding their heads like scared children.

  “Queen, for God’s sake,” began Gardner hoarsely.

  “Whoever it was used that luminol in the lavatory upstairs,” said Ellery, flinging his hat away and wincing at a sudden pain in his head. “The stuff Mrs. Mansfield gave Mrs. Owen yesterday to make her sleep. Except that almost the whole of that large bottle was used. Swell sleeping draught! Make yourselves comfortable while I conduct a little investigation in the kitchen. I think it was the java.” But when he returned he was grimacing. “No luck. Madame la Cuisinière, it seems, had to visit the bathroom at one period; Millan was out in the garage looking at the cars; and the maid was off somewhere, doubtless primping. Result: our friend the luminolist had an opportunity to pour most of the powder from the bottle into the coffeepot. Damn!”

  “I am going to call the police!” cried Mrs. Mansfield hysterically, striving to rise. “We’ll be murdered in our beds, next thing we know! Laura, I positively insist—”

  “Please, please, Mrs. Mansfield,” said, Ellery wearily. “No heroics. And you would be of greater service if you went into the kitchen and checked the insurrection that’s brewing there. The two females are on the verge of packing, I’ll swear.”

  Mrs. Mansfield bit her lip and flounced off. They heard her no longer sweet voice raised in remonstrance a moment later.

  “But, Queen,” protested Gardner, “we can’t go unprotected—”

  “What I want to know in my infantile way,” drawled Emmy Willowes from pale lips, “is who did it, and why. That bottle upstairs…It looks unconscionably like one of us, doesn’t it?”

  Mrs. Gardner gave a little shriek. Mrs. Owen sank back into her chair.

  “One of us?” whispered the red-haired woman.

  Ellery smiled without humor. Then his smile faded and he cocked his head toward the foyer. “What was that?” he snapped suddenly.

  They turned, terror-stricken, and looked. But there was nothing to see. Ellery strode toward the front door.

  “What is it now, for heaven’s sake?” faltered Mrs. Owen.