"A doctor who was called in," he said gravely to Doremus, "suggested that she might have died from one of the poisons in the belladonna group."
"Any third-year medical student would know that," Doremus returned. "Sure, it's belladonna poisoning. . . . Was this saw-bones here in time to catch her post-mortem rise in temperature?"
Vance nodded.
"He was here within ten minutes of her death."
"Well, there you are." Doremus put on his coat and carefully adjusted his hat on the side of his head. "All the indications: staring eyes, widely dilated pupils, pin-point rash, a jump in temperature, signs of convulsions and asphyxia. . . . Simple."
"Yes, yes--quite." Vance drew forth the bottle he had taken from the bathroom cabinet, and handed it to the Medical Examiner. "Could these tablets have been the cause of death?" he asked.
Doremus looked closely at the label and the printed formula.
"Regulation rhinitis tablets--household-remedy stuff." He held the bottle under the table light and squinted at it. "Powdered camphor," he read aloud; "fluid extract of belladonna root, a quarter minim; and quinin sulphate. . . . Certainly this could have done it--if enough of 'em were taken."
"The bottle's empty; and it contained a hundred tablets originally," Vance pointed out.
Doctor Doremus, still scrutinizing the label, nodded his head.
"A hundred times one-quarter of a minim would be twenty-five minims. . . . Enough belladonna to knock anybody cold." He handed the bottle back to Vance. "That's the answer. Why get me up in the middle of the night when you had all the dope?"
"Really, doctor," returned Vance quietly, "we're merely probin' around. I just found this empty bottle, d' ye see, and thought I'd advance it as a possibility."
"Looks all right to me." Doremus went to the door. "Only a post mortem'll answer your questions definitely."
Markham spoke up brusquely.
"That's just what we want, doctor. When is the soonest we can have the autopsy report?"
"Oh, Lord!" Doremus set his teeth. "And to-morrow's Sunday. This modern speed will kill me yet. . . . How would eleven o'clock tomorrow morning do?"
"That would be eminently satisfactory," Markham told him.
Doctor Doremus took a small pad from his pocket, and, writing something on it, tore off the top sheet and handed it to the Sergeant.
"Here's your order for the removal of the body."
The Sergeant pocketed the slip of paper.
"The body'll be at the morgue before you are," he mumbled.
"That's bully." Doremus gave Heath a vicious leer and opened the door. "And now I'm going back to sleep. You can have a massacre tonight if you want to, but you won't see me again till nine a. m." He waved his hand in a farewell gesture which included us all, and went swiftly out.
When the Medical Examiner had slammed the door behind him, Markham turned to Vance gravely.
"Where'd you find that bottle, Vance?"
"In yon lavatorium. It was the only thing I saw there that seemed to have any possibilities."
"Taken in connection with that suicide note you found," observed Markham, "it would seem to furnish a simple explanation of this terrible affair."
Vance regarded Markham thoughtfully for several moments; then, after a long inhalation on his cigarette, he walked the length of the room and back, his head bowed in contemplation.
"I'm not so sure, Markham," he murmured, almost as if to himself. "I'll grant you that it's a specious solution of the death of this girl on the bed. But what of that poor johnnie in the hospital? It wasn't belladonna that hit him; and there certainly wasn't any suicidal urge in his mind. He was playing to win tonight; and his silly system was apparently working out. Yet, in the midst of it he fades out. . . . No, no. The empty bottle of rhinitis tablets is too simple. And this affair is not simple at all. It's filled with shadows and false scents: it has hidden subtleties and convolutions. . . ."
"After all, you found the bottle--" began Markham. But Vance interrupted him.
"That may have been arranged for us. It fits too snugly into the pattern. We'll know more--or less--tomorrow morning when Doremus has turned in his report."
Markham was annoyed.
"Why try to concoct mysteries?"
"My dear Markham!" Vance reproached him, and stood for several minutes apparently absorbed in one of the eighteenth-century prints hanging over the mantel.
