The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

Philippine arrived in 1946 Catherine secured her divorce and returned to New York to start a beauty parlour venture. That was also the year that Roger returned home.
    “By 1949, Philippine was well entrenched, the herb business was doing very well, and she was able to start her experimental laboratory. Catherine, on the other hand, had run into business difficulties in New York, tried dope peddling to recover and was eventually forced to return to South Sutton under the eye of the police. Rumour had it by then that Philippine and Roger were engaged. We now know that Roger was devoted to Philippine because of her clinical attitude toward his injury, but he did not want to marry her. Philippine, of course, wanted marriage, but she had begun to despair of this hope with Roger and had set her cap for James Brewster who was more susceptible, and, if not a Sutton, definitely well off. But Catherine also had designs on the town’s Beau Brummell dating from 1945, and this added fuel to the flames of their hatred. In 1950 Sutton College established its new department of Military Government and Colonel Peter Mohun came to South Sutton.”
    “Enter hero,” Thane put in quickly.
    “As you say, Carey—thank you—‘enter hero’! This brings us to 1951. Early this year, Philippine took in Margie Hartwell as helper in the lab and her mother as bookkeeper. So now our family is—or was—complete. But if we’re going to bring ourselves right up to date and complete our cast of characters, we come to July, 1951 and the arrival of Fredericka Wing to take over the bookshop from Lucy Hartwell.”
    “Enter heroine,” Thane muttered.
    “As you say, Carey—thank you—‘enter heroine’! If it hadn’t been for Fredericka I don’t think either the police or their assistant would have worked this thing out—at any rate, not so soon.”
    “I have to agree to that one, Peter, and to applaud your most excellent—oh, most excellent—exposition. But please, teacher, may I ask one or two questions?” Peter laughed, and Thane hurried on. “The principal motive you’ve given Philippine for the murder of Catherine Clay is jealousy. But you’ve only hinted at the deeper reason. The spark that set off the fuse was the fact that, somehow, Catherine had discovered the possibility of Philippine’s true identity. She’d been writing to that firm in France who were doing a little quiet investigating for her. Philippine must have cottoned to that and wanted to kill Catherine before the investigations went too far. I gather that she was just in the nick of time. That letter that came after Catherine’s death revealed all. Wasn’t it also true that Catherine badly wanted money and was pressing her mother for it?”
    “Oh yes—I thought I had said all that. Philippine certainly wasn’t going to let any of her hard-earned cash go to Catherine. There was that, too.”
    “But I don’t see, Peter,” Connie said suddenly, “why, if you found out this Alma Fersen business when you went to Washington, you didn’t come back and bag your bird quick before she went for anyone else.”
    “Two reasons. I hadn’t final proof. You remember that Philippine got hold of that last letter and presumably destroyed it. Anyway it was never found. I had to write to France and moreover to work through the Sûreté and I’ve only just today had the final information. The other reason was that even knowing that our little Philippine was, in fact, Alma Fersen, didn’t prove that she’d murdered Catherine Clay and Margie Hartwell. I think now that I might have bluffed her into a confession because Margaret had actually seen her in the lab with the capsules, too. But I didn’t know that, of course, and I was convinced that we had to have concrete evidence. Thinking it over after the event, I believe that she wouldn’t have given in if Margaret hadn’t been so sure and I hadn’t had that nasty little mess of poisoned face cream in my pocket. She was no mean adversary, as they say in the best books.”
    “What about that dope in Mrs. Hartwell’s bag?” Fredericka asked.
    “I regret to say that it got there from James Brewster’s apartment via Philippine. Brewster was running a nice little racket under cover of his great respectability. He kept Catherine supplied and Philippine was aware of this, too. They knew James’s place would be searched and they figured that Mrs. Hartwell’s bag was a most excellent place for the current batch to be