the rest. You can hardly tell which, can you? Here it is.'
'One of them,' said Fred, staring.
Alice couldn't stop shaking. 'And I was giving them to him! Two every three hours. Then one every six hours. I would have been the murderess!'
'What is it?' said Fred.
'Strychnine, I think.'
'But only one pill,' Fred said. 'They'd have had a long wait, maybe. Why only one, Mr. Duff? Why not half a dozen?'
'It's safer,' said Duff. 'There would be no others left over in the box to show where it came from, after he was dead. Oh, we should know it came from the pillbox, but
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not, perhaps, just what kind of dose and, therefore its original source. Poison was indicated, I thought. The flavor of these crimes, the haphazard methods, combined with perfect safety to tho one who was arranging these accidents, and perfect indifference to the chance of getting an innocent victim, poison seemed terribly fitting Ln that pattern. When I thought of poison, I thought of his pills, of course. I took them on a chance. After all, aspirin couldn't hurt him. Well, the poison's there, I think.'
'You mean,' said Alice, half-hysterically, 'one of them has been waiting all this time for him to get the poisoned pill and die? One of them has been checking up, sort of, after every dose? Oh, Mr. Duff, I'm scared now, if I never was before! It's horrible!'
'Yeah,' said Fred, 'a good clean revolver shot would be decent compared to this kind of sneaky .. .' 'But not so safe,' said Duff quietly. 'But look,' said Fred, 'why the coal gas, then? Or were two of them operating at once, for God's sake!'
'There had arisen a time element,' said Duff. 'The lawyer was coming, and they knew it. At least, Isabel did. Do you suppose she told the others?'
'Yes,' said Fred promptiy, 'if she's guilty she told them to help cover herself. If she isn't guilty, she told them because it's important news.'
'He didn't die all day Friday,' said Alice, shivering, 'so they tried another way, during the night.'
Duff was smiling. 'It gives us a rather interesting situation,' he said, 'but let's first see whether we can figure out who put the poison pill in there and where she got it.' 'I don't see how,' said Alice. 'I've been in the room every time they came, I'm sure. And most of the time I've carried the box around with me. And nobody's been in my room at night. . . . I've never slept well enough yet. The only time I did, the doctor was with Innes and so were the pills. Mr. Duff, it's impossible.'
Fred said, 'Would the girls have a thing like that lying around the house? Something to match the stuff the doctor was prescribing? Seems to me they must have rummaged around some place where they had a choice of poisons. How about the doctor's stuff?'
'We must stop in at Dr. Follett's,' Duff said. 'The minister interrupted us this morning. I did mean to ask. But, tell me, did the doctor say aloud or write down what drugs he was going to administer?'
'He did say. Of course he did. Right after we got Innes to bed,' cried Alice. 'They were all there, too. In a row,in the hall. Then they went away. Fred, the doctor left his bag in the car while he helped carry Innes up the stairs. And you were sent for it.'
'Yeah, and I put it down in the hall. You said you'd take it up. When the doctor sent me to his office.'
'Yes, and I didn't take it up right away because I helped Mrs. Innes. I went down for it later. It was down there alone. And they were around. And . . . Oh, Mr. Duff, that's when I heard the funny little sound! You know. The cough-laugh.'
'Ah yes,' Duff said. 'When something happens, you hear noises. So we are exacdy where we were, if this pill came out of the doctor's bag. They each had the chance.'
'But Gertrude,' objected Fred, 'can hardly read the labels on pillboxes or bottles, can she?'
'She can smell?' suggested Duff.
'But nobody would know how strychnine smelled. Do ! you? Do I? Does it?'
'It doesn't,' said Duff, his eyes twinkling. 'No, we shall have to say it's beyond Gertrude, like everything else, unless she's a consummate actress with perfect control and a villainess of high degree.'
'And Maud .. .? Heck, it's the same damn thing!' Fred pounded the seat cushion. 'If she can't hear, she wouldn't know what the doctor said he was going to give him, so she couldn't go down there and put the wrong pill in the right box. But if she can hear, then she could have done it. « Isabel could manage, all right. She could open a pillbox f with one hand. How about a bottle, though?'
'If her fingers are strong.'
'Her fingers are strong,' said Alice grimly.
Fred looked despairing. 'How are we going to stop this, Mr. Duff? How are we going to know?'
Duff chuckled. 'It looks as if Innes has known how to stop it,' he reminded them. 'By appeasement. And don't you see? Somebody is going to have to unmurder Innes.
'Unmurder him?'
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'Of course.'
'What . . . ?'
'Somebody is going to have to make sure he doesn't take the poisoned pill, after all, now that things are
