Death of the Toad

by William McMurray

CHAPTER FOUR

  When Janet returned to her lab Doug had completed his weekend labours and departed, but signs of his activity were evident. She checked her cell cultures and found to her relief that Doug had performed his duties and all was normal. The cells were being maintained in a healthy resting condition. Next day she would release them from their suspended state with a feed of growth factors in her continuing quest to define the conditions for triggering cell-division. She frowned as she noted the cascade of dirty glassware overflowing the sink-boards. Try as she might she could not impress upon Doug that Julia was her assistant and not his washerup. She anticipated a hot row in the morning when Julia saw the mess, but was in no mood to avert it by pushing the pile of dishes to one side.

  In the office there were three phone messages on her desk: one was from Kay inviting her for Sunday dinner on her return; the other two were from Jerry with a number for her to call. After going over her schedule for the next morning and checking on a couple of the solutions she would need in order to continue the experiment, Janet phoned to accept her dinner invitation.

  "Come along by five and we'll have a pre-dinner drink. I've also invited Professor and Mrs. Halinka. I thought we might delve into our mutual problem."

  Kay was obviously using her connections in the Chemistry Department to explore their 'mutual problem' of the Pinkney family. Janet paused momentarily before dialling the number left by Jerry. She was not looking forward to a confrontation with him, yet she knew that she would not be satisfied until she had made some attempt to resolve the situation, if nothing else to set Jerry's mind at rest. He had always been an imaginative, paranoid character. The strain of events surrounding his father's death had undoubtedly intensified these imaginings and paranoia. Now if she could think of a quiet place where they-

  The telephone jangled her out of her reverie. At times such as this she regretted that she had turned up the volume of the ring, but it was the only way that she could be sure to hear it from the cell-culture area at the other end of the lab.

  "Janet?" Jeremy Pinkney's voice sounded distressed and hurt. "Didn't you get my message? Can we get together today? I've got to talk to you." He seemed breathless and desperate.

  Janet tried to explain that she had just returned, and had numerous things to do. Meanwhile her mind was racing ahead to Monday. If she made the cell transfers first thing in the morning she could analyse the two- and four-hour samples, and would have an hour and a half clear until the six-hour samples were due.

  "Jerry, I'm sorry but I'm totally tied up until noon tomorrow. Could we meet then at the Waterhole?"

  There was a faint grumbling on the other end of the line, but eventually he agreed to this suggestion.

  Janet got home with a few minutes to spare before five o'clock and arrival of the other guests. She slipped quickly up the stairs and was in the act of making herself presentable when the doorbell rang. By the time she came back down Kay and her company were sitting out on the porch. Professor Halinka arose as she joined them.

  "We need no introduction do we Dr. Gordon?" he said stretching his hand out toward her, Janet was taken aback. It had been several years since she had taken his toxicology course as an undergraduate.

  "You see," explained his wife with a smile, "Klaus has a remarkable memory about his students. Even in the big classes of several hundreds he knows most by their first names, especially the girls."

  Her laugh which followed was tinkling and kindly. She might very well be mousy in outward appearance as Margaret had implied, but there was gentle warmth in her manner. Kay and the Professor went to prepare the drinks while Janet chatted with Mrs. Halinka. It was obvious that she idolized her husband, catering to his needs and whims, as she was reported to have done for the late Principal.

  "Klaus works so hard- well I don't need to tell you Dr. Gordon, all you scientists work very hard- but I must get him to slow down, especially after what happened to poor Dr. Pinkney.

  The job killed him you know. I should have seen it coming," she went on. "Of course it wasn't just the amount of work (though I often found it necessary to stay late or go out to his house in the evenings to help get through it all). He was so dedicated, and under a lot of stress lately. There were several other times when he took a turn just like he did at the convocation. I would try to get him to rest, like I try with Klaus to take a nap before he goes back to the lab after supper."

  Klaus Halinka had entered the porch with a tray of glasses and scowled at his wife. Janet reflected that the well-meaning solicitations of Mrs. Halinka might rather have added to the Principal's stresses as they seemed to with her husband.

  "Janet was in the same class as Jeremy Pinkney you know," Kay interjected.

  "I'd not be likely to forget him as a student in my class," Professor Halinka nodded emphatically.

  "Beside the girls Klaus always remembers the very good and the very bad ones," explained his wife. "Poor Jerry," she went on "I used to try and buck him up, get him started. That's what he needed. He had ability, but lacked the drive."

  She chattered on about Jerry and his encounters with his father, and the many ways in which they seemed to have disappointed one another.

