Lawrence Sanders - Tenth Commandment

I'm usually in bed by eleven.'

I laughed. 'Lucky woman. Do you leave anything here in the kitchen for the family? In case they want a late snack?'

'Oh, they can help themselves,' she said casually. 'They know where everything is.' Then, when I was wondering how to lead into it, she added: 'Of course, when the Professor was here, I always left him a saucepan of cocoa.'

'Cocoa?' I said. 'I didn't think people drank cocoa anymore.'

'Of course they do. It's delicious.'

'And you served the Professor a cup of cocoa before you went to bed?'

'Oh no. I just made it. Then I left it to cool. Around midnight, Miss Glynis would come in and just heat it up.

Even if she was out at the theatre or wherever, she'd come home, heat up the cocoa, and bring a cup to her father in his study.'

'So I understand. Glynis brought the Professor his cup 201

of cocoa every night?'

'That's right.'

'And no one else in the house drank it?'

'No one,' she said, and my heart leaped — until she said,

'except me. I finished it in the morning.'

'Finished it?'

'What was left in the pan. I like a cup of hot cocoa before I start breakfast.'

That seemed to demolish the Great Cocoa Plot. But did it?

'Effie, who washed out the Professor's cocoa cup in the morning?'

'I did. He always left it on the kitchen sink.'

'Why on earth did he drink cocoa so late at night?'

'He claimed it helped him sleep better.' She snickered.

'Just between you, me, and the lamppost, I suspect it was the brandy he had along with it.'

'Uh-huh,' I said. 'Well, Effie, I think that covers it.

There's just one other favour I'd like to ask. I want to take another look in the Professor's study.'

'Help yourself,' she said. 'The door's unlocked.'

'I don't want to go in alone.'

'Oh?' She looked at me shrewdly. 'So you'll have a witness that you didn't take anything?'

'Right,' I said gratefully.

The study looked exactly as it had before. I stood near the centre of the room, my eyes half-closed. I turned slowly, inspecting.

The drum table. Brandy bottle and two small balloon glasses on an Edwardian silvery tray. The Remy Martin bottle was new, sealed.

Where did he hide the will? Not up the chimney. Not in the littered desk. Not behind a secret panel. Ula and Glynis would have probed up the chimney, searched the desk, tapped the walls, combed every book and map.

But I thought I knew where the will was hidden.

Glynis seemed not to have moved since I left. Still reclined easily in a corner of the couch. She was not fussing with her scarf, stroking her sleeked-back hair, inspecting her nails. She had the gift of complete repose.

'Miss Stonehouse,' I said, 'could you spare me a few more minutes?'

'Of course.'

'I have some very distressing information,' I told her.

'Something I think you should be aware of. I hoped to inform your mother, but since she is indisposed — temporarily, I trust — I must tell you.'

She cocked her head to one side, looking puzzled.

'When your father was ill last year, for a period of months, he was suffering from arsenic poisoning.'

Something happened to her face. It shrank. The flesh seemed to become less and the skin tightened on to bone, whitened and taut. Genuine surprise or the shock of being discovered?

'What?' she said.

'Your father. He was being poisoned. By arsenic.

Finally, in time, he consulted a physician. He recovered.

That means he must have discovered how he was being fed the arsenic. And by whom.'

'Impossible,' she said. Her voice was so husky it was almost a rasp.

'I'm afraid it's true,' I said. 'No doubt about it. And since your father rarely dined out, he must have been ingesting arsenic here, in his own home, in some food or drink that no one else in the house ate or drank, because no one else suffered the same effects. I have an apology to make to you, Miss Stonehouse. For a brief period, I thought the arsenic might have been given to him in that nightly cup of cocoa which you served him. Something I thought no one else in the household drank. But Mrs Dark has just told me that she finished the cocoa every morning and was none the worse for it. So I apologize to you for my 203

suspicions. And now I must try to find some other way that your father was being poisoned.'

That jolted her. The repose was gone; she began to unbutton and button her black gabardine jacket. She was wearing a brassiere, but I caught quick glimpses of the smooth, tender skin of her midriff,

'You thought that I. . ' she faltered.

'Please,' I said, 'I do apologize. I know now it wasn't the cocoa. I'm telling you this because I want you to think very carefully and try to remember if your father ate or drank anything that no one else in the household ate or drank.'

'You're quite sure he was being poisoned?' she said faintly.

'Oh yes. No doubt about it.'

'And you think that had something to do with his disappearance?'

'It seems logical, doesn't it?'

Her face began to fill out again. Her colour returned to normal. She looked at me squarely. She stopped fussing with her buttons and settled back into her original position. She took a deep breath.

'Yes,' she said softly, 'I think you're right. If someone was trying to kill h i m. . '

'Someone obviously was.'

'But why?'

'Miss Stonehouse,' I said, 'I just don't know. My investigation hasn't progressed that far. As yet.'

'But you are making progress?'

It was my turn to be noncommittal.

'I have discovered several things,' I said, 'that may or may not be significant. But to get back to my original question, can you think of any way your father may have been poisoned? Other than the cocoa?'

She stared at me a long moment, but she wasn't seeing me.

'No,' she said,!I can't. We all ate the same things, drank the same things. Father bought bottled water, but everyone drank that.'

'He wasn't on a special diet of any kind?'

'No.'

' Well. . ' I said, 'if you recall anything, please let me know.'

'Mr Bigg,' she said slowly, 'you said you suspected me of poisoning my father's cocoa.'

'Not exactly,' I said. 'For a time I did think the cocoa you served him might have been poisoned. But anyone in the household could have done that. But I realized I was mistaken after Mrs Dark told me she finished the leftover cocoa every morning.'

'She told you,' Glynis Stonehouse said steadily. 'I've never seen Mrs Dark have a cup of cocoa in the morning, and I don't believe anyone else has either.'

Again our eyes locked, but this time she was really looking at me, her gaze challenging, unblinking.

The sleet had lessened, but the sky was still drooling. I ducked into a kerbside phone kiosk on Columbus Avenue and called the office, and chatted with Yetta Apatoff. I reminded her of our lunch date on Friday. She hadn't forgotten. Yetta said the office manager had left me a message. He had hired a temporary assistant for me. She would appear at my office at three o'clock, which still gave me time to run downtown to visit the good Reverend Knurr.

I took the Seventh Avenue IRT local down to Houston Street and walked up to Carmine Street. I stopped at a bodega along the way and bought a six-pack. I had the address, but was a few minutes early, so I walked by across the street, inspecting the premises. It was no smaller or larger than any of the other storefronts on the street. But the glass window and door had been painted a dark green.

An amateur sign across the front read: TENTMAKERS CLUB.

I crossed the street and went in. The door rang a bell as it opened.

'Halloo?' Knurr's voice shouted from the rear.

'Joshua Bigg,' I yelled back.

'Be with you in a minute, Joshua. Make yourself at home.'