Ed McBain - Eighty Million Eyes

“Cause of death,” Meyer said.

“Acute poisoning,” Blaney answered flatly.

“Which poison?”

“Did the man have a history of cardiac ailments?”

“Not according to his doctor.”

“Mmmmm,” Blaney said.

“Well?” Carella said.

“That's very funny because…well, the poison was strophanthin. I recovered it in the small intestine, and I automatically assumed—”

“What's strophanthin?”

“It's a drug similar to digitalis, but much more powerful.”

“Why’d you ask about a possible cardiac ailment?”

“Well, both drugs are used therapeutically in the treatment of cardiac cases. Digitalis by infusion, usually, and strophanthin intravenously or intramuscularly. The normal dose is very small.”

“Of strophanthin, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Is it ever given by pill or capsule?”

“I doubt it. It may have been produced as a pill years ago, but it's been replaced by other drugs today. As a matter of fact, I don’t know any doctors who’d normally prescribe it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, whenever there's a rhythmical disturbance or a structural lesion, digitalis is the more commonly prescribed stimulant. But strophanthin…” Blaney shook his head.

“Why not strophanthin?”

“I’m not saying it's never used, don’t misunderstand me. I’m saying it's rarely used. A hospital pharmacy may get a call for it once in five years. A doctor would prescribe it only if he wanted immediate results. It acts much faster than digitalis.” Blaney paused. “Are you sure this man didn’t have a cardiac history?”

“Positive.” Carella hesitated a moment and then said, “Well, what form does it come in today?”

“An ampule, usually.”

“Liquid?”

“Yes, ready for injection. You’ve seen ampules of penicillin, haven’t you? Similar to that.”

“Does it come in powder form?”

“It could, yes.”

“What kind of powder?”

“A white crystalline. But I doubt if any pharmacy, even a hospital pharmacy, would stock the powder. Oh, you might find one or two, but it's rare.”

“What's the lethal dose?” Carella asked.

“Anything over a milligram is considered dangerous. That's one one-thousandth of a gram. Compare that to the fatal dose of digitalis, which is about two and a half grams, and you’ll understand what I mean about power.”

“How large a dose did Gifford have?”

“I couldn’t say exactly. Most of it, of course, had already been absorbed, or he wouldn’t have died. It's not easy to recover strophanthin from the organs, you know. It's very rapidly absorbed, and very easily destroyed. Do you want me to guess?”

“Please,” Meyer said.

“Judging from the results of my quantitative analysis, I’d say he ingested at least two full grains.”

“Is that a lot?” Meyer asked.

“It's about a hundred thirty times the lethal dose.”

“What!”

“Symptoms would have been immediate,” Blaney said. “Nausea, vomiting, eventual convulsion.”

The corridor was silent for several moments. Then Carella said, “What do you mean by immediate?”

Blaney looked surprised. “Immediate,” he answered. “What else does immediate mean but immediate? Assuming the poison was injected—”

“He was out there for maybe ten minutes,” Carella said, “with the camera on him every second. He certainly didn’t—”

“It was exactly seven minutes and seventeen seconds,” Meyer corrected.

“Whatever it was, he didn’t take an injection of strophanthin.”

Blaney shrugged. “Then maybe the poison was administered orally.”

“How?”

“Well…” Blaney hesitated. “I suppose he could have broken open one of the ampules and swallowed the contents.”

“He didn’t. He was on camera. You said the dose was enough to bring on immediate symptoms.”

“Perhaps not so immediate if the drug were taken orally. We really don’t know very much about the oral dose. In tests with rabbits, forty times the normal intramuscular dose and eighty times the normal intravenous dose proved fatal when taken by mouth. Rabbits aren’t humans.”

“But you said Gifford probably had a hundred thirty times the normal dose.”

“That's my estimate.”

“How long would that have taken to bring on symptoms?”

“Minutes.”

“How many minutes?”

“Five minutes perhaps. I couldn’t say exactly.”

“And he was on camera for more than seven minutes. So the poison must have got into him just before he came on.”

“I would say so, yes.”

“What about this ampule?” Meyer said. “Could it have been dumped into something he drank?”

“Yes, it could have.”

“Any other way he could have taken the drug?”

“Well,” Blaney said, “if he’d got hold of the drug in powder form somehow, I suppose two grains could have been placed in a gelatin capsule.”

“What's a gelatin capsule?” Meyer asked.

“You’ve seen them,” Blaney said. “Vitamins, tranquilizers, stimulants…many pharmaceuticals are packaged in gelatin capsules.”

“Let's get back to ‘immediate’ again,” Carella said.

“Are we still—”

“How long does it take for a gelatin capsule to dissolve in the body?”

“I have no idea. Several minutes, I would imagine. Why?”

“Well, the capsule would have had to dissolve before any poison could be released, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“So immediate doesn’t always mean immediate, does it? In this case, immediate means after the capsule dissolves.”

“I just told you it would have dissolved within minutes.”

“How many minutes?” Carella asked.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to check that with the lab.”

“We will,” Carella said.

The man assigned to investigate the somewhat odd incident in Miles Vollner's office was Detective Bert Kling. Early Thursday morning, while Carella and Meyer were still asleep, Kling took the subway down to the precinct, stopped at the squadroom to see if there were any messages for him on the bulletin board, and then bused over to Shepherd Street. Vollner's office was on the tenth floor. The lettering on the frosted-glass door disclosed that the name of the firm was VOLLNER AUDIO-VISUAL COMPONENTS, unimaginative but certainly explicit. Kling opened the door and stepped into the reception room. The girl behind the reception desk was a small brunette, her hair cut in bangs across her forehead. She looked up as Kling walked in, smiled, and said, “Yes, sir, may I help you?”

“I’m from the police,” Kling said. “I understand there was some trouble here yesterday.”

“Oh, yes ,” the girl said, “there certainly was !”

“Is Mr. Vollner in yet?”

“No, he isn’t,” the girl said. “Was he expecting you?”

“Well, not exactly. The desk sergeant—”

“Oh, he doesn’t usually come in until about ten o’clock,” the girl said. “It's not even nine-thirty yet.”

“I see,” Kling said. “Well, I have some other stops to make, so maybe I can catch him later on in the—”

“Cindy's here, though,” the girl said.

“Cindy?”

“Yes. She's the one he came to see.”

“What do you mean?”

“The one he said he came to see, anyway.”

“The assailant, do you mean?”

“Yes. He said he was a friend of Cindy's.”

“Oh. Well, look, do you think I could talk to her? Until Mr. Vollner gets here?”

“Sure, I don’t see why not,” the girl said, and pressed a button in the base of her phone. Into the receiver, she said, “Cindy, there's a detective here to talk about yesterday. Can you see him? Okay, sure.” She replaced the receiver. “In a few minutes, Mr.…” She let the sentence hang.