“You may as well let me in. I won’t go way until you do.”
“Oh, all right,” said Prin. “Just a minute.”
She crawled out of bed and, with her hand on the key, had a horrid thought. “Are you alone, Brady?”
“Of course I’m alone,” he said peevishly. “What kind of question is that?”
The best kind, Prin thought; oh, the best kind. “Wait a minute,” she said, “till I get back into bed.” She turned the key and got into bed and said, “All right, now... Lock the door, Brady.”
“What’s the matter with you tonight?” He locked it and came walking through a wall of moonlight and sat down on the edge of her bed. He sat in the shadows, and she could not see his face. But his voice sounded strained.
“I’m sorry, Prin, but... you’re the only one I trust around here. A brother and sister have to stick together.”
“Do we?” said Prin.
“I know I haven’t been much of a brother. We hardly know each other.”
“That’s a fact. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
He shifted his weight on the bed. “About what you and Collins were really doing in Uncle Slater’s room.”
“Just what Coley and I told that policeman — looking around to see what we could see. We also did some smooching, but not much. With Uncle Slater lying there...”
“Look, Prin.” Brady made an impatient noise. “Whom you smooch with and where are your business. But what you saw may be the business of all of us — if that old maniac of a doctor is right about Uncle Slater’s being murdered, that is. Do you really think he was?”
“I don’t know, Brady. We’ll know soon enough.”
“Did you see that bottle when you were in the room?”
“I must have. I’m sure I’d have noticed if it wasn’t. Bottles and Uncle Slater sort of went together.”
“It’s a damn shame you didn’t take it away.”
“Why, Brady?” asked Prin curiously. “If Uncle Slater was poisoned, don’t you want his poisoner punished?”
“Hell, no. What difference would that make to Uncle Slater? Now there’s probably going to be a messy investigation.”
“Oh, I see. You’ve done something you’re afraid they’ll find out.”
“Never mind that!” said Brady savagely. But then he said, “All right, suppose I have?”
“It couldn’t be that you put poison in that bottle, could it?”
“My God, Prin, don’t talk like that! What reason would I have? And even if I had, would I have been dumb enough to leave the bottle there? I’d have come back and taken it away. Anybody with sense would.”
“I don’t know about reasons. All I know is that it was an awful thing to do to Uncle Slater — if it was done, I mean — and, frankly, I’m not sure you weren’t capable of doing it.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say about your own brother,” Brady said angrily.
“If you are my brother.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Brady.”
He was silent. Then he muttered, “You mean you forgot me so completely during the years I was away that you even doubt I’m the real Brady O’Shea?”
“It was a long time,” said Prin, feeling sorry for him suddenly.
“I take it, then, that you feel no affection for me at all.”
“I don’t know, Brady. It’s troubled me a great deal. I just don’t know.”
This time his silence went on and on. Finally, days later it seemed, Brady said, “In that case I’d better get out of here and leave you alone.”
He got up from the bed. He stood there without moving, however, for some time, as if he were hesitating about saying or doing something more. But then he stalked to the door, unlocked it and stalked out. Prin got swiftly out of bed, flew to the door, shut and locked it, and stood with her back to it, trembling.
The house was full of darkness. Dark people, dark thoughts, dark motives, dark pasts... darkness everywhere.
Uncle Slater had been murdered, all right.
Prin was suddenly sure of it.
8
And so, two days later, was Lieutenant Sherm Grundy.
Two reports lay before him, one an analysis of Slater O’Shea’s bourbon from the bedside bottle and the other of Slater O’Shea’s interior. Neither report, from Grundy’s point of view, was ideal. For they disturbed his personal concept of the good detective life, which was based on as little trouble as possible for himself. His reputation as a death-on-rats sourpuss stemmed from this — the more ruthlessly he pursued an investigation, the more quickly it came to an end and restored the pleasant status quo ante of police life in Cibola City.
He read the reports again. Slater O’Shea’s bottle of bourbon had been liberally laced with a drug identified as a synthetic substitute for insulin. This drug was used in the treatment of diabetes. An overdose was fatal. But the effect was a delayed one, taking about an hour to produce unconsciousness and death. This delayed-action effect had indubitably taken place inside Slater O’Shea, where the identical insulin substitute had been found in lethal quantity. No trace of the drug had been found in the glass.
As Grundy reconstructed the last hour or so of Slater O’Shea’s life, he had come home, gone to his bedroom, taken a few — in this case unhealthy — slugs directly from the doctored bottle, ignoring the glass, and lain down for his afternoon nap. Aware after a while that something more than simple drowsiness was overcoming him, he had got off the bed, taken a step or two, and collapsed. There, on the floor, he had shut his eyes and taken his nap at last, or his last nap, which in his case came to the same thing.
What Grundy disliked most about his reconstruction, aside from its homicidal indications, was its fanciness. He had known on contact that nothing simple or sensible could be expected from the O’Sheas, but he had at least hoped for an ordinary, decent poison, something you might buy at a hardware store in a can of weed killer or insecticide. He would really have preferred another kind of weapon altogether, such as a gun or a knife or a blunt instrument. But a synthetic substitute for insulin, for God’s sake! Grundy was not at all sure he was up to it.
Cursing softly, the lieutenant put his mind to the problem of fancy murder. Even plain murder had been a rarity in his professional experience, Cibola City being a singularly docile community.
It took little experience, however, considering the O’Shea tribe even as he slightly knew them, to come to an immediate conclusion: profit, or the hope of it, must be the motive. The trouble was that damn will of Slater O’Shea’s his heirs-in-residence had subsequently told him about. With the modest fortune divided among almost two dozen O’Sheas, how could the testator’s death greatly profit any one of them? Especially the five who lived with him and off him? Of course, profit was a relative thing; what seemed small at one time might seem large indeed at another, depending on circumstances. Still, Grundy was uneasy. Perhaps, he thought, brightening, no such will existed. Brother, let us pray!
Digging a directory from his drawer, Grundy located the telephone number of the O’Shea residence. This done, he dialed the number and waited for a response, which was finally made by Mrs. Dolan. Mrs. Dolan, audibly disappointed at not being asked to relay a message, summoned Miss Lallie O’Shea. Miss Lallie O’Shea, sounding far more alert to the ear than she appeared to the eye, demanded to know when the police department was going to let Slater O’Shea’s family have him back for decent disposal — “that is,” said deceased’s sister, “if there is anything left of him to dispose of.”
“You may have the body back immediately, Miss O’Shea,” said Grundy. “I assure you it is almost entirely in one piece.”