  "His father had little time for him, which was a great shame, with all the wonderful successes he had in his life, in science and administration. He could have passed so much on to Jerry. I tried to get them together, but of course a man in that job has so many demands. He expected too much of the boy. But I couldn't bring either one of them to understand the other's point of view."

  Mrs. Halinka had tried to play the role of mother for all these men, her husband, her boss and Jerry. Perhaps she made up in warmth what the Principal's widow seemed to lack.

  "I daresay he'll give small comfort to his mother," the Professor broke in harshly.

  "What will the poor lady do?" asked Kay.

  "I gather that the University will let her stay on a while in the house," answered the Professor.

  "Oh yes," continued his wife, "but from what she told me she intends to go home fairly soon."

  "Her home was in Europe originally?" enquired Kay.

  "Scandinavia, I believe," replied Mrs. Halinka, "though she got most of her schooling in Britain. Dr. Pinkney met her while he was over on a visiting fellowship. He must have met your Professor Antwhistle around the same time. He was responsible eventually for attracting him over here as Head of Biology."

  All of which could explain their mutual connection with Hilda, thought Janet; she and Joshua Pinkney and John Antwhistle forming the age-old triangle, with the Principal taking the spoils: wife, top job, and the bonus of having the best man to head up one of his key departments. But if as she surmised the Professor had been the losing rival why had he agreed to follow along across the ocean in the trail of the winner? Janet was roused from her reflections by the others rising to go into the house for dinner. Possibly she would get some enlightenment on this strange relationship next day when she talked to Jerry.

  The next day turned out to be something of a nightmare. Despite an early start in the lab, things piled up on Janet like the dirty glassware still lingering on the sink-boards. It began with a call from Julia that she was sick, there was no sign of Doug to clear up the mess, and to top it all off, the antique centrifuge which the Professor had loaned her had packed it in again. Janet thought grimly as she trundled her samples down to Frank Butler's lab at the end of the hall that her grant renewal had better provide for a dishwasher and a new centrifuge or her research productivity would grind to a halt.

  While she was waiting for her cells to sediment in his centrifuge Frank came over to talk.

  "You look as if you just survived a lost weekend! Did the old boy dump you out in the middle of the lake?"

  Janet unloaded her litany of Monday morning woes on Frank, realizing that the breakdown of her centrifuge doubtless had been a blessing in disguise. The sympathetic ear of Frank Butler always had a leavening effect upon troubled colleagues
and graduate students. By the time that she had returned to her lab Janet was humming to herself. Despite the hold-ups her experiment was now going well and what else in the world mattered? Moreover, Doug had come in and was up to his elbows in suds tackling the dishes. There was a phone message from Julia that she was feeling much better, and would probably be back after lunch, so Janet could leave her experiment in capable hands.

  In fact it was a bit before noon when Julia arrived and Janet handed over the four-hour cell samples for her to process. By the time that she had pedalled her bike down the hill and along the river road to the Waterhole Janet was in a buoyant mood even though she was thirty minutes late for her meeting with Jerry. It was uncharacteristic for Janet to keep anyone waiting, but perhaps on this occasion it would be better to let Jerry cool his heels, and his head, before they talked. Janet locked her bike to the rack and walked around to the front of the pub.

  The Waterhole, as its name suggested, overlooked a widened part of the Essex River and had become a traditional student gathering-place over the years for boating and imbibing. At this time of year, just prior to opening of summer session, there were no undergraduates about and the outdoor tables were sparsely populated with graduate students and research fellows who were not included under the rubric of the Faculty Club up on the campus proper. A few non-conforming faculty members also preferred the less formal atmosphere of the pub, and one of these whom Janet recognized as a vociferous public spokesman on chemical waste-disposal had cornered Jerry at a distant table near the trees that fringed the inn-yard. Jerry spotted Janet and waved her over to the table.

  "Bob Windham - Janet Gordon." Both men got up, and after a few words of chatter Windham excused himself and moved to a table of graduate students where he continued his campaign against sewage effluents in general and those discharging into River Essex in particular.

  "Remarkable fellow that," said Jerry admiringly, "though not a great favourite of my deceased parent. Tried unsuccessfully for years to have him muzzled, especially when he commenced publicizing some dubious methods of waste disposal by the University. Did you know, for-instance, that until recently there were some chemical wastes, even radioactive ones, being dumped directly into the river? That is until Bob found out and blew the whistle on them. Tough on father having to cover up for his old cronies in the Chemistry Department ,eh?"

