“I don’t know where she is,” Locke said.
Mason drove steadily, his eyes straight ahead.
Locke turned suddenly to Mason, said, “You’ll have to hide me. I can’t afford to talk with the police.”
“Why not?” Mason asked.
“Because of what I know.”
Mason glanced obliquely at Della Street, then kept his eyes on the road ahead, saying nothing, waiting for Locke to talk.
At length Locke blurted, “I know she got the cyanide.”
“Keep talking,” Mason said.
“At that time one of my associates in the laboratory was making some experiments with cyanide. He had to use quite a quantity. We know what the different jars weigh down to a fraction of a gram. So by weighing the cyanide jar and the contents the technician knew exactly how much cyanide was in the jar. He had to carry on the experiment he was conducting by dropping in a little more cyanide until he secured just the reaction he wanted. Then the mixture had to sit over a thirty-six-hour period. When he had finished his experiments he knew how many cyanide pellets he had put in, but just in order to check, he weighed the cyanide jar. That was when he found there were about two dozen pills short. So he asked me what I had been using the cyanide for. I told him ‘Nothing,’ that I hadn’t opened the jar. So then he checked his weights again and it became apparent that some two dozen pills were short.”
“What did you do?” Mason asked.
“I told him that there must have been a mistake as far as the weight was concerned, or that his scales must have been off balance. I could see that he wasn’t convinced. I was able to put up a good front because at the time the explanation hadn’t dawned on me.”
“When did it dawn on you?”
“Several hours later. I kept thinking over the thing and wondering what could have happened. We suspected the janitor and gave him a going-over and then suddenly I remembered that Nadine had been in the laboratory with me and I had pointed out the cyanide jar to her.”
“So what did you do?” Mason asked. “Did you get in touch with her?”
“I tried to. It wasn’t a thing you could very well take up by telephone. Of course, the first thing that occurred to me was that something had happened and... well, you know what I would naturally think under those circumstances.”
“Suicide?” Mason asked.
Locke nodded.
“So what did you do?”
“So I went to see her. I didn’t trust to the telephone. Believe me, I dashed out there as fast as I could.”
“To the place where she was living?”
“Yes. Mosher Higley’s house.”
“You’d been there before?”
“Heavens yes. I was friendly with Mosher Higley. In fact, I met Nadine through him. My family and Higley’s have been friendly for years.”
“Tell me about the cyanide.”
“I got there and Nadine wasn’t home. She’d gone down to the market. I wanted to go to her room but there wasn’t any way I could do it. The nurses were there around the house and Cap’n Hugo is nobody’s fool. He’s a shrewd, watchful individual and... well, I made the mistake of showing my excitement when I came rushing in and asking for Nadine. After that he wouldn’t take his eyes off me.”
“So what happened?”
“So,” Locke said, “I finally confided in Cap’n Hugo. I told him that... I just told him what had happened. I asked him first if he’d noticed anything strange about Nadine.”
“Had he?”
“We both had. She’d been under a terrific strain. She was trying to act normal but she was overdoing it, and... you know how it is.”
“All right. You told Cap’n Hugo. What did you tell him?”
“I told him the truth. I told him that I had reason to believe Nadine had taken some cyanide pills from the laboratory, that if so she must have them in her room and I wanted to get them.”
“And what happened?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well go there with the nurses around and Nadine due back any minute, but Cap’n Hugo... he’s an understanding sort of chap. He’ll talk a leg off of you at times, but at times when the chips are down he’s true blue.”
“What did he do?”
“He told me to wait. He went to Nadine’s room and found a bottle that had some pills in it. He brought that bottle to me and asked me if those were the pills.”
“What did you do?”
“I smelled them and it needed only one smell to tell what they were. There’s a characteristic odor of bitter almonds about cyanide and—”
“And you smelled that odor?”
“That’s right.”
“How many pills were in the bottle?” Mason asked.
“Just about the number that was missing.”
“Now wait a minute,” Mason said. “Your associate weighed the bottle containing the cyanide before his experiment and afterward?”
“Yes.”
“And he knew exactly how many cyanide pellets he had put in his experimental mixture?”
Locke nodded.
“So when he said there were two dozen pills short he wasn’t guessing, he—?”
“Actually there were twenty-five pellets short according to his calculations.”
“How many pellets were in the bottle that Cap’n Hugo gave you?” Mason asked.
“Frankly, I didn’t count them. I estimated them.”
“Why didn’t you count them?”
“Because there wasn’t time.”
“What happened?”
“I wanted to get out before Nadine returned.”
“And you did so?”
“Yes. Actually I passed her just as she was leaving the market. She didn’t see me. I was driving rather fast.”
“How far was the market from the house?”
“About two and a half blocks.”
“When did all this happen?”
“The Saturday Mosher Higley died.”
“What time?”
“Around eleven-thirty.”
“Did you see Newburn’s car?”
“Not his car. He wasn’t there, but Mrs. Newburn was upstairs visiting with Mosher Higley.”
“What was Cap’n Hugo doing when you arrived?”
“Washing windows in the dining room.”
“To get to Nadine’s room it’s necessary to go through the kitchen?”
“That’s right.”
“You didn’t go as far as her room?”
“Just to the head of the stairs leading to the basement. I waited there to warn Cap’n Hugo if she should come in.”
“Did you notice whether there was chocolate cooking on the Stove?”
“Yes. There was chocolate melting in the double boiler but the fire had been turned off.”
“Later on, did you ask Nadine about the poison?”
“I intended to question her that afternoon but... well, you know what happened. Mosher Higley died and she was all broken up. The doctor gave her a sedative. She slept for nearly twenty-four hours, and after she wakened she was like a changed woman. I... I knew Mosher Higley had been treating her like a dog and... I just felt it wasn’t necessary to have any conversation with her then. I felt there was no chance she’d try to... well, to do away with herself.”
Mason drove for several seconds in thoughtful silence.
“So now,” Locke said, “you can understand how it happened that I confided in Cap’n Hugo about that confession. I didn’t want you to think I was a completely irresponsible gossip. But you can see what happened. After Dr. Denair got that tape-recorded statement from Nadine she told me about it and, of course, that put an entirely new slant on things, so I reassured her as best I could and—”
“Did she tell you at that time about having taken the cyanide from your laboratory?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you tell her about what had happened to it?”
“Nothing. She said it was missing from her room and I... well, I didn’t say a word because I knew that it couldn’t have been used in connection with Mosher Higley’s death and I felt certain that sooner or later we could convince her that Higley had died a purely natural death.”