“We can’t take the chance of forcing her to stay here,” Markham returned finally. “If anything should happen …”
“I get you, sir.” Heath was on his feet. “But I’m going to see that she’s tailed—believe me! I’ll get two good men up here who’ll stick to her from the time she goes out that front door till we know where we stand.” He went into the hall, and we heard him giving orders to Snitkin over the telephone.
Five minutes later Doctor Doremus arrived. He was no longer jaunty, and his greeting was almost sombre. Accompanied by Drumm and Heath he went at once to Mrs. Greene’s room, while Markham and Vance and I waited downstairs. When he returned at the end of fifteen minutes he was markedly subdued, and I noticed he did not put on his hat at its usual rakish angle.
“What’s the report?” Markham asked him.
“Same as Drumm’s. The old girl passed out, I’d say, between one and two.”
“And the strychnine was taken when?”
“Midnight, or thereabouts. But that’s only a guess. Anyway, she got it along with the citrocarbonate. I tasted it on the glass.”24
“By the by, doctor,” said Vance, “when you do the autopsy can you let us have a report on the state of atrophy of the leg muscles?”
“Sure thing.” Doremus was somewhat surprised by the request.
When he had gone, Markham addressed himself to Drumm.
“We’d like to talk to Ada now. How is she this morning?”
“Oh, fine!” Drumm spoke with pride. “I saw her right after I’d looked at the old lady. She’s weak and a bit dried up with all the atropine I gave her, but otherwise practically normal.”
“And she has not been told of her mother’s death?”
“Not a word.”
“She will have to know,” interposed Vance; “and there’s no point in keeping the fact from her any longer. It’s just as well that the shock should come when we’re all present.”
Ada was sitting by the window when we came in, her elbows on the sill, chin in hands, gazing out into the snow-covered yard. She was startled by our entry, and the pupils of her eyes dilated, as if with sudden fright. It was plain that the experiences she had been through had created in her a state of nervous fear.
After a brief exchange of amenities, during which both Vance and Markham strove to allay her nervousness, Markham broached the subject of the bouillon.
“We’d give a great deal,” he said, “not to have to recall so painful an episode, but much depends on what you can tell us regarding yesterday morning.—You were in the drawing-room, weren’t you, when the nurse called down to you?”
The girl’s lips and tongue were dry, and she spoke with some difficulty.
“Yes. Mother had asked me to bring her a copy of a magazine, and I had just gone downstairs to look for it when the nurse called.”
“You saw the nurse when you came upstairs?”
“Yes; she was just going toward the servants’ stairway.”
“There was no one in your room here when you entered?”
She shook her head. “Who could have been here?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, Miss Greene,” replied Markham gravely. “Someone certainly put the drug in your bouillon.”
She shuddered, but made no reply.
“Did anyone come in to see you later?” Markham continued.
“Not a soul.”
Heath impatiently projected himself into the interrogation.
“And say; did you drink your soup right away?”
“No—not right away. I felt a little chilly, and I went across the hall to Julia’s room to get an old Spanish shawl to put round me.”
Heath made a disgusted face, and sighed noisily.
“Every time we get going on this case,” he complained, “something comes along and sinks us.—If Miss Ada left the soup in here, Mr. Markham, while she went to get a shawl, then almost anybody coulda sneaked in and poisoned the stuff.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ada apologized, almost as though she had taken Heath’s words as a criticism of her actions.
“It’s not your fault, Ada,” Vance assured her. “The Sergeant is unduly depressed.—But tell me this: when you went into the hall did you see Miss Sibella’s dog anywhere around?”
She shook her head wonderingly.
“Why, no. What has Sibella’s dog to do with it?”
“He probably saved your life.” And Vance explained to her how Sproot had happened to find her.
She gave a half-breathless murmur of amazement and incredulity, and fell into abstracted revery.
“When you returned from your sister’s room, did you drink your bouillon at once?” Vance asked her next.
With difficulty she brought her mind back to the question.
“Yes.”
“And didn’t you notice a peculiar taste?”
“Not particularly. Mother always likes a lot of salt in her bouillon.”
“And then what happened?”
“Nothing happened. Only, I began to feel funny. The back of my neck tightened up, and I got very warm and drowsy. My skin tingled all over, and my arms and legs seemed to get numb. I was terribly sleepy, and I lay back on the bed.—That’s all I remember.”
“Another washout,” grumbled Heath.
There was a short silence, and Vance drew his chair nearer.
“Now, Ada,” he said, “you must brace yourself for more bad news. … Your mother died during the night.”
The girl sat motionless for a moment, and then turned to him eyes of a despairing clearness.
“Died?” she repeated. “How did she die?”
“She was poisoned—she took an overdose of strychnine.”
“You mean … she committed suicide?”
This query startled us all. It expressed a possibility that had not occurred to us. After a momentary hesitation, however, Vance slowly shook his head.
“No, I hardly think so. I’m afraid the person who poisoned you also poisoned your mother.”
Vance’s reply seemed to stun her. Her face grew pale, and her eyes were set in a glassy stare of terror. Then presently she sighed deeply, as if from a kind of mental depletion.
“Oh, what’s going to happen next? … I’m—afraid!”
“Nothing more is going to happen,” said Vance with emphasis. “Nothing more can happen. You are going to be guarded every minute. And Sibella is going this
