Page:The Viaduct Murder (1926).pdf/108

Mumfords lived, don't you know, and our old Bursar always insisted that he heard screams in the night when he slept there. I don't believe in these things myself, though; fancy can play such extraordinary tricks."

"But look here, we all noticed the difference," objected Marryatt.

"Well, there is such a thing as collective hallucination. Somebody tells us the face looks grave, and our imagination reads gravity into it; and then somebody says it's changed, and we can't see the gravity there any longer."

"That's it," said Reeves, who was pouring himself out a stiff whisky-and-soda. "It's collective hallucination. Must be."

It was characteristic of Gordon that, without expressing any opinion, he had been the only one of the four who quite liked to go up and touch the photograph. He held it now close under the light, and looked at it from different angles.

"I'm hanged if it doesn't look different," he said at last. "Sympathetic ink? No, that's nonsense. But it's a dashed rum thing, photography: I wonder if the heat of the room can have brought out some bit of shadow on the face that wasn't visible before?"

"A damp spot possibly," said Reeves, "which has faded out. It was rather close to the fire. Oh, what's the good of worrying? Let's all go to bed. I'm going to lock the thing up in the drawer here; and we can have another look at it in the morning. We're all over-excited."