Mercer, who would not be particularly disturbed by the news that a number of strangers had met with an appalling accident on a railway station, so long as it took place twenty miles out of his sight.
Campion bent forward, his head in his hands. His mind had become very clear. He had the illusion of thinking very slowly.
Mercer had taken an overdose of quinine immediately after hearing on the 8:45 news bulletin the news of the disaster at Boarbridge. He had then developed, or said he had developed, severe cinchonism, which was a peculiar condition inasmuch as any doctor consulted had only the patient’s word for the symptoms experienced—blindness, shakiness, headache, congestion of the middle ear. All these things could be simulated very easily by a man who was afraid his nerves might give