Heath, in the meantime, had been telephoning to the Department of Public Welfare for a wagon to take the body away. When he had completed the call he spoke to Lieutenant Smalley of the local precinct station, who had watched the proceedings silently from a corner of the room.
"There's nothing more, Lieutenant. Mr. Markham's here, and there's only routine stuff till Doc Doremus makes the autopsy. But you might leave a couple of your men on the job outside."
"Anything you want, Sergeant." Lieutenant Smalley shook hands all round, and went out with an air of obvious relief.
"I think we can go, too," Markham said. "You're in charge, of course, Sergeant--I'll arrange it with the Inspector the first thing in the morning."
"I say, Markham," Vance put in, "let's not dash precipitately away. I could bear to know a few facts, and as long as we're here tonight. . . ."
"What, for instance, do you want to know?" Markham was impatient.
Vance turned away from the print, and gazed sadly at the dead girl.
"I'd like a few more words with Doctor Kane before we drift out into the chillin' mist."
Markham made a wry face, but finally nodded in reluctant assent.
"He's downstairs." And he led the way out into the hall.
Doctor Kane was pacing nervously up and down when we entered the drawing-room.
"What's the report?" he asked before Vance had time to speak.
"The Medical Examiner merely corroborated your own diagnosis, doctor," Vance told him. "The post mortem will be performed the first thing in the morning. . . . By the by, doctor, are you the Llewellyns' family physician?"
"I can hardly say that," the other answered. "I doubt if they have any one attend them regularly. They don't require much medical supervision; they're a very healthy family. I do prescribe occasionally, though, for minor ailments--but as a friend rather than professionally."
"And have you done any prescribing for any of them lately?" asked Vance.
Kane took a moment to think.
"Nothing of any consequence," he answered at length. "I suggested a tonic of iron--Blaud's Mass--and strychnin for Miss Llewellyn a few days ago--"
"Has Lynn Llewellyn any constitutional ailment," interrupted Vance, "that would cause him to collapse under keen excitement?"
"No-o. He has a hypertrophied heart, with the attendant increased blood-pressure--the result of athletics in college--"
"Angina?"
Kane shook his head.
"Nothing as serious as that--though his condition may develop into that some day."
"Ever prescribe for him?"
"A year or so ago I gave him a prescription for some nitroglycerin tablets--a two-hundredth of a grain. But that's all."
"Nitroglycerin--eh, what?" A flash of interest animated Vance's smouldering eyes. "That's most revealin'. . . . And his wife: were you ever called upon in her behalf?"
"Oh, once or twice," Kane answered, with a careless wave of his cigarette holder. "She had rather weak eyes, and I recommended an ordinary eye solution. . . . It's been my experience," he added in a pompous tone, "that very light blondes with pale blue eyes--lack of pigmentation, you understand--have weaker eyes than brunettes--"
"Let's not indulge in ophthalmological theory," Vance cut in, with an ingratiating smile. "It's getting beastly late. . . . What else have you prescribed for young Mrs. Llewellyn?"
"That's really about all." Kane, for all his attempt at poise, was becoming nervous. "I recommended a certain salve for a mild erythema on one of her hands several months ago; and last week, when she had an an
noying cold in the head, I suggested regulation rhinitis tablets. I don't recall anything else--"
"Rhinitis tablets?" Vance's penetrating gaze was on the man. "How many did you tell her to take?"
"Oh, the usual dose," Kane returned, with an effort at carelessness, "one or two tablets every two hours."
"Most rhinitis tablets contain belladonna, y' know," remarked Vance in a hard, even tone.
"Why, yes--of course. . . ." Kane's eyes suddenly opened wide, and he stared at Vance with frightened intensity. "But--but, really. . . ." He stammered, and broke off.
"We found an empty hundred-tablet bottle in her medicine cabinet," Vance informed him, without shifting his gaze. "And, according to your own diagnosis, Mrs. Llewellyn died of belladonna poisoning."
Kane's jaw dropped, and his face went pale.
"My God!" he muttered. "She--she couldn't have done that." The man was trembling noticeably. "She would know better--and I was most explicit. . . ."
