p-walkers, like dead things! Look."

He gently pulled Weems' arm down.

Slowly, it raised again till the champagne glass was near his lips.
Meanwhile the man's eyes did not even blink. He was as oblivious of the
touch as if really dead.

"Horrible!" quavered Chichester. "Maybe it's some new kind of disease."

"I think not," said Keane, voice soft but bleak. He looked at a night
table, heaped with jewelry, handkerchiefs, wallets, small change. "That
collection?"

"The personal effects of these people," said Gest, wiping sweat from his
pale face.

Keane went to the pile, and sorted it over. He was struck at once by a
curious lack. He couldn't place it for an instant; then he did.

"Their watches!" he said. "Where are they?"

"Watches?" said Gest. "I don't know. Hadn't thought of it."

"There are ten people here," said Keane. "And only one watch! Normally
at least eight of them would have had them, including the women with
their jeweled trinkets. But there's only one.... Do you remember who
owned this, and where he wore it?"

He picked up the watch, a man's with no chain.

"That's Weems' watch. He had it in his trousers pocket."

"Odd place for it," said Keane. "I see it has stopped."

He wound the watch. But the little second hand did not move, and he
could only turn the winding-stem a little, proving that it had not run
down.

The hands said eleven thirty-one.

"That was the time Weems was--paralyzed?" said Keane.

Gest nodded. "Funny. His watch stopped just when he did!"

"Very funny," said Keane expressionlessly. "Send this to a jeweler right
away and have him find out what's wrong with it. Now, you say your
assistant manager was struck dead just as he said something about the
roulette wheel?"

"Yes," said Gest. "It was as though this Doctor Satan were right there
with us and killed him with a soundless bullet just before he could
talk."

Keane's eyes glittered.

"I'd like to look over the roulette room."

"The police are here," said Grays, turning from his phone.

Keane stared at Gest. "Keep them out of the roulette room for a few
minutes."

He strode out to the elevators....

* * * * *

His first concern, after locking himself into the room where nine people
had been stricken with something which, if it persisted, was worse than
any death, was the thing the assistant manager had mentioned before
death hit him. The roulette wheel.

He bent over this, wi