“Who’s next?” His homely face was a mixture of fury and
fear.
“Not me,” Margo averred, gripping her suede bag. But for
once, she didn’t sound very confident.
Killegrew, who was now drinking straight from a bottle
of Scotch, turned bleary eyes on the others. “It had to be
suicide,” he mumbled.
“Can it, Frank,” Margo said wearily. “We know better.
Stop kidding yourself.”
“I don’t blame her,” Killegrew said, as if he hadn’t heard
Margo. “I feel like jumping off a cliff.”
“Oh, please don’t!” Russell begged. “Really, this is all so…”
Slumped on the footstool, he ran a hand through his
disheveled fair hair. “It’s exactly what Ava just mentioned—it’s
ideas and theories and concepts. But,” he continued, hiking
himself up to a full sitting position, “I do know how to conjecture, it’s part of my job. I saw that pill bottle on the
nightstand in Leon’s room. It was given to Nadia by the
company physician, Dr. Winslow, who is somewhat oldfashioned. Triclos—or triclofos or chloral hydrate, to call it
by its more common name—is not often prescribed any more.
I recall this from my days as an army medic. It can be lethal,
of course, especially if it’s taken with an alcoholic beverage.
There was also an empty gin bottle on the floor by the bed.
I must assume—or conjecture, if you will—that whoever
murdered poor dear Nadia must have put the chloral hydrate
tablets into the gin.”
A little gasp went up around the lobby, but the usually
reticent Russell Craven hadn’t finished. “You see, I
thinking. It’s what I do. And I’ve come to one unalterable
conclusion. The deaths have not been caused by any
of us. We’ve wondered a great deal about an outsider committing these crimes. That can be the only answer.” From
behind his round, rimless glasses, Russell stared at Judith
and Renie. “It must be those two women. They are the killers,
and we must act at once.”
SEVENTEEN
JUDITH AND RENIE both started to protest, meanwhile
backpedaling across the lobby. But no one actually came
after them. The OTIOSE executives appeared depleted, as if
the latest horror had sapped their collective will.
“We can’t stop them,” Killegrew finally said in a lethargic
voice. “It’s inevitable. We’ve come here to die.”
“It’s like the Nazis with the concentration camps,” Ava
said in wonder. “You get on a bus, you think you’re simply
being sent to some harmless place, but you never come back.”
“My grandparents were slaughtered by Mao’s henchmen,”
Margo said, her grip slackened on the suede bag. “They
thought they were being taken to a political meeting in another village.”
