“Now I want blankets and hot-water bottles. Where are the servants?”
“I’ve sent for the hot-water bottles,” she said in a whisper. “There are blankets in the closet.”
“Good. Hale at the General. Tell him it’s an overdose of morphine. Please hurry.”
Alice stood in the hall for a long time. On the other side of the closed door she could hear noises, a gasp, a muffled groan, the clink of metal, a liquid gurgle, a sharp command. Then the door opened and Dr. Hale was in the hall, unruffled, cheerful.
“She’ll be all right,” he said.
Under his smile Alice could see the question flickering in his eyes. How did she get the morphine?
But he didn’t say it. He walked briskly down the steps whistling under his breath.
Alice went slowly to the door. The nurse was cleaning up the room. Loring was standing beside the bed looking down at Kelsey.
“Pupils expanding,” he said to Miss Keller.
“That’s good,” Miss Keller said. “Good night, doctor. Good night, Miss Heath.”
She went out. Loring picked up his coat from the floor and began to put it on, awkwardly, as if his muscles were stiff.
Alice said, “Doctor...”
“We’ll talk downstairs,” he said wearily. “She’s sleeping naturally and we may wake her.”
He checked the contents of his bag, closed it and walked to the door. Downstairs they passed the open door of the drawing room and saw Johnny huddled in a chair in front of the fire.
Alice started to go in but Loring held her back.
“I’d prefer to talk to you alone,” he said.
“Very well,” Alice said. “Come in here.”
She switched on a light and a small, book-lined room sprang out of the darkness. But Loring didn’t look at the books, he was watching Alice. He saw the hostility in her eyes, as if the sudden glare of the lights hadn’t given her time to hide it.
He had expected the hostility. It was the regular reaction of his patients’ relatives to himself. Because he was a psychiatrist he was held responsible for the need of a psychiatrist. A case of supply creating demand, he thought grimly.
Yes, the hostility could be explained easily enough. It was Alice’s fear that puzzled him, and the wariness in her voice.
“Do you think — she took it herself?”
He sat down without haste and glanced around the room. “Has she ever talked about killing herself?”
“Not... not seriously.”
He raised his brows. “How can you be sure whether it was serious or not? A grain or more of morphine is in my opinion very serious indeed. I suppose you know this will have to be reported to the police?”
“Yes,” she whispered, “I know. They couldn’t arrest her?”
“They wouldn’t send her to jail,” Loring said. “They might have her committed to an institution.”
“Oh, no! They wouldn’t, they couldn’t!”
“Unless someone else gave it to her,” he said quietly. “Nobody gave it to her. Please, you mustn’t think that. Nobody could have given it to her.”
He stared at her. “Why not? It’s simple enough to give morphine by mouth in food or drink. Statistically I believe it’s the doctor’s favorite method of homicide. Was there a supply in the house?”
“Not recently.”
“When?”
“When my mother was sick we had some for the nurse to give her.”
“What happened to it?”
“I don’t know. You don’t think of small things like that when...”
“Nurses do, or are supposed to. What was the nurse’s name?”
“Miss Alison. Letty used to help too, but Miss Alison was in charge.”
“I want to talk to Letty,” Loring said.
“She went out. She ought to be back soon.”
“Through what doctor did you get Miss Alison?”
“Dr. Beringer in the Medical Arts.”
Loring took out an envelope and wrote the names on it. “This maid,” he said, “this girl Ida. She was with your sister, you said?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Kelsey wanted her around. I think... I think Ida reads her teacup and tells her fortune. That’s what started the friendship. No, not friendship, exactly.”
“Collusion,” Loring said.
“Yes, that’s the word.”
“May I see Ida?”
“No,” she said sharply. “It wouldn’t do any good. She’s too stupid to have noticed anything.”
“Besides, it might humiliate you, eh? You’d rather have the police question her?”
“Why do they have to?”
“Because,” Loring said, “your sister is blind. Someone gave her the morphine. Even if she took it herself someone helped her.”
She was silent for a long time. Then she raised her head and looked at him listlessly. “All right. Ring the bell.”
It was five minutes before Ida came in, blowsy and disheveled in her wrinkled uniform. When she saw Loring her mouth fell open and she stepped back into the hall.
“Come in here,” Loring said, “and close the door.”
She sidled in, twisting her apron, and stood against the wall.
“I don’t know anything,” she said sullenly. “It wasn’t my fault. I just thought she died by the hand of God.”
“You took her tray up?”
“Sure. Being she wasn’t going down she ate early, about half-past six. Some gooey stuff made out of chicken and mushrooms. The cook makes it for her special. And tea, on account of I was to read her teacup.”
“A sideline of yours?” Loring asked dryly.
She tossed her head at him. “A lot of smart people aren’t so smart about some things! My mother taught me to read teacups. She never failed. She was a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and if she was in the dark you could see the sparks fly out of her. She couldn’t even go to school when she was a kid because spirits rapped on her desk and the teachers were scared. The teachers were scared and teachers are just about as smart as anybody.”
“You’ve been drinking,” Alice said.
“I got a toothache,” Ida cried. “I guess I got a right to get rid of a toothache, especially since I didn’t touch none of your stuff.” She turned to Loring and winked. “They got it padlocked. Can you beat it?”
Loring smiled slightly. “What did you see in Miss Heath’s teacup?”
Ida rolled her eyes. “Money. Money with a curse on it, evil money. And a trip, a long long trip, maybe the kind you never come back from. I thought of that since, it seemed to fit so good. And a man was there too, a dark man.”
“Ida!” Alice said. “Don’t lie to Dr. Loring.”
“There was too a dark man! He was standing right beside the long trip and the money was there lying all around his feet.”
“Do we have to listen to this raving?” Alice said coldly. “Stick to the facts.”
“Facts,” Ida said. “It was a fact, wasn’t it, about the rapping of the desks so my mother had to stop school which is why she never had any education and me neither. That was a fact.”
Loring said, “Did Miss Heath complain about the food or the tea?”
“Oh, sure, she always did. She said the tea tasted bitter. So I said, well naturally, what can you expect with that man Hitler sinking everything. I said, you’re lucky to have any tea, which she is too, because the cook gives up her coupons to Miss Kelsey every week. So Miss Kelsey gets twenty-four cups every week instead of twelve and a half, which I read them all, no, twenty-five.”
“Did you take the tray directly from the kitchen?”
“No,” Ida said scornfully. “I always take it for a walk around the block first to give it some fresh air”
“Then no one had access to the tray except the cook and yourself and Miss Heath?”
“And God.” Ida moved closer to Loring and he got a strong whiff of brandy. “Yeah, I know you people what they call smart don’t believe in God. But if you could ever of seen them sparks!”