Nadine Farr came forward to give Mason her hand. “I’ve made trouble for all of you, haven’t I?”
Mason grinned. “Trouble is my middle name. Della, Dr. Denair and I are going out to your kitchen for a private conference. You sit here with Miss Farr.”
Della regarded him anxiously. “Is everything all right?” she asked.
Mason said, “We’re making progress, Della — and other people may make progress. At the present time we’re one jump ahead.”
He motioned to Dr. Denair, led the way into Della Street’s kitchenette.
Dr. Denair said, “Mason, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. This girl isn’t one to commit murder. She didn’t—”
“You think there was no poison?” Mason interrupted.
“No,” Dr. Denair said slowly, “I think there was poison, but there was no murder.”
“Explain that more fully,” Mason said.
“I have not yet got all of the facts,” Dr. Denair said. “In dealing with a patient of this sort it is necessary to proceed slowly. One must win her confidence, then probe gently, gently, gently, but steadily, until it all comes out.
“Now when this girl came to my office today she was ready to talk. Unfortunately this other development made for complications. I had to talk with her in the taxicab. That was the devil of a place for a professional conversation. The information I got was necessarily very sketchy.”
“But you got some?” Mason asked.
Dr. Denair nodded.
“Okay,” Mason said, “shoot.”
“Nadine Farr was in love with John Locke. In some way that I haven’t as yet found out, Mosher Higley put his foot down on that match. He insisted that Nadine Farr must disappear, that she must go away, that she must never again communicate with John Locke.”
“He was related to her?”
“She called him her uncle. It was a courtesy title. There was no blood relationship. She was living with him prior to his death, taking care of him, nursing him. He was a sick man.”
“How old?” Mason asked.
“In the sixties.”
“Any romantic entanglements — I mean with Nadine?”
“Definitely not! They hated each other.”
“How long had she been with him?”
“About two years prior to his death.”
“All right, what happened?”
“He had some hold on her. I have not as yet found out what it was. It may be necessary to examine her once more under the influence of narcotics. I should have followed up the lead that she gave me during that first examination. I would have done so if I had been absolutely confident of my nurse, but I didn’t like the expression on her face. She is engaged to be married. Her future husband is a police detective.”
“Oh-oh!” Mason exclaimed.
“Exactly,” Dr. Denair commented dryly. “Now then, Perry, here’s the story. Mosher Higley was cruel, overbearing, obstinate and obdurate. He gave Nadine a deadline. She must disappear and never communicate with John Locke again. The poor girl couldn’t take it and decided to kill herself. She got cyanide tablets.”
“Where did she get them?”
“Strangely enough,” Dr. Denair said, “she got them from, or rather through, John Locke, the young man she loved.”
“How come?”
“Locke is a chemist. He works in a chemical laboratory. One night shortly before Higley’s death she had a date with young Locke. Locke found that he had to work that night. He took her up to the laboratory. He showed her around, as a young man would, and she was interested in where he worked, as a young woman naturally would be under those circumstances.
“At the laboratory, Locke was busy so he warned her about certain bottles, particularly he warned her about a jar of small white tablets. They contained cyanide of potassium. They were, of course, deadly. He told her so she wouldn’t go lifting lids and smelling.
“Locke, of course, had no way of knowing that the girl was desperate. Higley had given her a deadline of forty-eight hours, during which time she had to disappear completely, stepping out of Locke’s life for good.”
Mason said, “Higley must have had terrific power over her. Any idea what it was?”
“Probably she has a past.”
“She seems a nice kid,” Mason said.
“You can’t tell. You should hear some of the stories I have heard from these young girls.”
“Oh, I know,” Mason said, impatiently. “Times change. There are different standards of personal conduct now from those you used to have, but regardless of what she has or hasn’t done she looks sweet, fresh — dammit, she looks like a nice kid.”
Dr. Denair said, “She probably is a nice girl according to your standards and to mine, but one never knows. Perhaps—” He broke off and shrugged his shoulders.
“All right, go ahead,” Mason said. “Give me the background.”
“Mosher Higley was a sick man. He was confined to his room. He had been a very obese man. He was taking off weight rapidly in accordance with the doctor’s orders. He was on a strict diet but he didn’t always adhere to that diet. He cheated when he thought he could get away with it.
“One of the things he craved was hot chocolate. He had sense enough to know that he couldn’t continue drinking hot chocolate while he was trying to take off weight, but he worked out an expedient that seemed to be satisfactory. He used unsweetened chocolate, mixed it with a dried milk powder, and put in several tablets of a chemical sugar substitute. Nadine cooked the stuff for him. She kept this unsweetened chocolate and the sugar substitute concealed in the kitchen underneath certain shelves in an obscure corner.
“Now Nadine Farr was desperate. She was going to commit suicide. John Locke had showed her the jar of poison tablets. She wanted that poison. She waited for the right opportunity when John was busy in another part of the laboratory, dipped into the poison jar and put a whole handful of those tablets into her handkerchief. She knotted the handkerchief and put it in her coat pocket. When she got home she thought at first she would take the tablets immediately, but Higley had given her a forty-eight hour deadline. She decided that she would squeeze every ounce of happiness she could out of life, that she would wait until the last minute, that she would see John Locke as frequently as possible during those forty-eight hours.
“So we have the spectacle of this young woman, very much in love, preparing to kill herself. She needed a bottle for the cyanide tablets. She had no bottle but there was an empty bottle in the kitchen which had contained this sugar substitute.
“So she took this empty bottle, put the cyanide tablets in it, and placed the bottle in her room.”
“Then what?” Mason asked, his voice showing some skepticism.
“Then,” Dr. Denair said, “she saw John Locke every minute of the time she could. Came the morning of the fatal day. Her time was up at seven o’clock that night. Shortly before noon Higley reminded her of the deadline. He also ordered a cup of chocolate. She went down to the kitchen and prepared it for him.
“She brought the chocolate to him. He drank it, suddenly started to choke. He looked up at her and said, ‘You damn little bitch. I should have known it. You’ve poisoned me!’ He tried to shout but made only an inarticulate gurgling sound. He groped for the electric bell which summoned the nurse. The cup, with the remaining chocolate in it, fell from his hand to the floor and was broken. He clawed for the bell, had a spasm, fell back on the bed, then got back to a sitting position, grabbed the bell.
“By the time the nurse got there, which took a few minutes because Nadine was taking over during the noon hour, Higley was unable to speak. Nadine rushed to the phone and called the doctor.