The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

carefully but there wasn’t even another smudge.”
    “Then you must have known it was Catherine’s when you gave it to me to find out—I don’t quite understand.”
    “We thought it must be hers but we were really looking for people’s reactions to the sight of the box,” Thane explained.
    “I see,” Fredericka said, “and you didn’t want to tell me too much just then…”
    “Well, no—not then”—he went on hurriedly, “the odd thing to me is that the murderer should have made the manner of death so apparent. I mean, why so few pills—the one she took presumably, and only the two or three that remained?”
    Fredericka was interested. This was the kind of deduction she liked. “But surely,” she said quickly, “the murderer intended her death to look like an overdose of dope. Everyone seemed to know that Catherine took it. It never occurred to him—or her—that there would be an autopsy—and a few pills made it so much easier on the manufacturing end. Besides Catherine probably had only two or three left in the box just then. No, I think the murderer would have expected you to be looking for the dope syringe. Vitamin capsules are innocent enough.” She stopped for a moment and then another thought occurred to her. “If it got to the point of an autopsy, of course, then the fact that the poison was yellow jessamine would be known and the way it had been taken of less importance.”
    “I see your reasoning but I must say it sounds very female, to me,” Thane said slowly. “And I still think the murderer would want us to be in the dark about how the poison got inside Catherine and would have made some attempt to recover that box afterwards, with or without finger prints.”
    Fredericka started to say: “Maybe that’s what James Brewster was looking for—” and caught herself in time. After all she wasn’t supposed to know about James. Instead she said quickly; “Yes, but no one knew where the death would happen. Short of trailing the victim, the murderer wouldn’t know either, and by the time the news got around, you had a police guard on the body, and the whole place combed for clues.”
    “It’s an odd thing about murderers. They always seem so ready to believe that death will be assumed to be natural but, in a case like this, it almost never is.”
    “No, I guess not. And yet South Sutton is a sleepy little town. If Dr. Scott had been as easygoing as village doctors are supposed to be—and there hadn’t happened to be an intelligent chief of police, then—”
    “Yes, but that presupposes someone who didn’t know either Dr. Scott or me and I must say that seems unlikely. Incidentally, Fredericka, if you continue to pay me compliments, I shall begin to suspect you, and I confess that I would very much dislike that—not because I wish to spare you anything, of course, but just because it is such a relief to be able to rule out two people in this place—it gives me someone to talk to.”
    “Two people?”
    “Yes, you and Peter Mohun.”
    “I don’t quite see how we’re in the clear but if you do, I’m certainly not going to argue with you.”
    “Well, I work it out this way, though perhaps I shouldn’t enlighten you. Catherine was in the habit of taking the vitamin pills after meals. This has been agreed by every member of the household, and everyone who knew her. That means that it was the after-lunch dose that did it and that, since the morning dose didn’t, the switch over in the box happened between, say, ten A.M. and two P.M., and most likely in the morning as soon as the after-breakfast pill had been taken. Catherine was at the farm all morning. Several people saw her. At some time during the morning the box was on the sideboard in the dining room. Margie acts as though she knows more than she has told but she does say that she saw the silver case there after breakfast and so did someone else—a maid, I think. Fredericka Wing couldn’t have got out to the Farm to make the exchange—well, you could have, I suppose. But you were keeping the shop open and Chris says you didn’t leave the place.”
    “I see—But Peter—”
    “We’ll leave him out of this. I don’t know why I’m talking so much as it is.”
    Fredericka couldn’t resist asking one more question. “But doesn’t the fact of the box being there at the Farm and—and a sort of flower or herb kind of poisoning—point to someone out there? I mean, can’t you narrow it down?” She