While the estimable members of the Palliser household slept the sleep of easy consciences, Heberdon walked his room into the small hours, thinking, thinking. Under the combined stimuli of cocaine and hate, his brain was active enough, but somehow it did not seem to be able to round out conclusions. Before he worked out one plan a new one would crowd it out of his head. And everything he thought of required an accomplice.
He had no doubt but that there were other men who hated Alcorne no less than he did, but the question was how to lay his hands on one such at short notice. Morning came, and he had still not filled in the details of his plan.
In the old days, when Heberdon had been interested in crime in theory only, he had occasionally been tempted to write to the newspapers under an as
