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was bullied into relating one or two of his experiences.
    The decanter circulated for the third time.
    Mr Todhunter allowed the discussion to drop. Any further attempts to keep it going would, he felt, look suspicious. In any case he had learned what he wanted to know.
    For Mr Todhunter had been told by his doctor a week ago that he could not possibly live for more than a few months; and he had called together this carefully chosen group of assorted persons to advise him, all unwittingly, what to do with the time that remained to him.
    And greatly to Mr Todhunter’s surprise, it appeared that he had been advised, with remarkable unanimity, to commit a murder.

PART I
    Picaresque
    MR TODHUNTER IN
SEARCH OF A VICTIM

CHAPTER I
    When Mr Lawrence Todhunter learned from his doctor that he was suffering from an aortic aneurism and must not expect to live for more than a few months, his first feeling had been one of incredulity.
    â€œWell, how old are you?” asked the doctor, seeing his unbelief.
    â€œFifty-one,” said Mr Todhunter, buttoning his shirt again over his bony chest.
    â€œExactly. And you’ve never been very fit.”
    â€œOf late years,” agreed Mr Todhunter solemnly, “no, certainly not.”
    The doctor swung his stethoscope. “Well, what can you expect? Your blood pressure’s been too high for years. If you hadn’t followed my directions so carefully, you’d have been dead long ago.” The doctor, an old friend, spoke with what seemed to Mr Todhunter unseemly callousness.
    He produced what was intended for a cynical laugh but which sounded to his own ears more like a cackle of rather cheap bravado. “Yes, but to be told that one can’t last longer than a few months . . . I mean, it’s a situation that seems to belong to romantic fiction rather than real life.”
    â€œIt happens often enough in real life,” returned the doctor drily. “After all, there are plenty of incurable diseases, apart from the kind of thing that you’re suffering from. And there’s always cancer. The body must give out sooner or later. It’s an exceedingly complicated mechanism, you know. The wonder is that all its parts continue to function as long as they do.”
    â€œYou seem to regard death very lightly,” observed Mr Todhunter not without resentment; and by “death” he meant “my death.”
    â€œI do,” retorted the doctor with a little smile.
    â€œEh?” For a moment Mr Todhunter was quite taken aback that anyone could regard death lightly, and in particular his own death.
    â€œI said, I do. No, no, I’m not a religious man. At least, not religious in any orthodox way. I just happen to believe quite firmly in survival.”
    â€œOh!” said Mr Todhunter, somewhat blankly.
    â€œI also believe that this present life on the physical plane is a damned nuisance; and the sooner we’re out of it the better. To ask for sympathy for a dying man seems to me tantamount to asking sympathy for a man coming out of prison into freedom.”
    â€œThe deuce it does,” remarked Mr Todhunter, staring. “I must say, for a man who likes good claret as much as you do, that sounds a bit thick.”
    â€œA prisoner must have his consolations. Sympathy,” continued the doctor, warming to his subject, “on behalf of those left behind in prison, yes. They have a personal loss; though their feeling ought to be one of envy rather than grief. But in your case, my dear fellow, even that is absent. You have no wife, no children, not even any close relatives. You’re extremely lucky. You can walk out of prison with an untroubled mind.”
    Mr Todhunter, who did not consider himself at all lucky, grunted a little angrily.
    â€œHowever,” relented the doctor, “if you don’t see it that way, I suppose we must try to keep you in prison as long as we can; though I must say I wish I had your