“She and her brother have been house guests for a week. Naturally I’m interested. I assure you Miss Stevens didn’t poison herself.”
There was a certain tenseness in his voice. Prye raised an eyebrow and said, “Really? How can you be sure?”
“I know Miss Stevens better than you do, Dr. Prye. You arrived only last night. I’ve been watching Duncan Stevens and his sister for a week.”
“Watching?”
Jackson flushed. “Observing, I mean. I consider Mr. Stevens an interesting psychological case. He is a smooth bully.”
“I think so,” Prye agreed.
“He is so smooth that Miss Stevens doesn’t know she’s being bullied. Miss Stevens’ I.Q. is not very high.”
“It hits the pit,” Prye said. “Undoubtedly.”
“Will she die?”
“I don’t know. I think not. I guessed the poison that was used, you see. The rest is up to the hospital.”
“What poison was it?”
Prye said, “It hasn’t been verified.”
“Even if she doesn’t die, it will be attempted homicide?”
Prye nodded.
“And who do you think attempted it?” Jackson said softly. “Miss Stevens is practically a stranger in Toronto, like yourself.” He paused, grinning. “I know less about you than I know about the others in this house.”
“This house?” Prye echoed.
“Miss Stevens hasn’t been out of the house since yesterday afternoon. Interested?”
“Very.”
Jackson’s voice was still soft. “Of course maybe it was a long-range poison and took a long time to work. Still, I can’t understand why it was arranged for the victim to collapse in a crowd of people containing a doctor.”
“Can’t you?”
“Unless,” Jackson said, “it was the wrong victim.” He got up, straightened his white coat, and smoothed his dark hair.
Prye said, “Wait a moment.”
Jackson turned around. “Yes sir.”
“How long have you been here, Jackson?”
“Two months.”
“Why?”
“Why? Fifty a month and full maintenance. That’s a fine reason. All my reasons are fine by virtue of their simplicity. I eat because I’m hungry and I sleep because I’m tired, and I work because I need some place to sleep and something to eat, sir.” He paused. “Is there anything else you require, sir? If there is, just ring and I shall appear instantaneously.”
“Don’t lurk behind doors,” Prye said. “I know someone who got a nasty black eye doing that.”
Jackson grinned. “I know just the thing for black eyes.” He went out, closing the door quietly behind him.
Prye finished his cigarette and then went upstairs to his room and changed from his morning clothes to a gray tweed lounge suit. The change was good for his morale. He felt less like a frustrated bridegroom and more like coping with a murderer.
“Murderer,” he said aloud. He went back into the clothes closet, removed a folded slip of paper from his morning coat, and walked down the hall to Nora’s room.
She said through the door, “Come in,” in a voice slushy with tears. He went in and found her sitting on a couch beside the window. She had changed into the dress he liked best, a gray wool affair with collar and belt of red linen. Her eyelids were still rather pink.
He kissed her. “Feeling better?”
She smiled slightly. “Mrs. Hogan is gunning for you, darling. She thinks you poisoned Jane to get out of marrying me. At least that was the implication.”
“It’s not so.”
“Here they come.”
“Police?”
“Mother and Aunt Aspasia and Dennis Williams.”
They both looked out of the window and watched a low-slung blue sedan disgorge its occupants on the driveway. Mrs. Shane, her black velvet bat askew on her bead, was in command. She was holding Aspasia’s arm firmly in one hand and with the other she was making vague but magnificent gestures to the driver of the car, a tall, deeply tanned young man who was to have been one of the ushers.
“My mother, right or wrong,” Nora said.
Prye was watching Williams. “He buys that tan in a bottle. I must warn Dinah.”
“Just because your own romance has broken up I suppose you want to make others suffer,” Nora said. “Besides, it’s not out of a bottle, it’s out of a jar and costs three dollars per ounce.”
Prye looked at her. “You are feeling better. Well enough to stand a third shock?”
“Shock?”
He took the folded paper from his vest pocket. “Ford found this in his pocket where the ring was. The ring is gone. So, I may add, is Ford.”
“Why?”
“I told him to hop back to Detroit. There was no sense in involving my best man in this mess.” He handed her the paper. “It was put in place of the ring to make sure I wouldn’t miss it. Read it. You might recognize the style.”
She unfolded the paper and stared at it blindly for a moment. Then the small, precise letters written in blue ink came into focus.
Dr. Prye: I have arranged a little surprise for you. Knowing how interested you are in murders I have decided to give you one on your own doorstep, as it were. Don’t be too flattered. I intended to do it anyway. But the setting is too good to miss. I have always been intrigued by the funereal aspect of weddings and the hymeneal aspect of funerals. It is high time someone combined the two. I am leaving this note in your friend’s pocket in place of the ring, not because you can stop the murder, but merely to assure you that I am perfectly serious.
The note fluttered to the floor.
“Recognize the writing?” Prye said.
“No.”
“The style?”
“N-no.” Her voice was less confident.
A soft rap on the door sounded and Jackson came in very respectfully and said,
“The police are here, Miss Shane.”
2
The arrival of Detective-Inspector Sands and Sergeant Bannister was witnessed from behind at least one pair of curtains.
At the drawing-room windows stood Dennis Williams. Except for the studied blankness of his face he seemed at ease as he watched the two men step out of the car and walk unhurriedly along the flagstones.
From behind him Mrs. Shane said, “Dennis, what are you staring at?”
He turned, and the light from the windows fell on his right eye. It was swollen and the eyelid was a rich plum color.
“Police,” he said.
Mrs. Shane rustled over to the windows. “They don’t look like policemen. How do you know?”
“The big one has flat feet and the smaller one is too casual.”
“What very odd reasons, Dennis!”
Dennis smiled at her lazily. “Shall I go on? The small one is the inspector, because the big one keeps looking down at him, waiting for him to speak.”
“Since you’re in a deductive mood,” Mrs. Shane said rather crossly, “you might deduce where Dinah has disappeared to.”
Dennis touched his eye lightly. “Dinah and I are not very friendly today. She didn’t confide in me.”
“Well, she should be here. The inspector will want to question her.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because one of the servants is bound to tell him that she doesn’t like Jane.” She paused. “Incidentally, Dennis, would it be asking too much to ask you to stop making passes at Jane while you’re here?”
The careful blankness disappeared from his face. “That’s a—”
“I am quite aware of certain incidents, Dennis. Age may have cost me my figure but not my eyesight.”
“I didn’t—”
“The discussion is closed.”
To emphasize her words she went back to the refectory table at the other end of the room and resumed her work on the wedding presents.