Raspberry Jam by Carolyn Wells

Author:Carolyn Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jovian Press

CHAPTER X

~

A Confession

“DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH ME!” Eunice Embury cried, stepping back from the advancing figure of the burly detective. “Go out of my house—Ferdinand, put this person out!”

The butler appeared in the doorway, but Shane waved a dismissing hand at him.

“No use blustering, Mrs. Embury,” he said, gruffly, but not rudely. “You’d better come along quietly, than to make such a fuss.”

“I shall make whatever fuss I choose—and I shall not ‘come along,’ quietly or any other way! I am not intimidated by your absurd accusations, and I command you once more to leave my house, or I will have you thrown out!”

Eunice’s eyes blazed with anger, her voice was not loud, but was tense with concentrated rage, and she stood, one hand clenching a chair-back while with the other she pointed toward the door.

“Be quiet, Eunice,” said Mason Elliott, coming toward her; “you can’t dismiss an officer of the law like that. But you can demand an explanation. I think, Shane, you are going too fast. You haven’t evidence enough against Mrs. Embury to think of arrest! Explain yourself!”

“No explanation necessary. She killed her husband, and she’s my prisoner.”

“Hush up, Shane; let me talk,” interrupted Driscoll, whose calmer tones carried more authority than those of his rough partner.

“It’s this way, Mr. Elliott. I’m a detective, and I saw at once, that if the doctors couldn’t find the cause of Mr. Embury’s death, it must be a most unusual cause. So I hunted for some clue or some bit of evidence pointing to the manner of his death. Well, when I spied that little medicine dropper, half full of something, I didn’t know what, but—” Here he paused impressively. “But there was no bottle or vial of anything in the cupboard, from which it could have been taken. There was no fluid in there that looked a bit like the stuff in the dropper. So I thought that looked suspicious—as if some one had hidden it there. I didn’t see the whole game then, but I went around to a druggist’s and asked him what was in that dropper. And he said henbane. He further explained that henbane is the common name for hyoscyamin, which is a deadly poison. Now, the doctors were pretty sure that Mr. Embury had not been killed by anything taken into the stomach, so I thought a minute, and, like a flash, I remembered the play of ‘Hamlet’ that I saw last week.

“I guess everybody in New York went to see it—the house was crowded. Anyway, I’ve proved by Mrs. Embury’s engagement book that she went—one afternoon, to a matinee—and what closer or more indicative hint do you want? In that play, the murder is fully described, and though many people might think poison could not be introduced through the intact ear in sufficient quantity to be fatal, yet it can be—and I read an article lately in a prominent medical journal saying so. I was interested, because of the Hamlet play. If I hadn’t seen that, I’d never thought of this whole business.

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