"No one can blame you in the circumstances, doctor," Vance said consolingly. "Tell me, was Mrs. Llewellyn an intelligent and conscientious patient?"
"Yes--very." Kane moistened his lips with his tongue, and made a valiant effort to control himself. "She was always most careful to follow my instructions implicitly. I remember now that she phoned me, the other day, asking if she could take an extra tablet before the two-hour interval had elapsed."
"And the eye lotion?" asked Vance with marked casualness.
"I'm sure she followed my advice," Kane answered earnestly. "Though, of course, that was an absolutely harmless solution--"
"And what was your advice regarding it?"
"I told her she should bathe her eyes with it every night before retiring."
"What were the ingredients in the unguent you recommended for her hand?"
Kane looked surprised.
"I'm sure I don't know," he returned unsteadily. "The usual simple emollients, I suppose. It was a proprietary preparation, on sale at any drug store,--probably contained zinc oxide or lanolin. There couldn't possibly have been anything harmful in it."
Vance walked to the front window and looked out. He was both puzzled and disturbed.
"Was that the extent of your medical services to Lynn Llewellyn and his wife?" he asked, returning slowly to the centre of the room.
"Yes!" Though Kane's voice quavered, there was in it, nevertheless, a note of undeniable emphasis.
Vance let his eyes rest on the young doctor for a brief period.
"I think that will be all," he said. "There's nothing more you can do here tonight."
Kane drew a deep breath of relief and went to the door.
"Good night, gentlemen," he said, with a questioning look at Vance. "Please call on me if I can be of any help." He opened the door and then hesitated. "I'd be most grateful if you'd let me know the result of the autopsy."
Vance bowed abstractedly.
"We'll be glad to, doctor. And our apologies for having kept you up so late."
Kane did not move for a moment, and I thought he was going to say something; but he suddenly went out, and in a moment we could hear the butler helping him with his coat.
Vance stood at the table for several moments, gazing straight before him and letting his fingers move over the inlaid design of the wood. Then, without shifting his eyes, he sat down and very slowly and deliberately drew out his cigarette-case.
Markham had been standing near the door during this interview, watching both Vance and the doctor intently. He now walked across the room to the marble mantel and leaned against it.
"Vance," he commented gravely, "I'm beginning to see what's in your mind."
Vance looked up and sighed deeply.
"Really, Markham?" He shook his head with a discouraged air. "You're far more penetratin' than I am. I'd give my ting-yao vase to know what is in my mind. It's all very confusin'. Everything fits--it's a perfect mosaic. And that's what frightens me."
He shook himself gently, as if to throw off some unpleasant intrusion of thought, and, going to the door, summoned the butler.
"Please tell Miss Llewellyn," he said, when the man appeared, "--I think she is in her own apartment--that we should appreciate her coming to the drawing-room."
When the man had turned down the hall toward the stairs, Vance moved to the mantel and stood beside Markham.
"There are a few other little things I want to know before we make our adieux," he explained. He was troubled and restless: I had rarely seen him in such a mood. "No case I have ever helped you with, Markham, has made me feel so strongly the presence of a subtle and devastating personality. Not once has it manifested itself in all the tragic events of this evening; but I know it's there, grinning at us and defying us to penetrate to the bottom of this devilish scheme. And all the ingredients in the plot are, apparently, commonplace and obvious,--but I've a feelin' they're sign-posts pointing away from the truth." He smoked a moment in silence; then he said: "The fiendish part of it is, it's not even intended that we should follow the sign-posts. . . ."
There was the sound of soft footsteps descending the stairs; and a moment later Amelia Llewellyn stood at the drawing-room door.
CHAPTER VI
A CRY IN THE NIGHT
(Sunday, October 16; 3 a. m.)
She had changed her tufted robe for a pair of black satin lounging pyjamas; and I saw evidences of the recent application of rouge, lip-stick and powder. She was smoking a cigarette in an embossed ebony holder; and as she stood before us, framed in the ivory of the door casement, she made a striking figure which somehow reminded me of one of Zuloaga's spectacular poster-paintings.