  Jerry seemed in decidedly better spirits than he had sounded over the phone the day before. His eyes sparkled mischievously and he punctuated his account with chuckles. Janet noted a large, and almost empty, tankard of ale, and wondered just how long he had been waiting for her. When he attempted to reorder for both of them Janet insisted on two servings of shepherd's pie to accompany the beer.

  "Before you say anything more about suspicions of poisoning as a factor in your father's death, I think there are a few things you ought to know," Janet began, and she told Jeremy of her conversation the previous night with Mrs. Halinka.

  "And so you see," she concluded, "if these seizures and other symptoms were due to some poison it is quite possible it was something he had been exposed to at work. He had several similar attacks on campus, a long time after leaving the house, and often immediately following some meal or reception at the University. It's my opinion Jerry, that there could have been something up there, food or drink, which was responsible."

  "That's just what mother and I concluded last night," said Jerry. In contrast with his earlier mood of near panic Jerry seemed calm and thoroughly rational as he recounted his discussion with Hilda Pinkney. Janet nodded thoughtfully and plowed through her dish of shepherd's pie, putting in the occasional question about the meeting of mother and son.

  "And so you both concluded that the so-called poisoning was merely a prank?"

  "I suppose you could call it that. A vengeful person working off his spite against father. Whatever was given to him- and it may have been administered repeatedly over a long stretch of time- was just enough of something nasty to make him feel wretched and put him out of commission. Sort of an embarrassment, possibly designed to produce rumours that he was over-indulging, and make people believe he was not too reliable."

  Janet pondered the last remark. If someone in the University community had wanted to prevent approval of a new term for the Principal it would be an effective ploy to raise questions about his sobriety. The coincidence of a nauseous dose of some drug together with an occasion where alcohol was being served could render an impression of over-indulgence.

  "There is some logic to your analysis," Janet replied, "but you realize it raises other questions about who had the opportunity and the motive."

  "Well ,it could be any one of a number of people on staff who fancied they were maltreated. Maybe someone who wanted his job. Anyway, it lets me off the hook because I hardly even saw the old boy after I moved out. And besides," he joked, "I never was much good at poisons! I failed that terrible man, Halinka' s Pharmacology course and when Professor Antwhistle questioned me about toxic chemicals on my final oral I couldn’t even tell him the difference between strychnine and arsenic poisoning."

  But what, thought Janet reluctantly, of a man like Professor Antwhistle himself, who could have had access to all sorts of. University functions, and who would certainly have a fair idea of which-non-fatal drugs could be used to produce the desired reaction. She hesitated to implicate her mentor by asking Jerry the obvious question about the relations of the past between his mother and the Professor.

  "What then do you or your mother plan to do about all this?" she asked. "Because if you have not already discussed this with the doctor, don't you think you should? Perhaps traces of the drug are still detectable."

  "Mother wants to avoid any unnecessary scandal. The whole matter's pretty academic isn't it (if you'll pardon the pun)? Probably had nothing whatsoever to do with his death anyway.."

  Janet was silent for a minute or two as Jerry finished his ale and they watched a noisy group of canoers floating down the river. She herself could hardly go to the doctor or to the police on such flimsy suspicions without the family's support. It was really no business of hers in any case. The family had resolved their differences and accepted the natural cause of death that would doubtless be the official version. And yet, there was still something gnawing at her sense of security, a persistent worm that eroded her trust in the man who had played a major role in her scientific upbringing.

  Janet made her farewells to Jerry with a tacit understanding to keep their conversation confidential. As she cycled back to the lab Janet turned her thoughts deliberately to her experiment and the next stages in its analysis. She should be able to schedule a cross-country jog in between the next set of samples, and that would give her the chance to meditate on the unanswered questions. Whatever the fitness benefits running may have brought to her, Janet knew that she had most of her better ideas while out pounding the trails on her own.

  Sited upon a small promontory, the McKay residence commanded a view of the bordering flood plain of the River Essex, with the University campus rising up the opposite bank. The light of a dying sun was brightly reflecting from the windows of the house as Janet slowly pumped her bicycle up from the river path. When she entered the front hall the contrast of the interior gloom with the brilliant sunset outdoors stopped her in her tracks. A solitary Tiffany-shaded lamp cast a dim circle of illumination on the hall-table. Janet picked up the note in her landlady's firm hand-writing.

  "Gone to Doctor's"

  Janet puzzled over this as she dumped her back-pack on the desk in her room. Kay had made no complaints about her health and seemed in fine fettle the previous evening at the dinner party. Perhaps it was some sort of regular check-up or consultation about a prescription. Janet sat down at her desk and sorted through reprints of some recent articles on cellular-growth factors, while the customary croaking chorus of frogs tuned up for the evening concert from the flood-plain below her window.

