Ballard was quite dead. There could be no doubt of it. He lay sprawled in front of Edith, with his head very messily bashed in and with one hand still extended toward her. A long shimmering stream of blood ran half-way across the large room. Dr. Dudley Ballard had been as inconsiderate in his dying as he had been in his living. Art MacKinney and I stood in the doorway and stared. We were shocked not so much by the fact that Ballard was dead as by the fact that he lay in this most secret room, th