About this story
Locked out of Hyde Park after midnight, you climb the railings, take a doctor's new draught, and fall asleep beneath a shrub — waking to a gunshot, a warm revolver strapped to your wrist, and a body on the grass. The stranger who catches you, Dr. Baumgartner, takes you in for breakfast and a camera he claims can photograph more than bodies, the gunshot still unexplained.
How it opens
A postcard informed you that the family friend meant to house you in London had chicken-pox.
Mr. SpearmanSee Dr. Bompas, take the evening train back, and report here tonight.
Your asthma appointments normally included an overnight trial of whatever remedy the specialist prescribed.
I can stay with the Knaggs family or Miss Harbottle if the doctor keeps me late.
Mr. SpearmanYou may try them, but return at once if neither invitation is certain.
Dr. BompasTheir smoke obscures whether my new draught has any effect.