  The performance was in full voice and
the last glint of reflection from the western sky in the watery meadow was flickering away as the front door slammed shut. Janet put down her reading and came downstairs by the old servants' back-passage that led directly into the kitchen. Kay was standing by the sink filling the tea-kettle.

  "Is everything all right?" asked Janet anxiously.

  "Sorry if I alarmed you with the note. I left in rather a hurry and couldn't explain. Tea?"

  Janet nodded and followed her into the library carrying the laden tea-tray. Besides the tea Kay had provisioned the tray with her homemade tarts and cookies.

  "I suppose you haven't stopped for dinner today," Kay-asserted accusingly.

  "Shepherd's pie and ale," responded Janet quickly, and she gave an account of her lunch-time meeting with Jerry.

  "Now, tell me what took you off to the doctor's," she demanded.

  "Subterfuge," replied Kay, "pure, unadulterated subterfuge. You see, I had hoped to get more information last night from Klaus Halinka about possible poisons and their effects but he was quite unhelpful. According to him it wouId more likely have been the cafeteria food that turned the Principal's stomach, or some gastrointestinal disease. In any case his wife gave me more clues than he, describing the recurring symptoms and so forth," and she passed the trayful of goodies to Janet, "So," she continued, "I simply passed myself off as a patient to Dr. Tower," and she grinned mischievously.

  "Of course, I had to explain that my regular doctor was away at a meeting (I doubt he'll check into that will he?). In any case I've known Bert Tower for years. He used to take out one of my p.g.'s so we got quite chummy at one time and he didn't seem all that busy this evening. Most of his practice is up on the campus during the day, so we had quite a good chat about my difficulties with food intolerances. He's of the opinion that I should give up blue cheese and red wine for a while, just in case," chortled Kay, "and chocolate, so you'll just have to finish these cookies yourself!"

  "And what did you conclude from all this medical masquerading?" asked Janet sceptically.”

  "That I should not take medications of the monoamine oxidase inhibitor category with the forementioned foods which contain tyramines, and the latter could precipitate vascular headache and nausea if I am the susceptible migraine type."

  "Well, those are certainly consistent with Dr. Pinkney’s symptoms," Janet responded thoughtfully.

  "What you're suggesting is either that he had an abnormal tendency to react to something in his diet-"

  “Like the migraine sufferer,” nodded Kay.

  "-or that some medication or drug was making him intolerant of something he would have normally tolerated."

  "Precisely," answered Kay triumphantly. "That way the poisoner would be very difficult to detect or link to the end-result. In fact, there is no evidence that the victim suspected anyone of attempting to tamper with his food or drink."

  "And so," concluded Janet, "anyone either at home or at work could have given him the drug-and later-"

  "Later it would act like a time-bomb, with no effect until the fuse was triggered by the incompatible food which he ate."

  "That might tie in with something Jerry said to me at lunch," said Janet, and she related the theory that a prankster may have tried to render the impression that the Principal was an intemperate consumer by contriving to have him fail at functions where alcohol was being served.

  "Someone who harboured a grudge over some unfavourable administrative decision, or someone who had an interest in seeing that he wasn't appointed for a second term," Kay added,

  "I suppose the real question is whether this so-called prank was consistent with the cause of death," said Janet, "and whether the perpetrator had really foreseen the final result of his prank. This may have been a joke that back-fired on the joker! "

  "Not if he has covered his trail sufficiently. As you said this could be a pretty hard case to prove," said Kay as she polished off the last brownie on the plate. "We'll see if Dr. Tower had the right lead on my problems. I really felt a little guilty taking him in like that," and she collected the tea things and gave the tray to Janet to take to the kitchen.

  After washing up Janet returned to her room. She put away her books, shut out the light and crawled wearily to bed. The froggy symphony continued unabated under a sparkling starry sky. Frogs and toads, she thought to herself as she drifted off with fleeting visions of superimposed events? Dr. Tower prescribing diets for Kay McKay; Dr. Pinkney sipping sherry with colleagues in the Faculty Lounge and sliding off his chair; Dr. Halinka lecturing on drug-induced diseases; Professor Antwhistle serving her cocktails from a large dispenser. The images were chasing each other about in her drowsy brain like the horses on a merry-go-round, when she snapped suddenly into wakefulness.

  "Antabuse!" she exclaimed aloud, then settled back on her pillow wondering why it had taken so long to occur to her.