Lawrence Sanders - Tenth Commandment

They seemed intent on what they were doing; none looked up as we passed through.

Mr Waldo Bommer led the way to a private office tucked into one corner. He closed the door behind us.

'How do you stand it?' I asked him.

'Stand what?'

'The smell.'

'What smell?' he said. He took a deep breath through his nostrils. 'Hydrogen sulphide, hypochlorous acid, sulphur dioxide, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. A smell? I love it. Smells are my bread and butter, mister.

How do you think I do a chemical analysis? First, I smell.

You see before you an educated nose.'

He tapped the bridge of his nose. A small pug nose with trumpeting nostrils.

'An educated nose,' he repeated proudly. 'First, I smell.

Sometimes that tells me all I have to know.'

Suddenly he grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me close. I thought he meant to kiss me. But he merely sniffed at my mouth and cheeks.

'You don't smoke,' he said. 'Right?'

'Right,' I said, pulling back from his grasp.

'And this morning, for breakfast, you had coffee and a pastry. Something with fruit in it. Figs maybe.'

'Prune Danish,' I said.

'You see!' he said. 'An educated nose. My father had the best nose in the business. He could tell you when you had changed your socks. Sit down.'

Waldo Bommer shuffled through a drawer in a battered oak file.

'Stacy, Stone, Stonehouse,' he intoned. 'Here it is.

Professor Yale Stonehouse. Two chemical analyses of unknown liquids. 14 December of last year.'

'May I take a look?' I asked.

'Why not?'

I scanned the two carbon-copy reports. There were a lot of chemical terms; one of them included arsenic trioxide.

'Could you tell me what these liquids were, please?'

He snatched the papers from my hands and scanned them. 'Simple. This one, plain cocoa. This one was brandy.'

'The brandy has the arsenic trioxide in it?'

'Yes.'

'Didn't you think that unusual?'

He shrugged.

'Mister, I just do the analysis. What's in it is none of my business. A week ago a woman brought in a tube of toothpaste loaded with strychnine.'

'Toothpaste?' I cried. 'How did they get it in?'

Again he shrugged. 'Who knows? A hypo through the opening maybe. I couldn't care less. I just do the analysis.'

'Could I get copies of these reports, Mr Bommer? For the government. The tax thing. . '

He thought a moment.

'I don't see why not,' he said finally. 'You say this Professor Stonehouse is dead?'

'Yes, sir. Deceased early this year.'

'Then he can't sue me for giving out copies of his property.'

Ten minutes later I was bouncing down the splintering stairs with photocopies in my briefcase. I had offered to pay for the copies, and Bommer had taken me up on it. I inhaled several deep breaths of fresh air, then went flying up Eleventh Avenue. There is no feeling on earth to match a hunch proved correct. I decided to press my luck. I stopped at the first unvandalized phone booth I came to.

'Yah?' Olga Eklund answered.

'Olga, this is Joshua Bigg.'

'Yah?'

'Is Miss Glynis in?'

'No. She's at her clinic.'

That was what I hoped to hear.

'But Mrs Stonehouse is at home?'

'Yah.'

'Well, maybe I'll drop by for a few moments. She's recovered from her, uh, indisposition?'

'Yah.'

'Able to receive visitors?'

'Yah.'

'I'll come right over. You might mention to her that I'll be stopping by for a minute or two.'

I waited for her 'Yah,' but there was no answer; she had hung up. Shortly afterwards Olga in the flesh was taking my coat in the Stonehouse hallway.

'I'm sorry Miss Glynis isn't at home,' I said to Olga.

'You think I might be able to call her at the clinic?'

'Oh yah,' she said. 'It's the Children's Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic. It's downtown, on the East Side.'

'Thank you,' I said gratefully. 'I'll call her there.'

Ula Stonehouse was half-reclining on the crushed velvet

couch. She was beaming, holding a hand out to me. As usual, there was a wineglass and a bottle of sherry on the glass-topped table.

'How nice!' she warbled. 'I was hoping for company and here you are!'

'Here I am, indeed, ma'am,' I said, taking her limp hand. 'I was sorry to hear you have been indisposed, but you look marvellously well now.'

'Oh, I feel so good,' she said, patting the couch next to her. I sat down obediently. 'My signs changed and now I feel like a new woman.'

'I'm delighted to hear it.'

I watched her reach forward to fill her glass with a tremulous hand. She straightened back slowly, took a sip, looking at me over the rim with those milk-glass eyes flickering. The mop of blonde curls seemed frizzier than ever. She touched the tip of her nose as one might gently explore a bruise.

'Would you care for anything, Mr Bigger?' she asked.

'A drink? Coffee? Whatever?'

'Bigg, ma'am,' I said. 'Joshua Bigg. No, thank you.

Nothing for me. Just a few minutes of your time if you're not busy.'

'All the time in the world,' she said, laughing gaily.

She was wearing a brightly printed shirtwaist dress with a wide, ribbon belt. The gown, the pumps, the makeup, the costume jewellery: all too young for her. And the flickering eyes, warbling voice, fluttery gestures gave a feverish impression: a woman under stress. I felt sure she was aware of what was going on.

'Mrs Stonehouse,' I said, 'I wish I had good news to report about your husband, but I'm afraid I do not.'

'Oh, let's not talk about that,' she said. 'What's done is done. Now tell me all about yourself.'

She looked at me brightly, eyes widened. If she wasn't going to talk about her vanished husband, I was stymied.

Still, for the moment, it seemed best to play along.

'What would you like to know about me, ma'am?'

'You're a Virgo, aren't you?'

'Pisces,' I told her.

'Of course,' she said, as if confirming her guess. 'Are you married?'

'No, Mrs Stonehouse, I am not.'

'Oh, you must be,' she said earnestly. 'You must listen to me. And you must because I have been so happy in my own marriage, you see. A family is a little world. I have my husband and my son and my daughter. We are a very close, loving family, as you know.'

I looked at her helplessly. She had deteriorated since I first met her; now she was almost totally out of it. I thought desperately how I might use her present mood to get what I wanted. 'I'm an orphan, Mrs Stonehouse,' I 293

said humbly. 'My parents were killed in an accident when I was an infant.'

Surprisingly, shockingly, tears welled up in those milky eyes. She stifled a sob, reached to grip my forearm. Her clutch was frantic.

'Poor tyke,' she groaned, then lunged for her glass of sherry.

'I was raised by relatives,' I went on. 'Good people, I wasn't mistreated. But still. . So when you speak of a close, loving family, a little world — I know nothing of all that. The memories.'

'The memories,' she said, nodding like a broken doll.

'Oh yes, the memories. . '

'Do you have a family album, Mrs Stonehouse?' I asked softly, and, to my surprise, she responded by producing the album with unexpected rapidity.

What followed was a truly awful hour. We pored over those old photographs one by one while Ula Stonehouse provided running commentary, rife with pointless anecdotes. I murmured constant appreciation and made frequent noises of wonder and enjoyment.

Wedding Pictures: the tail, gaunt groom towering over the frilly doll-bride. An old home in Boston. Glynis, just born, naked on a bearskin rug. Childhood snapshots.

Powell Stonehouse at ten, frowning seriously at the camera. Picnics. Outings. Friends. Then, gradually, the family groups, friends, picnics, outings — all disappearing.