The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

though. This business isn’t exactly what you bargained for and you’re too intelligent to be able to shut your mind against it.”
    “I ought to be too intelligent to panic, though. If only it wasn’t quite so evident that I’m not as brave as I’d like to be.” She hesitated for a moment and then said quickly, “Did Thane Carey tell you about my last night’s adventure?”
    “No.” Peter tightened his hold on her arm. “What happened?”
    “I don’t suppose it was anything except a mad prank of Margie’s but—well—I didn’t like it much.” She then told him briefly what had happened, and, when she finished, she thought again of telling him about her more recent adventure with James, but, again, she thought better of it.
    For a full moment Peter was silent. They had now reached the gateway to the college campus and were about to cross over to go up Miss Hartwell’s walk, when he stopped abruptly and said: “This settles it.”
    Fredericka was startled and a little annoyed. Was he going to leave her here? Had she given him some mysterious clue? She had been dreading the moment when she would have to lose Peter’s comforting presence, but even if he came in, the night would be all the blacker and lonelier when he left.
    “Settles what?” she asked.
    “I’ll tell you in a minute. The fact is that I have some news for you, too. It isn’t really for you but I think I must tell you, though it isn’t my business to at all, and I happen to know that Thane’s calling on you early tomorrow—no, don’t start to run like a hare—he’s not going to arrest you!”
    “Arrest me?”
    “Oh damn, you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick somehow. Now just listen to me quietly for a moment, and don’t faint until I come to the end of my sad story.”
    “I don’t faint.”
    “That’s a good thing. Where was I? Oh yes. We were able to put on some pressure and the result of the autopsy has come in early. As we all suspected—yes, you, too, and don’t deny it—Catherine Clay was poisoned. It is unlikely—I might as well say impossible, that she took her own life because those capsules in the little silver box—”
    “Then it was hers—that’s what I had about decided—”
    “Yes, but don’t interrupt for a minute. As I started to say, those capsules were solid full of yellow jessamine—perhaps I should say Gelsemin C24H28N204. Our theory is that, immediately after lunch on Saturday she took what she thought to be one of her vitamin pills and it was, instead, a large dose of poison. She then visited the bookshop, probably very soon after you and I left, to return that book and, perhaps, to collect you to go to the bazaar with her since it would have been about the right time. But by the time she got to the shop she was feeling ill. The symptoms are nausea, pain in the brows and eyeballs, dilation of the pupils (this was noticeable, of course, but we put it down to the fact, admitted by her mother, that she sometimes took dope), paralysis and dimness of vision—more than enough to make anyone want to lie down—”
    “Good heavens, Peter, she must have suffered agonies there all by herself in that miserable hammock.” Fredericka spoke calmly, but one hand clutched Peter’s sleeve tightly.
    “It may not have been too bad, actually. There was no evidence that she was actually sick and it was a good-sized dose. No, the chances are that she felt odd, lay down, passed out and knew no more.”
    “But that—that awful look on her face?”
    “It may have been purely muscular,” Peter said, but without conviction.
    Fredericka tried to forget the face which had haunted her all the long week, and, with an effort, shifted her thoughts from Catherine to her murderer. “Oh, Peter, who could have done it? Who hated her that much?”
    “Ah—that’s the crux of the whole matter. If we’d only listened to Margie at the supper. We come back to Margie every time. She knows something, I’m sure, but she’s frightened to tell, so she just hints and runs away. I wonder what in thunder she was doing last night. If only…” his voice trailed off. Then he said slowly: “The murder looks more like hatred than expediency, doesn’t it?” Then, suddenly aware of the hand that was clutching his arm so fiercely, he went on quietly: “You mustn’t take this too hard, Fredericka. I tell you all this because I am convinced that the best thing in the world for you now is to put your very good