Death-Watch (35 page)

“Then I was forced to play my last, dangerous, possibly deadly card. I was forced to go to Stanley, the only person Boscombe feared. I had to tell him everything, to concoct this plan with him, and go to the wild extreme of asking a madman to pretend he was mad! I knew he would do it. I knew if he did do it, and we succeeded, you and your department would be out of the whole mess. The great danger was that the man, while agreeing, really would go off his rocker completely and try to get at Boscombe with real bullets … Well, my hair is greyer tonight. I supplied him with the blanks for the gun he produced; I kept it with me, offering excuses, while I drove him to Carver’s house—he really arrived with me, you know. Then I took the two policemen into my confidence, rang up the curtain on my show, and nearly turned
your
hair grey. It was a long shot, it was possibly foolish, it was the worst nerve-strain I ever went through when I cracked my whip in the face of a real madman pretending madness …

“But—” He drew a long breath.

The
Daily Trumpeter
said: “Again has been signally demonstrated the efficiency of the law’s guardians, even those who have no longer a connection with the institution they reverence in retirement. Only in Britain, we may proudly boast, could such a thing—”

Dr. Fell said: “Well, dammit! It was the only possible way to save all their faces. Have another glass of beer.”

John Dickson Carr (1906–1977) was one of the most popular authors of Golden Age British-style detective novels. Born in Pennsylvania and the son of a US congressman, Carr graduated from Haverford College in 1929. Soon thereafter, he moved to England where he married an Englishwoman and began his mystery-writing career. In 1948, he returned to the US as an internationally known author. Carr received the Mystery Writers of America’s highest honor, the Grand Master Award, and was one of the few Americans ever admitted into the prestigious, but almost exclusively British, Detection Club.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright© 1935, 1963 by John Dickson Carr

Cover design by Jason Gabbert

978-1-4804-7237-2

This edition published in 2014 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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