Erle Gardner - Case of the Silent Partner

Mason said, “Well, there’s no harm in trying. See you later.”

“You will at that,” Tragg assured him grimly.

Mason was careful to start his car in a leisurely manner, nor did he step on the throttle until he was a good half mile from the mountain cabin.

An all-night restaurant on the boulevard had a telephone, and Mason called the Hastings Memorial Hospital to ask for Dr. Willmont.

Mason had a wait of more than a minute before he heard Dr. Willmont’s voice on the line.

“Mason talking, Doctor. What did you find with Esther Dilmeyer?”

“She’ll pull through.”

“The candy was poisoned?”

“Yes. Every piece had been tampered with.”

“What was the poison?”

“Judging from the patient’s symptoms,” Dr. Willmont said, “and from the best guess I can make from tests we’ve carried out, it’s one of the barbituric derivatives, probably veronal. The drug has a mildly acrid taste which is pretty well disguised in the bittersweet chocolates.

“It’s a hypnotic, but there’s a wide range between the medicinal and the lethal dose. The official dose is five to ten grains. That’s usually sufficient to bring on sleep. Death has occurred after a dose of sixty grains, but, on the other hand, there’s been a recovery after a dose of three hundred and sixty grains. There have been numerous recoveries with around two hundred grains. We haven’t been able to analyze the candy definitely, but, judging from taste and other factors, there’s probably five to seven grains in the centers of each of the chocolates. She evidently ate them slowly enough so there was an interval between the first ten or twenty grains and the rest of the ingestion, which gave the drug a chance to work before she’d eaten enough to bring about a fatal result.”

“You’re sure that’s what it is?” Mason asked.

“Pretty sure, both from an examination of the candy and from the condition of the patient. Her face is congested, respiration’s slow and stertorous. There are no reflexes. The pupil is somewhat dilated. There’s a temperature rise of a little over one degree. Personally, I’d say veronal, and I’d figure about five grains to a candy center. That would make above fifty grains she’d taken. That makes a recovery almost certain.”

Mason said, “All right, keep on the job. See that she has the very best of care. Keep a special nurse on duty all the time. Watch her diet. I want to be damn certain that no one slips her any more poison.”

“That’s all taken care of,” Dr. Willmont said dryly.

“When will she be conscious?”

“Not for some time. We’ve cleaned out her stomach, made a lumbar puncture, and drained off some of the fluid. That will expedite things a lot, but she has enough of the drug in her system so she’ll be sleeping for quite some time. I don’t think it’s advisable to try to hurry that any.”

“Let me know when she wakes up,” Mason said, “and be sure to fix things there so nothing else happens.”

“You think something’s going to?” Dr. Willmont asked.

“I don’t know. She was coming to my office to give me some information. She’s a witness. I don’t know what she knows. Someone evidently went to some pains to see that I didn’t find out.”

“Give her another twenty-four hours, and she can tell,” Dr. Willmont said.

Mason said thoughtfully, “It may be that whoever sent her that drugged candy didn’t want to kill her, but simply wanted to keep her from telling me what she knows for twenty-four hours. In other words, it may be too late then to do any good.”

“Well, nothing else is going to happen to her,” Dr. Willmont promised. “No visitors are to be admitted without my permission. I have three nurses working on the job in shifts — and all of them have red hair.”

“Okay, Doctor. I’m leaving it up to you.”

Mason hung up the telephone and made time to Mildreth Faulkner’s house on Whiteley Pines Drive.

Here also he was on a steep slope overlooking the city. The house was on the slope below the road, one story on the street, three stories on the back.

Mason touched the bell gently, and Mildreth Faulkner opened the door almost at once.

“What,” she asked, “did you find out?”

Mason said, “She’s going to pull through all right. Some drug, apparently veronal. You certainly are up in the air here.”

She laughed nervously, leading the way into the living room. “Yes, I bought this house about six months ago, after Carla got sick. I wanted to be near her.”

“And are you?”

“Yes. She lives on Chervis Road. That’s over around the shoulder of the hill.”

“How far?”

“Oh, not more than five minutes’ walk. I’d say about— Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps a quarter of a mile.”

“Just a hop, skip, and a jump in a car?”

“That’s right. Tell me, why was she poisoned? Or was it an overdose of sleeping medicine?”

“No. She was poisoned. That is, the candy was poisoned. The chemist for the Homicide Squad says that every piece has been tampered with. They haven’t made a complete analysis yet.”

Mildreth Faulkner walked over to the grid over a floor heater, and said, “Sit down. I’m cold.”

Mason dropped into a chair, and watched her as she stood over the grille, the upcoming draft of hot air agitating her skirt. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Did you get chilled?”

“I guess so. It’s been a strain. Well, go ahead and tell me about it. What’s the use of stalling? I suppose it’s bad news.” He nodded.

“I was afraid of that. Lynk isn’t the sort who will scare easily.”

“What made you think it was bad news?”

“You’d have told me when you first came here if it had been all good. How about a drink? Want one?”

“A short one,” Mason said.

She opened a little parlor bar, brought out Scotch, ice cubes, and soda.

“Rather neat gadget that,” Mason commented. “Yes, it’s really a little electric refrigerator, makes its own ice, keeps the charged water cold. Well, what did Lynk say? He hasn’t turned the stock over to Peavis already, has he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wouldn’t he tell you?”

“He wasn’t able to talk,” Mason said.

“Wasn’t able to? You mean he was drunk?”

She was pouring whiskey from the bottle, and her hand trembled enough so that the neck of the bottle chattered against the rim of the glass. Mason waited until she had finished with the whiskey, and had reached for the bottle of charged water.

“Lynk,” he said, “was murdered, about midnight.”

For a moment, it seemed that the words meant nothing to her. She continued to trickle charged water from the siphon into the glass, then suddenly she gave a convulsive start, depressed the lever, and squirted liquid up over the rim of the glass. “You mean— Did I hear you right? Dead!”

“Murdered.”

“At midnight?”

“Yes.”

“Who... who did it?”

“They don’t know. He was shot in the back with a thirty-two caliber revolver.”

She put down the bottle of charged water, brought his drink over to him. “Where does that leave me?”

“Out on a limb perhaps,” Mason said.

“At midnight?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, anyway, I have an alibi.” She laughed nervously.

“What is it?” Mason asked.

“Are you serious?”

“Weren’t you?”

“No.”

“Well, let’s be serious then. Where were you?”

“Why,” she said, “I was... Why, how utterly absurd! Nothing could have suited me less than to have anything happen to him before I — we got that stock.”

She paused in front of the little bar, then took out a bottle of cognac. “Scotch is all right,” she said, “as a sociable beverage, but I’m cold and this has been a shock to me. I’m going to have a good jolt of brandy. Do you want to join me?”