II
I tried to ring Lejeune next morning—but failed. However, after somedifficulty I managed to get through to Jim Corrigan.
“What about that psychological pipsqueak you brought along to see me,Corrigan? What does he say about Ginger¹?”
“A lot of long words. But I rather think, Mark, that he’s truly baffled.
And you know, people do get pneumonia². There’s nothing mysterious orout of the way about that.”
“Yes,” I said. “And several people we know of, whose names were on acertain list, have died of bronchopneumonia, gastroenteritis, bulbar para-lysis, tumour³ on the brain, epilepsy, paratyphoid and other well-authentic-ated diseases.”
“I know how you feel… But what can we do?”
“She’s worse, isn’t she?” I asked.
“Well—yes…”
“Then something’s got to be done.”
“Such as?”
“I’ve got one or two ideas. Going down to Much Deeping, getting hold ofThyrza Grey and forcing her, by scaring the living daylights out of her, toreverse the spell or whatever it is—”
“Well—that might work.”
“Or—I might go to Venables—”
Corrigan said sharply:
“Venables? But he’s out. How can he possibly have any connection withit? He’s a cripple.”
“I wonder. I might go there and snatch off that rug affair and see if thisatrophied limbs business is true or false!”
“We’ve looked into all that—”
“Wait. I ran into that little chemist chap, Osborne, down in Much Deep-ing. I want to repeat to you what he suggested to me.”
I outlined to him Osborne’s theory of impersonation.
“That man’s got a bee in his bonnet,” said Corrigan. “He’s the kind ofman who has always got to be right.”
“But Corrigan, tell me, couldn’t it be as he said? It’s possible, isn’t it?”
After a moment or two Corrigan said slowly,
“Yes. I have to admit it’s possible… But several people would have to bein the know—and would have to be paid very heavily for holding theirtongues.”
“What of that? He’s rolling in money, isn’t he? Has Lejeune found outyet how he’s made all that money?”
“No. Not exactly… I’ll admit this to you. There’s something wrong aboutthe fellow. He’s got a past of some kind. The money’s all very cleverly ac-counted for, in a lot of ways. It isn’t possible to check up on it all withoutan

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