“The threat from which you must escape, Roger, is hard and brutal. Both of us recognize it. I’ve kept silent this long because of a promise I made years ago on the beaches of Normandy. Your father was the one real friend I’ve ever had, Roger. He offered me ultimate proof, by risking himself to save another. I made him a promise, as he died, and I’ve abided by its letter, even though I’ve never liked you at all.
“I’ve treated you like a son, Roger, but if the girl in the hospital dies, I’ll have to tell the police who the drunken hit-run driver was.”
“Would you, if I were actually your son?” Lawrence asked.
Rassman looked at him a moment.
“Yes,” he said, “and I’m sure you already knew the answer.”
“It was,” Roger conceded, his face slightly haggard, “a rather pointless question on my part.”
Evan Payne moistened his lips to speak. He made a motion with his hand. It reminded Rassman of a fawning beggar seeking alms.
Before Evan could speak, Rassman said, “Your category, Evan, is perhaps the most interesting of all. Jealousy and. hatred. The motive that degenerates a man, if latent degeneration were in him. The motive that tests a man. He is strengthened, if he conquers and rises above it. He is morally destroyed, if he does not.
“You were a weakling, Evan, who inherited a family business. I bought in. Soon I was in control. You became a despised lackey who took my orders and performed grubby little routine tasks where you were of some value.
“You learned long ago to fear me, Evan, my power over your well-being and future. The jealousy and hatred has distilled in you day by day, year by year. Even now, as you cower before me, the motive lies deep in your eyes.”
Payne made a despairing effort to smile, to laugh it off. “Bigby, you know, while I might envy you, I wouldn’t try to murder you.”
“None of you will try again,” Rassman said. “My man servant Gaspard is not without his price. Tonight before dinner, I gave him instructions and the means to carry out his task. The poison was odorless and tasteless. It will leave no trace. You see, I too now have a motive. Category number two. I wish to escape being murdered.”
“Poison?” Evan Payne stumbled to his feet.
“It came with the dessert,” Rassman said.
Payne stumbled backward, away from the table. “You... you’d kill us?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Evan,” Rassman said with contempt. “I’m merely giving you the chance to insure your own life by insuring mine.”
From the side pocket of his dinner jacket, Rassman took three small vials of pale tan liquid and set them on the table. “This is the antidote;” he said.
As Payne rushed forward, Rassman rose and motioned him back. “Not so fast, Evan. There is a price.” He reached to the inner pocket of his jacket and withdrew a thin sheaf of folded papers. “Each of you will sign the proper copy of this.” He dropped the papers on the table. “In return, you get the antidote which immediately will counteract and neutralize the poison.”
Elise and Roger were standing now. Payne pulled his shirt collar with his finger, looking longingly at the three small bottles.
Roger touched the papers. “What are we putting our names to?”
“A statement that one of the three of you has already made an attempt on my life, that no one else has sufficient motive for my murder,” Rassman said. “The reasons that inspire your murderous intentions are detailed. When you have signed, I shall place the papers beyond your slightest possibility of obtaining them. I shall make arrangements for delivery of the papers to the proper authorities if I happen to die violently.”
“You’re bluffing,” Roger said. “You wouldn’t take the chance on killing us!”
“I’m not killing you,” Rassman said. “I’m merely giving a potential murderer the chance to commit suicide.”
“I’ll sign,” Payne said, a sob in his voice. “Give me a pen, a—”
“Just a minute,” Elise broke in. “How do we know we’re not putting ourselves in the hands of a man who can ruin us any time he likes?”
“You’ll have to take my word, my dear,” Rassman said. “You have no other choice. You know that I never give my word lightly. And the word I give you is this: If I die peacefully in bed at a ripe old age, my last will and testament will contain all the necessary directions and instructions. Sealed envelopes containing your respective statements will be delivered to each of you.”
“Please,” Payne was gasping. “The antidote—”
Rassman uncapped a pen, picked up the papers, chose one, handed pen and paper to Evan Payne. The corpulent man bent over the table and put a shaky signature to the statement.
Rassman handed Payne one of the small bottles. Payne opened it, swallowed the liquid at a gulp. He grimaced against the bitter taste. “Bigby, are you sure—”
“You’re as safe as a babe in its mother’s arms,” Rassman said, “and you may now go if you like.”
He jingled a key from his pocket and tossed it to Payne. “You can unlock the door from this side. Gaspard removed his own key.”
Payne rushed to the door. It opened, closed. He was gone.
Roger Lawrence had slowly picked up the pen. He studied the statement for a moment, and then signed it and threw the pen on the table. He lifted the antidote, drank it.
“Good night, Roger,” Rassman said quietly.
Roger looked at him for one more moment, the muscles working in his face. He turned abruptly and walked out.
A silence came to the dining room. Elise moved slowly, reaching out to touch the pen and the remaining statement. She didn’t pick either up.
“Tell me, Uncle Big, why all this bother? When the attempt was made on your life, didn’t you think of the police?”
“But immediately,” Rassman said.
“Yet you didn’t call them in.”
“I had a second thought,” he said. “They are not always successful. They might never have found which of you three plugged the gun barrel. They might have decided on the wrong one. I didn’t relish the thought of my potential murderer remaining free to try again. I was determined not to have my life ruined from living under such a shadow day by day. This way, not one of the three of you will ever dare to lift a finger against me again.”
“But only two of us have signed your statements, Uncle.”
“You will sign, Elise.”
“Will I?” she said softly.
Her tone brought his glance to her, quickly.
The pain hit him high in the stomach, almost as if the jerking of his head had triggered it.
He gasped, went crashing away from the table as the first convulsion doubled him to the floor. He thrashed violently. But not for very long.
When Elise looked away from Uncle Big, she saw Gaspard standing in the dining room doorway. They moved with a rush toward each other. He folded his arms about her.
Elise shivered slightly. “It really was deadly, the poison you told me that he planned to use.”
“Very deadly,” Gaspard said in his rich baritone. “It will leave no trace, as he said. It will appear that an aging man has died of apoplexy. We can be together at last.”
“Yes, my darling,” Elise whispered. She lifted her face and kissed Gaspard- with fervor.
And the thought crossed her mind that in all his analysis of the reasons for murder Uncle Big had overlooked one. Gaspard’s motive. Murder for love.