Unexpected Night (24 page)

“No, it was not!”

“Did the phial it came out of have a label on it?”

“It only said: ‘Quarter-grain tablets.'”

“Oh, yes; a prescription.”

Young Barclay got a flask out of his pocket. “Well, Mum,” he said, “if Alma pulls through, I don't think they can do a thing to you. If she doesn't, Aunt Eleanor will have your life, anyway, so you needn't worry about what the verdict will be. We'd better have a drink on it.”

“That's enough, my boy.” The Colonel's face was mottled, and he had sunk into the chair his wife had refused. His son brought him neat whisky in the top of the flask, and stood over him while he drank it. He then poured some more for his mother, who downed it as if, in spite of her injured attitude, she needed it badly. “Baines will get her out of it,” said the Colonel, recovering a little.

“You saw her, Gamadge; what did you think of her?” Young Barclay offered Gamadge a drink, and when it was refused, swallowed it himself.

“I must confess I thought she was pretty far gone, but I have no experience in morphia poisoning,” replied Gamadge, who felt unable, at the moment, to mince words.

Colonel Barclay got up and trotted out of the room and down the hall. He returned with Doctor Baines, who addressed Mrs. Barclay briskly:

“Well, Lulu; I hear that you've been dosing little Alma Cowden.”

“It couldn't possibly have hurt her, Bertie; she must have taken something else.”

“How is she?” Fred Barclay, who was standing beside one of the windows, asked the question without turning his head.

“Can't tell yet. It was touch and go when this young man brought her in. Have you any more of that—er—that tonic of yours, Lulu?”

“I have a supply of it, yes.”

“Exactly what you gave Alma?”

“Of course.”

“Are you sure those tablets you added to the stuff were codeine?”

Mrs. Barclay replied uneasily, “Of course they were.”

“Where's the doctor that gave you the prescription?”

“He's in Mitchy Pitchy.”

“Where?”

“Some place in Peru, I think he said.”

“Oh. Well, if he's in Machu Picchu, we won't be able to get hold of him to-night, anyway. Who's your druggist?”

“Thorwald, on Madison Avenue. We've dealt with him since—”

“So have I. Have
you
been taking codeine until you can tolerate any amount of that stuff?”

“If you are insinuating, Bertie Baines, that I am a drug addict—”

“Well, Lulu, I don't know what else you can call yourself. Now listen to me carefully, because this is serious.
Was
it codeine in that bottle? It takes a powerful lot of codeine to hurt anybody.”

“It was little bits of tablets, quarter grain, and Freddy had one every four hours, and he wasn't to have more than four. And there were just a few left, and I pounded them up and put them in the little bottle. And I shook it up, and Alma couldn't have got anywhere nearly as much as Fred did.”

“But were they codeine, Lulu? Look here. When the ambulance comes, I'm sending specimens back with it for analysis. I'll eat my hat if that girl in there hasn't absorbed more than two grains of morphia. What I'm getting at is this: Suppose you put a little morphia in the bottle Alma took the dose out of to-night; and I'll be hanged, by the way, if I know how you persuaded her to swallow it.”

“I just stood there and argued with her, and told her how much good it did Freddy, and what a nice sleep he had after it, and she said, very rudely, poor child, that she saw she wouldn't get any sleep at all if I didn't go; and she took the glass and drank it right down.”

“You ought to be a trained nurse. The thing is, Lulu, that they're going to find a lot of that morphia when they make the analysis. If somebody tampered with your family tonic after you doctored it yourself—”

Young Barclay swung around, and advanced a step. The tone in which he spoke can only be described as a snarl: “What are you talking about?”

“Listen, and you'll find out, my lad; and don't try to intimidate me, if you know what's good for you. Your mother is in serious trouble. If Alma dies, and there's an inquest, and your mother talks on the witness stand as she is talking to me, I won't answer for the consequences. I'm trying to find out how Alma got this morphia into her, and I haven't much time to do it in. I suggest that more may have been added to the tonic, or that Alma may have taken other tablets, earlier or later.”

Colonel Barclay said huskily: “Tell him what you know, Lulu.”

Mrs. Barclay suddenly burst into a flood of tears.

“They were morphia tablets,” she sobbed. “Little bits of ones.”

“And how many did you put in?”

“Four.”

“One grain. Alma got more of the stuff somehow. Well, you and Barclay had better toddle off home, and I'm sending that little deputy Hoskins along with you, to collect the bottle. I'll check up with Thorwald and find out how many tablets were in the morphia prescription, and you'll swear Fred had four of them, and Alma had four.”

“That's all there were.”

“Very likely. I'll have the Orange-flower Water—bah! I'll have it analysed, too. You stay here, Fred; I shall need you.”

Mrs. Barclay had somewhat recovered her dignity. “Let the man go with the Colonel,” she said. “I have no intention of leaving Eleanor while that child is in danger.”

“I regret to say that Eleanor has lost her head, for the moment. She is informing all comers that you meant to murder her niece, Lulu, so that Fred would get half of Amberley's money. What do you think of that?”

Mrs. Barclay stared at him, her mouth open. Fred Barclay, after a moment or two of immobility, swung back to the window. He said, over his shoulder: “Hard as nails; I always knew it. And a good deal more likely to commit murder for money than any of the Barclays are, I should say.”

Baines replied equably: “She is not cerebrating at the moment; and she is not a possible suspect where her niece by marriage is concerned, young fellow. If Alma should die of this, which the gods forbid, the boy's money—her money—goes to her natural heirs, you know.”

“Thanks for reminding me of it.” Fred Barclay's voice was toneless.

“Don't forget it. Well, off you go, then, Barclay; I think that's all for to-night; unless,” and he regarded Mrs. Barclay thoughtfully, “you'd like to come clean, Lulu, as my favourite novelists would express it, and tell me why Alma Cowden took your medicine. Young Gamadge here says he warned her off it absolutely.”

