Lawrence Sanders - Tenth Commandment

Formal photographs. Single portraits, Yale, Ula, Glynis, Powell. Lifeless eyes. A family moving towards dissolution.

When Mrs Stonehouse leaned forward to refill her glass, I rapidly removed a recent snapshot of Glynis from the album and slipped it into my briefcase before she sat back again. 'Remarkable,' I said, as if I were riveted to the book. 'Really remarkable. Happy times.'

She looked at me, not seeing me.

'Oh yes,' she said. 'Happy times. Such good babies.

Glynis never cried. Never. Powell did, but not Glynis. It's over.'

I didn't dare ask what she meant by that.

'Emanations,' she went on. 'And visits beyond. I know it's over.'

'Mrs Stonehouse,' I asked anxiously, 'are you feeling well?'

'What? she said. 'Well,' she said, passing a faltering hand across her brow, 'perhaps I should lie down for a few moments. So many memories.'

'Of course,' I said, rising. 'I'll call Olga.'

I found her seated at the long dining room table, leafing through Popular Mechanics.

'Olga,' I said, 'I think Mrs Stonehouse needs you. I think she'd like to rest for a while.'

'Yah?' she said. She rose, yawned, and stretched. 'I go.'

In the kitchen Effie was at the enormous stove, stirring something with a long wooden spoon. Her porky face creased into a grin.

'Mr Bigg!' she said. 'How nice!'

She put the spoon aside, clapped a lid on the pot, and wiped her hands on her apron. She gestured towards the white enamelled table and we both drew up chairs.

'Effie,' I said, 'how are you? It's good to see you again.'

That was true, and it was a comfort to be honest again.

She was such a jolly tub of a woman.

'Getting along,' she said. 'You look a little puffy around the gills. Not sick, are you?'

'No,' I said, 'I'm okay. But I've been talking to Mrs Stonehouse. I'm a little shook.'

'Yes,' she said, wagging her head dolefully. 'I know what you mean. Worse every day.'

'Why?' I asked. 'What's happening to her?'

She frowned. 'I don't rightly know. Her husband disappearing, I guess. Powell moving out. And the way 295

Glynis has been acting. I suppose it's just too much for her.'

'How has Glynis been acting?'

'Strange,' Effie said. 'Snappish. Cold. Goes to her room and stays there. Never a smile.'

'Is this recent?' I asked.

'Oh yes. Just since your last visit.'

She looked at me shrewdly. I decided to plunge ahead. If she repeated what I was saying to Glynis, so much the better. So I told Effie what I knew about the arsenic. She listened closely, then nodded when I had finished.

'Are you a detective?' she asked.

'Sort of,' I said. 'Chief Investigator for the legal firm representing Professor Stonehouse.'

'You don't suspect me of poisoning him, do you?'

'Never,' I lied. 'Not for a minute.'

'Glynis?'

We stared at each other. I wondered if her silence was meant to imply consent, and decided to act as if it did.

'I must establish that Glynis had the means,' I said.

'You just can't go out and buy arsenic at Rexall's. And to do that, I need the name of the medical laboratory where she worked as a secretary.'

'I'd rather not,' she said quickly.

'I was going to ask Mrs Stonehouse, but she's in no condition to answer questions. Effie, I need the name.'

Once again we stared at each other.

'It's got to be done,' I said.

'Yes,' she agreed sadly.

After a while she got up and lumbered from the kitchen.

She came back in a few minutes with a slip of paper. I glanced at it briefly. Atlantic Medical Research, with the address and phone number.

'I had it in my book,' Effie explained, 'in case we had to reach her at work.'

'When did she stop working there?'

She thought a moment.

'Maybe June or July of last year.'

About the time Professor Stonehouse became ill.

'Did she just quit or was she fired?'

'She quit, she told us. Said it was very boring work.'

'Effie, did you ever hear her mention a man named Godfrey Knurr? He's a minister.'

'Godfrey Knurr? No.'

'Is Glynis a religious woman?'

'Not particularly. They're Episcopalian. But I never thought she was especially religious. But she's deep.'

'Oh yes,' I agreed, 'she's deep all right. Before her father's disappearance, was she in a good mood?'

Mrs Dark pondered that.

'I'd say so,' she said finally. 'She started changing after the Professor disappeared and in the last week she's gotten much worse.'

'Me,' I said. 'I'm troubling her. I told her I knew her father had been poisoned.'

'You didn't!'

'I did. Of course I didn't tell her I thought she had done it.'

'What are you going to do now?'

'Dig deeper. Try to find out what happened to the Professor. Effie, what kind of a car do the Stonehouses own?'

'A Mercedes.'

'Do they keep it in a garage over on 66th Street and West End?'

'Why, yes. The garage people bring it over when we need it. How did you know?'

'I've been looking around.'

'You surely have,' she said. 'Have you found the will yet?'

'Not yet. But I think I know where it is.'

'I don't see why it's so important,' she said. 'If he's dead 297

and didn't leave a will, the money goes to his wife and children anyway, doesn't it?'

'Yes,' I said, 'but if he left a will, he might have disinherited one of them.'

'Could he do that?'

'Probably. With good cause. Like attempted murder.'

'Oh,' she said softly, 'I hadn't thought of that.'

'Effie, can I count on your discretion about all this?'

She put a fat forefinger alongside a fatter nose.

'Mum's the word,' she said.

I rose, then bent swiftly to kiss her apple cheek.

'Thank you,' I said. 'I know it's not pleasant. But we agreed, it's got to be done. One last question: will Miss Glynis be in tonight? Did she say?'

'She said she's going to the theatre. She asked for an early dinner.'

'Uh-huh. So she'll be leaving about when?'

'Seven-thirty,' Mrs Dark said. 'At the latest.'

'Thank you very much,' I said. 'You've been very kind.'

I had a Big Mac and a Coke before I returned to the office. Yetta Apatoff was on the phone when I entered the TORT building. She blew me a kiss. I'm afraid I responded with a feeble gesture. Her scarf had come awry and the diving neckline of the green sweater now revealed a succulent cleavage. I wondered nervously when Mr Teitelbaum or Mr Tabatchnick would instruct their respective secretaries to order Yetta to cover up.

Mrs Kletz had left a note on my desk; she was indeed out distributing the reward posters to the taxi garages and had left me a copy of the poster. It looked perfect.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon typing out reports of my morning's activities and adding them to the Stonehouse file, along with the photocopies of the chemical analyses. Then I hacked away at routine inquiries until about 4.00 p.m., when I dialled the number of the Children's Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic in the Manhattan phone book and asked to speak to the director.

'Who is calling, please?' the receptionist asked.

'This is the Metropolitan Poison Control Board,' I said solemnly. 'It concerns your drug inventory.'

A hearty voice came on the line almost instantly.

'Yes sir!' he said. 'How may I be of service?'

'This is Inspector Waldo Bommer of the Metropolitan Poison Control Board, In view of the recent rash of burglaries of doctors' offices, clinics, hospitals, laboratories, and so forth, we are attempting to make an inventory of the establishments that keep poisonous substances in stock.'

'Narcotics?' he said. 'We have nothing like that. This is a clinic for underprivileged youngsters.'

'What we're interested in is poisons,' I said. 'Arsenic, strychnine, cyanide; things of that sort.'