"I received your verbal subpœna from the jittery yet elegant Crichton--our butler's name is really Smith--and here I am." She spoke with an air of facetious worldliness. "Well, where do we stand now?"
"We much prefer not to stand, Miss Llewellyn," Vance answered, moving a chair forward with a commanding soberness.
"Delighted." She settled herself in the chair and crossed her knees. "I'm frightfully tired, what with all this unusual excitement."
Vance sat down facing her.
"Has it occurred to you, Miss Llewellyn," he asked, "that your brother's wife may have committed suicide?"
"Good Heavens, no!" The girl leaned forward in questioning amazement: she had suddenly dropped her cynical manner.
"You know of no reason, then, why she should have taken her life?" Vance pursued quietly.
"She had no more reason than any one else has." Amelia Llewellyn gazed thoughtfully past Vance. "We could all find some good excuse for suicide. But Virginia had nothing to worry about. She was well provided for, and she was living more comfortably, materially, than she ever had been before." (This remark was made with a decided tinge of bitterness.) "She knew Lynn pretty well before she married him, and she must have calculated every advantage and disadvantage beforehand. Considering the fact that we did not particularly like her, we treated her quite decently--especially mother. But then, Lynn has always been mother's darling, and she'd treat a boa-constrictor with kindness and consideration if Lynn brought it into the house."
"Still," suggested Vance, "even in such circumstances, people do occasionally commit suicide, y' know."
"That's quite true." The girl shrugged. "But Virginia was too cowardly to take her own life, no matter how unhappy she may have been." (A note of animosity informed her voice.) "Besides, she was always self-centred and vain--"
"Vain about what, for instance?" Vance interrupted.
"About everything." She filliped the ashes of her cigarette to the floor. "She was particularly vain about her personal appearance. She was at all times on the stage and in make-up, so to speak."
"Does it not seem possible to you"--Vance was peculiarly persistent--"that if she had been miserable enough--?"
"No!" The girl anticipated the rest of his question with an emphatic denial. "If Virginia had been too miserable to stand the life here, she wouldn't have done away
with herself. She would have run off with some other man. Or perhaps gone back to the stage--which is just an indirect way of doing the same thing."
"You're not very charitable," murmured Vance.
"Charitable?" She laughed unpleasantly. "Perhaps not. But, at any rate, I'm not altogether stupid, either."
"Suppose," remarked Vance mildly, "that I should tell you that we found a suicide note?"
The girl's eyes opened wide, and she gazed at Vance in consternation.
"I don't believe it!" she said vehemently.
"And yet, Miss Llewellyn, it's quite true," Vance told her with quiet gravity.
For several moments no one spoke. Amelia Llewellyn's eyes drifted from Vance out into space; her lips tightened; and a shrewd, hard expression appeared on her face. Vance watched her closely, without seeming to do so. At length she moved in her chair and said with artificial simplicity:
"One never can tell, can one? I guess I'm not a very good psychologist. I can't imagine Virginia killing herself. It's most theatrical, however. Did Lynn attempt self-annihilation, too?--a suicide pact, or something of the sort?"
"If he did," returned Vance casually, "he evidently failed--according to the latest report."
"That would be quite in keeping with his character," the girl remarked in a dead tone. "Lynn is not the soul of efficiency. He always just misses the mark. Too much maternal supervision, perhaps."
Vance was annoyed by her attitude.
"We'll let that phase of the matter drop for the moment," he said with a new sharpness. "We're interested just now in facts. Can you tell us anything of your uncle's--that is, Mr. Kinkaid's--attitude toward your sister-in-law? The note we found mentioned that he had been particularly kind to her."
"That's true." The girl assumed a less supercilious air. "Uncle Dick always seemed to have a soft spot in his heart for Virginia. Maybe he felt that, as Lynn's wife, she was to be pitied. Or maybe he considered her an adventurer like himself. In any event, there seemed to be a bond of some kind between them. Sometimes I've thought that Uncle Dick has let Lynn win at the Casino occasionally so that Virginia would have more spending money."
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