Fred Barclay scowled. “Gamadge—” he began, angrily.

“He has his useful moments. Well, Lulu?”

Mrs. Barclay looked terrified, drew a long breath, and said: “Bertie, you'll never forgive me. I told her you had ordered it.”

To her amazement, Baines gave a chuckling laugh. “Good for you, Lulu! I swear I never should have thought you'd come out with it. I won't tell Eleanor Cowden.”

The Colonel said, choking: “I'm amazed that you should listen to her criminal nonsense, Baines. There's no excuse for it.”

“I'm cooped up in the room with her, and I have to listen. But you don't; not now. Now, just to oblige me, take yourselves off.”

Mrs. Barclay suddenly burst into a flood of tears, but the Colonel had pulled himself together.

“Wisest thing to do,” he said. “No wonder Eleanor is half out of her head. She'll forget all about this. Come along, Lulu.”

Hoskins, looking solemn and somewhat frightened, appeared in the doorway, and all three of them went down the hall, Mrs. Barclay in the middle. Baines, his lower lip pushed out, watched them go; then he said cheerfully:

“Now, then; you get Sanderson out of bed, Gamadge, and wait till I call you. I'll put you all in quarter-hour shifts; Miss Macpherson says she'll help, and we'll need her. It's about as hard a job as there is. Take your coat off.”

Forty-five minutes later, when the ambulance arrived, Gamadge was supine on the couch in the Baineses' sitting room, with Miss Macpherson, also exhausted, in an armchair beside him; Mrs. Baines was administering coffee to them both; Mrs. Cowden lay flat on one of the beds in Room 1, while Doctor Baines, coat and collar long discarded, fanned her with a newspaper; and Fred Barclay and Sanderson dragged the all but inanimate form of Alma Cowden back and forth by way of the bathroom, perspiration streaming down their faces.

“Don't be a fool now,” reiterated the doctor. “She's coming along nicely. She's better. Can't you see she's walking? Sit up now, like a good girl, and take some black coffee.”

But Mrs. Cowden remained motionless; she did not even rise to see her niece put on the stretcher and carried away.

The three young men came out into the corridor. Young Barclay went on downstairs without a word to the others, but Sanderson detained Gamadge.

“My God,” he said, “this is unbelievable. I wish I knew what Baines really thought about her chances. Mrs. Cowden says—is it true that fool of a Barclay woman put morphia in Alma's medicine?”

“Yes.”

“The old harpy ought to be in jail.” He looked very wild, his fair hair hanging over his eyes and his colour chalky. “Thank Heaven you noticed the door. I thought she was keeping it locked—wasn't she?”

“Alma? Yes. She was supposed to be keeping it locked.”

“But if—didn't Mrs. Barclay go through from Mrs. Cowden's room?”

“Yes.”

“Then who unlocked the door?”

“I have no evidence.”

“Atwood must have been up at the Cove.”

“Yes, he was. He still is. Now, do let me go up and turn in. I'm ready to drop, and so must you be.”

He went upstairs, leaving Sanderson distraught and bewildered in the corridor, and entered his room. He had got out of his clothes and into his pyjamas when his telephone rang.

“That you, Mitchell?” he asked. “Come right up. Yes, big doings; too big—I'm signing off. You'll have to take over now. Oh—I found the green Dodge sedan. Come up and I'll tell you all about it.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

W
HEN MR. ORMVILLE
, the lawyer, arrived early next morning, he seemed more amused than annoyed to find a deputy sheriff asleep in his room. He was a tall, slim, distinguished old gentleman, beautifully turned out in dark-grey flannels, and he wore a folding pair of tortoise-shell eyeglasses on a black ribbon. Sam was a little afraid of him; he was, besides, outraged by Hoskins' presence in Room 22.

“You know you hadn't any business stayin' here all night,” he said. “We loaned you the room yesterday just to accommodate the Cowdens. What's the idea?”

“Never mind.” Mr. Ormville tipped Sam, whose long vigil, just coming to an end, had left him looking rather wan, and watched him leave with a benignant smile.

“I'm awful sorry.” Hoskins collected his collar and coat, and hastily pushed his feet into his shoes. “I know I should have went last night, but I didn't realise this room was engaged for you, and I was up till all hours workin' on the case.”

“Very sensible of you to stay on here…What case?”

Hoskins stared. “Why, this—this case we was all workin' on. I thought you was workin' on it, too. I thought you was their lawyer.”

“I am their lawyer, and I came to be of service to them; I have not been informed that there was a ‘case.'”

This detachment, coming after the alarms of the past twenty-four hours, staggered Hoskins. He was about to reply, but Mr. Ormville went blandly on: “I want a wash and a shave, and then I shall go down and get some coffee. Will you join me in the dining-room?”

Hoskins said he would. Still rather embarrassed and bemused, he looked about the room, and asked: “Would you like I should fix things up for you? The chambermaids don't come on till eight.”

“No, thank you very much. This will do very well.”

Hoskins seized his partly used towel from the bathroom and fled down the hall to the public lavatory. He washed, brushed his hair with his fingers, and awaited Mr. Ormville at the foot of the stairs. That gentleman, when he arrived, looked to the eye of Hoskins no more immaculate than he had before, if perhaps slightly refreshed. They went into the dining-room, and Mr. Ormville ordered for both. When the waitress had gone, Hoskins said:

“I took the liberty of callin' up the sheriff and tellin' him you was here.”

“Very thoughtful of you. Did you arrange an appointment?”

“He says will you come over to the Centre around ten o'clock.”

“I shall be very glad to do so. That will give me just time to have a cigar and read the paper. I mustn't disturb those poor ladies too early.”