The Glass Slipper by Eberhart Mignon G

Author:Eberhart, Mignon G. [Eberhart, Mignon G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780884117568
Amazon: 0884117561
Goodreads: 1189822
Publisher: Amereon Ltd
Published: 1938-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI

And no symptoms,” muttered Andy after a moment. “Not a damn symptom. You’d just die.”

“As Crystal died. As the nurse died,” said Brule coolly. “Yes, and it’s only a question of time until the police isolate and identify the poison in Crystal’s body and in Julie Garder’s.”

“Time,” said Andy. “Time — that’s what we need, Brule. Time —”

“For what?” said Brule. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“There might be,” said Andy. “It may take them weeks to find exactly what the girl died of; it often takes two or three weeks when the laboratory fellows don’t know what they’re looking for. And in this case there are a hundred harmless sedatives that are hypnotics. Well, in the length of time it will take to pin down the exact drugs anything can happen. I call it a godsend if you ask me. Arsenic now, or — oh, strychnine or any of a dozen other poisons, would have been so easily detected.”

“There’d have been symptoms if it’d been arsenic or strychnine. Or as you say, any of a dozen other drugs in lethal quantity. The beauty of this particular combination — to the murderer’s mind — is that an overdose of it would certainly induce just what it did induce: a confused heavy drowsiness growing into a coma and presently death. The hypnotic might check the almost instantaneous action of the morphine — although it might not; they might work simultaneously. And they may have been in a capsule which would delay their action. In Crystal’s case, however, the thing was exactly what the murderer wanted. She fell into a heavy sleep and died without showing signs of typical morphine poisoning, which would have given us a clue and allowed us to administer what antidote we could have administered at that stage. With the nurse’s case it’s different; from what you’ve told me. Rue, and from what Gross told me, it sounds as if something went wrong. Either the quantities were not as they had been with Crystal, or the nurse reacted altogether differently. She was, at least, able to get upstairs and walk and try to speak and then just all at once died. The question is time; when was she given the poison? Morphine takes effect right away; it’s a matter of moments. The other is slower. How long could she have remained sensible enough to walk and speak? A capsule would have added to the time margin by twenty minutes. There’s no way of knowing until we know exactly what she died of. And the approximate amounts of each drug. In either case it’s the overdose given that caused death; both are really beneficent drugs. At any rate that’s for the police to worry about. But I’m going to tell them what to look for.”

“You mean — give them that chemist’s report? And tell them what happened last night?”

“Yes, certainly. The sooner they know it, now, the better. I didn’t want anything said of it until I knew just what it was.

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