Sedalia fitted an ivory-tipped cigarette in her holder and I held a light for her. With her milk white complexion and her long braids hanging down either side of her face, she looked like a little girl blown up to six times normal size.
“I was starting to clean up,” she said. “I had carried some of the glasses out to the kitchen, and when I came back in to the front room I opened the hall door to look out and see what was keeping you. I heard something behind me, started to turn, and the roof fell in.”
I thought a minute. “Then Mrs. Madigan is eliminated at any rate. She wasn’t in the apartment.”
“Depends on how long you were gone. She could have sneaked down from your room while I was in the kitchen, hidden in my bedroom, clouted me with the fire tongs and got back to your bed before you returned, if you took very long to let the inspector out.”
I thought again. “It must have been three or four minutes at least. Possibly even five. The elevator was on the first floor and I waited with the inspector until it came up and he started it down again.”
“Then nobody is eliminated.”
Again she made a rapid tour of all our guests with me trailing behind her. Only this time she carefully searched each one.
“What are you looking for?” I asked. “The baggage ticket again?”
“Weapons,” she said shortly. “Long as they’re unarmed, I can handle any one of these characters. Or all of them put together for that matter.”
Finally satisfied that none of them possessed firearms, Sedalia moved a chair into a corner of the front room from which she could see both slumbering occupants and at the same time keep her eye on the apartment door, the door to her bedroom and the door to the dining room.
“Now bring me a beer,” she said grimly.
I did not much care to leave her alone. Not that I feared for her safety now that she was alert to possible danger. On the contrary I felt that any overt move on the part of the killer would probably be his or her last. But I myself am not particularly athletic, and I doubted that I would be a match in a death struggle for any of our guests with the possible exception of the elderly Jerome Straight. In spite of self-assurance that the killer could have no possible interest in me, I kept glancing over my shoulder all the time I was alone in the kitchen.
As quickly as I could, I got a tray and glass from the cupboard, opened a bottle of beer and got myself back into the front room, where Sedalia could protect me as well as herself, if necessary.
Nothing further of interest transpired, however. About seven o’clock our guests began waking up completely sober, another of the peculiarities of Pale Dynamite. Just as the concoction brings on intoxication more rapidly than any other drink with which I am acquainted, so does it wear off more rapidly. Its effect seems to be to shoot a large quantity of alcohol into the bloodstream at once, producing quick and thorough intoxication. But as soon as the alcohol in the blood is burned up, revival starts, for there is none left in the stomach to replenish the bloodstream, as there would be with some more slowly absorbed liquor such as whisky.
Jerome Straight was the first to rejoin us, a fitting thing since he had also been the first to depart from consciousness. He appeared in the doorway from the dining room, blinked at us grayly, looked faintly nonplussed at Sedalia’s hanging braids, then took in the sleeping figures of Alvin Christopher and Gerald Rawlins.
“I was going to say I was sorry for making a spectacle of myself, Miss Tweep,” he announced in a stiff voice. “But I see I was not alone. Was there something in the punch?”
“A little alcohol,” Sedalia said laconically.
He moved across to the hall doorway, turned to survey us both with unmistakable disapproval. “Thank you for an enjoyable party. I’ll leave now.”
I said, “I’ll help you with your coat.”
“I’ll find it,” he said coldly, and passed through the door.
In a few moments we heard the outer door open and close.
“Now if you would turn your back and get attacked again, we could eliminate Jerome Straight from the field,” I suggested.
“Shut up,” Sedalia said amiably. “I’m thinking.”
And she remained with her brow puckered in a thoughtful frown as the remainder of our guests awakened, bade her subdued good-byes and departed. After Jerome Straight, their order of awakening was Monica Madigan, Irene Chambers, Gerald Rawlins and Alvin Christopher. Except for the elderly lawyer, none of them seemed to harbor any particular animosity for having been trapped into intoxication.
When the last guest had departed, I threw the front door bolt and began to prepare dinner. Sedalia was still seated in the front room, thinking, when I called her at eight.
“You know, Hank, I’ve been wondering why the killer took such a chance to get rid of me. I don’t think it was just Steve Home’s remark about my being a formidable opponent, because waiting until night to make a second attempt would have been safer than with all these people around. The only answer I can see is that I must have said something this afternoon which made the killer think I was closer to an answer than I actually am. So I had to be stopped at the very first opportunity.”
I said, “I don’t recall your saying anything particularly revolutionary aside from your description as to how Monica Madigan could have built an alibi.”
“Perhaps that’s it,” she said slowly. “In my blundering way perhaps I described exactly what she did.”
In spite of still being rankled by Mrs. Madigan’s laughing at me, I felt it only fair to point out an item which seemed to me to eliminate both women from the murder of Adrian Thorpe at least.
“Don’t forget the person who bought the knife found in Adrian Thorpe was a man,” I reminded her. “Doesn’t that tend to eliminate the two women as suspects?”
She shook her head, causing her braids to jiggle. “Thorpe himself may have bought it as a souvenir, and the killer merely have seen it in his room and grabbed it up as a handy weapon. Our murderer has a tendency to use whatever is convenient, as witness the employment of fire tongs twice. Or perhaps the killer stopped a bum on the street and hired him to make the purchase. There are too many possibilities to make the purchase of the knife by a man mean very much.”
“Then have you tentatively settled on Mrs. Madigan?” I asked.
She rose to come to dinner. “I haven’t tentatively settled on anyone. Aside from suggesting how the Madigan woman could have framed an alibi, I can think of one other thing I said today which might have forced the killer to act fast.”
“What was that?”
“My announcement that I expected to hear from Jonathan Toomey, the first vice president of Fibrolux Plastics, tomorrow.”
“You mean he might tell you something which would disagree with Gerald Rawlins’ story?”
“That’s a possibility,” she agreed as she moved into the dining room. “But you may recall the other night Jerome Straight said something about Mrs. Chambers leaving her Fibrolux stock in trust with Mr. Straight as the administrator. If we can get hold of Jonathan Toomey tomorrow, I think I’ll inquire just what Jerome Straight’s connection with the corporation is beyond his voting power as administrator of the estate. It would be interesting to know whether under the terms of the will he could vote himself in as president of the corporation.”
I held Sedalia’s chair for her. “Well at least we can wait till tomorrow before worrying about any more murders,” I said philosophically.
“Think so?” Sedalia asked. “Bet a nickel the murderer tries to kill me again tonight.”
On this pleasant thought we sat down to our Sunday night supper.