The two Queens exclaimed under their breaths. “Gasoline!” cried the Inspector. “Why—how on earth could a man trace that?”
“That’s the point,” answered the toxicologist. “I could go to the corner gas-station, fill up the tank of my car, run it home, extract some of the gasoline from the tank, go into my laboratory and distill the tetra ethyl lead in remarkably little time with remarkably little effort!”
“Doesn’t that imply, Doctor,” put in Ellery hopefully, “that the murderer of Field had some laboratory experience—knew something about chemical analysis, and all that sort of rot?”
“No, it doesn’t. Any man with a home-brew ‘still’ in his house could distill that poison without leaving a trace. The beauty of the process is that the tetra ethyl lead in the gasoline has a higher boiling-point than any other of the fluid’s constituents. All you have to do is distill everything out up to a certain temperature, and what’s left is this poison.”
The Inspector took a pinch of snuff with trembling fingers. “All I can say is—I take my hat off to the murderer,” he muttered. “Tell me—Doctor—wouldn’t a man have to know quite a bit about toxicology to possess such knowledge? How could he ever know this without some special interest—and therefore training—in the subject?”
Dr. Jones snorted. “Inspector, I’m surprised at you. Your question is already answered.”
“How? What do you mean?”
“Haven’t I just told you how to do it? And if you heard about the poison from a toxicologist, couldn’t you make some provided you had the ‘still’? You would require no knowledge except the boiling-point of tetra ethyl lead. Get along with you, Queen! You haven’t a chance in the world of tracing the murderer through the poison. In all probability he overheard a conversation between two toxicologists, or even between two medical men who had heard about the stuff. The rest was easy. I’m not saying this is so. The man might be a chemist, at that. But I’m concerned only in giving you the possibilities.”
“I suppose it was administered in whiskey, eh, Doctor?” asked Queen abstractedly.
“No doubt about it,” returned the toxicologist. “The stomach showed a large whiskey content. Certainly, it would be an easy way for the murderer to slip it over on his victim. With the whiskey you get nowadays, most of it smells etherized, anyway. And besides, Field probably had it down before he realized anything was wrong—if he did at all.”
“Wouldn’t he taste the stuff?” asked Ellery wearily.
“I’ve never tasted it, young man, so I can’t say definitely,” answered Dr. Jones, a trifle tartly. “But I doubt whether he would—sufficiently to alarm him, at any rate. Once he had it down it wouldn’t make any difference.”
Queen turned to Prouty, whose cigar had gone out. He had fallen into a hearty doze. “Say, Doc!”
Prouty opened his eyes sleepily. “Where are my slippers—I can’t ever seem to find my slippers, damn it!”
Despite the tension of the moment, there was a spontaneous roar of amusement at the expense of the Assistant Medical Examiner. When he had come to with sufficient thoroughness to understand what he had said, he joined the chuckling group and said, “Just goes to prove that I’d better be going home, Queen. What did you want to know?”
“Tell me,” said Queen, still shaking, “what did you get from your analysis of the whiskey?”
“Oh!” Prouty sobered instantly. “The whiskey in the flask was as fine as any I’ve ever tested—and I’ve been doing nothing but testing booze for years now. It was the poison in the liquor on his breath that made me think at first that Field had drunk rotten booze. The Scotch and rye that you sent me in bottles from Field’s apartment were also of the very highest quality. Probably the flask’s contents came from the same place as the bottled stuff. In fact, I should say that both samples were imported goods. I haven’t come across domestic liquor of that calibre ever since the War—that is, except for the prewar stuff that was stored away. … And I suppose Velie communicated my report to you that the ginger ale is okay.”
Queen nodded. “Well, that seems to settle it,” he said heavily. “It looks as if we’re up against a blank wall on this tetra ethyl lead business. But just to make sure, Doc—work along with the professor here and try to locate a possible leak somewhere in the distribution of the poison. You fellows know more about that than anybody I could put on the case. It’s just a stab in the dark and probably nothing will come of it.”
“There’s no question about it,” murmured Ellery. “A novelist should stick to his last.”
“I think,” remarked Ellery eagerly, after the two doctors had gone, “that I’ll amble down to my bookseller for that Falconer.” He rose and began a hasty search for his coat.
“Here!” bellowed the Inspector, pulling him down into a chair. “Nothing doing. That blasted book of yours won’t run away. I want you to sit here and keep my headache company.”
Ellery nestled into the leather cushions with a sigh. “Just when I get to feeling that all investigations into the foibles of the human mind are useless and a waste of time, my worthy sire puts the onus of thought upon me again. Heigh-ho! What’s on the menu?”
“I’m not putting any onus on you at all,” growled Queen. “And stop using such big words. I’m dizzy enough. What I want you to do is help me go over this confounded mess of a case and see—well, what we can see.”
“I might have suspected it,” said Ellery. “Where do I start?”
“You don’t,” grunted his father.
