Рекс Стаут - The Last Drive and Other Stories

“Anybody smoke?”

After a second Jimmie replied that the two young men had lit pipes at the second tee.

“Not the Colonel? Nobody gave him a cigar?”

“No, sir. Nor Mr. Mawson, either.”

“And the Colonel seemed well and in good spirits up to the time — up to the fifth hole?”

Jimmie’s yes was quite positive, and then he added: “Except that he was mad on account of his driving. He’s been slicing awful for a week. Yesterday he used his brassie, and he used it today too; but it wasn’t any better. Only on the fifth hole today he took the driver again, and got a beauty. I was so glad because I thought — and then just five minutes later—”

Rankin nodded. “And then drives didn’t matter any more. Now, Jimmie, look back and think carefully. Was there anything peculiar about the actions of any of the other three gentlemen? At any time?”

“Why — Mr. Mawson was awful nervous about the Colonel’s driving, sir. Of course, he was his partner—”

“No, no; I mean anything unusual, suspicious.”

The boy’s brow wrinkled in the effort of memory. “No, sir, nothing,” he replied at length.

Then, prompted by questions from the detective, Jimmie described in detail the actions of the other three members of the foursome when the catastrophe came. It was necessarily a meager recital, since the caddies had been a hundred yards in front at the time, and on running back had been sent off immediately in search of the doctor; and boys are not observing in the pressure of excitement. The detective got all he could out of him, then handed him a dollar bill and left him with a final warning not to repeat the conversation to the others. Then he turned toward the club-house.

The Saturday crowd was all over the place — in the library, the bar, the dining-room, the piazzas, and, of course, the one topic of conversation was the tragic end of one of their best loved members, whose body was at that moment lying in some room upstairs. Everybody had come in from the links; all playing had ceased. In the dining-room members had left their luncheon to get cold on the tables, and then returned to sit and talk in hushed tones. There was a buzz everywhere. The mystery of the thing had grasped everybody. The word “poison” was being whispered around, and there was a rumor that police had been summoned from Brockton, the nearest village. Rankin, with his eye open for Harrison Matlin, the president of the club, was making his way from group to group through the throng in the library, when he suddenly heard his name called from behind and a hand came down on his shoulder.

“Looking for you, Rankin. You’re wanted upstairs. Cortwell’s room. There’s the devil to pay.”

It was John Waring, the travel lecturer. Rankin followed him through to the back rooms and up the rear staircase to the floor above. Half way down the long, wide hall they stopped in front of a door and Waring knocked lightly.

“It’s Waring. I’ve got Rankin,” he called, and an instant later there was the sound of a key turning in the lock and the door swung open.

As they entered and the door closed behind them again Rankin’s quick glance showed him two or three men gathered about a table in the center of the room; others were seated on chairs and on the bed over against one side; Harry and Fred Adams were standing near an open window with their backs turned, talking together in low tones. Harrison Matlin, the president of the club, was there, and Bolton Cook and James Cortwell, and Fraser Mawson and Doctor Wortley. The eyes of all were turned on the door as the two newcomers entered.

“There’s a problem here, Mr. Rankin,” Matlin began, abruptly, “and we want to put it up to you. Doctor Wortley called us in to show us — you tell him, Wortley.”

“Just this,” explained the Doctor, “that the examination of the body, together with what I learn from Fred Adams of the nature of the attack — spasmodic rigidity, pronounced dyspnoea — verifies beyond all doubt that Colonel Phillips was poisoned.”

Rankin frowned. “It’s a certainty, then. What agent?”

“The motor nerves were paralyzed and death resulted from suffocation. Some virulent neurotic, most probably curare. Strychnos toxifera .”

“Ah!” Rankin’s frown deepened. “That must enter through a wound. How—”

“Look here,” was the Doctor’s answer to the unfinished question. The men about the table moved to one side, disclosing to view a lumpy, oblong form covered with a dark cloth; and Doctor Wortley, stepping forward, removed the covering from the body of Colonel Phillips. The clothing had been cut away, leaving it nude to the waist; and Rankin’s gaze, directed by the Doctor, fell on a spot some three inches below the terminal of the breast bone. There was a tiny puncture of the skin, which was inflamed and slightly puffed, with a greenish tinge extending over a circular spot about the size of a silver half dollar.

“So that was the way,” breathed Rankin at length, straightening up. “But what did it?”

“That’s what we want you to find out,” replied Matlin, keeping his eyes away from the table, where Doctor Wortley was readjusting the covering.

Rankin was silent.

“We don’t want any scandal about it,” the club president went on anxiously, “but we feel — of course, it wouldn’t be right to try to hush the thing up, even if it were possible. It must be investigated, but the Lord knows we don’t want the village police here. They’re no good, anyway. We feel we can trust you to do as much as anyone could do, and there will be no publicity. Colonel Phillips would want it that way himself.”

Still the detective was silent. Suddenly another voice came, and all eyes were directed at Fred Adams, the elder of the two brothers. He had turned from the window and was facing them with his countenance pale and grief-stricken.

“I only have this to say,” he remarked, quietly and distinctly, “that I don’t want publicity and scandal any more than the rest of you, but nothing shall be left undone to punish the man that murdered my uncle.”

“I tell you, Fred, we don’t know he was murdered,” Harry Adams put in, and the sentiment found echo in two or three other voices:

“Yes, how do you know he was murdered?”

They were silenced by Rankin:

“Gentlemen, for my part, I agree with Fred. You have requested me to solve this thing. Very well. I’ll do my best, but only on condition that it is left to my discretion to notify the authorities at any time. Meanwhile, everyone of you must keep absolute silence on this affair. There must be no hint of crime in your discussions with those outside. Already the atmosphere is electric all over the place. Dispel it. And now, you will kindly leave me here with Doctor Wortley. You, Mr. Mawson, and Fred and Harry, will remain also, if you please.”

There were mutterings as the men began a general movement toward the door, and Harrison Matlin stepped up to whisper in the ear of the detective, who nodded impatiently in reply. Slowly they trooped out, with backward glances at the covered form on the table, and as the last of them disappeared into the hall Rankin stepped to the door and closed it. Then he turned to the four men who had remained behind at his request. Doctor Wortley stood with his hand resting on the table; Fraser Mawson had sunk into a chair, while the two Adams brothers still stood together near the window. The faces of all were lined with gravity.

“You’ve heard what Doctor Wortley has declared to be the cause of Colonel Phillips’ death,” began Rankin, abruptly, glancing from Mawson to the two young men. “A virulent neurotic poison, probably curare. Curare is an arrow poison, without serious effect when taken internally, but almost instantly fatal when introduced into the blood through a wound. It was used by South American Indians to infect the tips of arrows; tiny arrows shot from blowpipes. The abrasion of the skin on the Colonel’s chest is final proof of the agent. The point is, how did it get there? It must have been done sometime within the ten minutes immediately preceding his collapse. Who did it, and how?”