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CANDAL
veil-lighted. I could see the fleshy form of frank Padgham silhouetted in the doorway. Apparently, he couldn't see enough of me to recognize me. All that he could see was an obong of blackness, with the vague, indistinct ines of a figure standing within reaching distance of him.
I'll never forget the way he jumped back, there was far more than the startled reaction yhich takes place when one encounters the unexpected. The man was absolutely terrorstricken.
| "Where's Mr. Foley, Mr. Padgham?" I asked. i He took two deep breaths before he was able jo answer me. Then he said, "Oh, it's you, Miss
. . Miss. . . ."
"Miss Bell," I supplemented.
"Oh, yes, Miss Bell," he said. ". . . You . . . ih . . . startled me. How did it . . . ah . . .
by ERLE STANLEY GARDNER
author of 'The Case of the Substitute Face," "The Case of the Howling Dog," etc.
happen that you answered the doorbell?"
For a moment I was irritated at him. There was something ponderous and patronizing in his manner, now that he had recovered from his fright. So I said, "Suppose you answer my question, and I'll answer yours."
"Oh yes, Mr. Foley . . . why, yes. Mr. Foley was . . . er . . . ah . . . detained. A matter of the greatest importance. That's why we were a little late keeping the appointment."
"These lights won't go on," I told him. "There's a switch out, or a fuse blown, or something."
"Indeed," he said, solicitously, and moved forward. "I'll have to investigate. You'd better stay close, Miss Bell. I wouldn't want to lose you in the . . . er . . . ah . . . darkness."
I could hear one of his hands scraping along the wall as he searched for the light switch, but
the other hand rested on my shoulder, then dropped down so that his arm was around my waist. I twisted out from what was about to develop into an embrace and said, "Hadn't you better take both hands, Mr. Padgham? I'll stay right behind you."
He found the light switch, then, and clicked it fruitlessly.
"I'm afraid," I told him, "there's something radically wrong here."
"You mean about the lights?"
"I mean something in the house," I said. "There's a dead man upstairs."
TOR what might have been four or five seconds, there was complete silence. He didn't move. I doubt if he even breathed. I was sorry that I couldn't see the expression on his face. Was he (Continued on page 72)
L U S T R ATE D BY JARIO COOPER