Dearest | Page 6

objected. "I've heard of that drug--one of
the so-called 'truth-serum' drugs. I doubt if testimony taken under its influence would be
admissible in a court...."
"This is not a court, Mr. Powell," the doctor explained patiently. "And I am not taking
testimony; I am making a diagnosis. Pentathol is a recognized diagnostic agent."

"Go ahead," Stephen Hampton said. "Anything to get this over with.... You agree,
Myra?"
Myra said nothing. She simply sat, with staring eyes, and clutched the arms of her chair
as though to keep from slipping into some dreadful abyss. Once a low moan escaped
from her lips.
"My wife is naturally overwrought by this painful business," Stephen said. "I trust that
you gentlemen will excuse her.... Hadn't you better go and lie down somewhere, Myra?"
She shook her head violently, moaning again. Both the doctor and the attorney were
looking at her curiously.
"Well, I object to being drugged," Colonel Hampton said, rising. "And what's more, I
won't submit to it."
"Albert!" Doctor Vehrner said sharply, nodding toward the Colonel. The
pithecanthropoid attendant in the white jacket hastened forward, pinned his arms behind
him and dragged him down into the chair. For an instant, the old man tried to resist, then,
realizing the futility and undignity of struggling, subsided. The psychiatrist had taken a
leather case from his pocket and was selecting a hypodermic needle.
Then Myra Hampton leaped to her feet, her face working hideously.
"No! Stop! Stop!" she cried.
Everybody looked at her in surprise, Colonel Hampton no less than the others. Stephen
Hampton called out her name sharply.
"No! You shan't do this to me! You shan't! You're torturing me! you are all devils!" she
screamed. "Devils! Devils!"
"Myra!" her husband barked, stepping forward.
With a twist, she eluded him, dashing around the desk and pulling open a drawer.
For an instant, she fumbled inside it, and when she brought her hand up, she had Colonel
Hampton's .45 automatic in it. She drew back the slide and released it, loading the
chamber.
Doctor Vehrner, the hypodermic in his hand, turned. Stephen Hampton sprang at her,
dropping his drink. And Albert, the prognathous attendant, released Colonel Hampton
and leaped at the woman with the pistol, with the unthinking promptness of a dog whose
master is in danger.
Stephen Hampton was the closest to her; she shot him first, point-blank in the chest. The
heavy bullet knocked him backward against a small table; he and it fell over together.
While he was falling, the woman turned, dipped the muzzle of her pistol slightly and

fired again; Doctor Vehrner's leg gave way under him and he went down, the hypodermic
flying from his hand and landing at Colonel Hampton's feet. At the same time, the
attendant, Albert, was almost upon her. Quickly, she reversed the heavy Colt, pressed the
muzzle against her heart, and fired a third shot.
T. Barnwell Powell had let the briefcase slip to the floor; he was staring, slack-jawed, at
the tableau of violence which had been enacted before him. The attendant, having
reached Myra, was looking down at her stupidly. Then he stooped, and straightened.
"She's dead!" he said, unbelievingly.
Colonel Hampton rose, putting his heel on the hypodermic and crushing it.
"Of course she's dead!" he barked. "You have any first-aid training? Then look after these
other people. Doctor Vehrner first; the other man's unconscious; he'll wait."
"No; look after the other man first," Doctor Vehrner said.
Albert gaped back and forth between them.
"Goddammit, you heard me!" Colonel Hampton roared. It was Slaughterhouse Hampton,
whose service-ribbons started with the Indian campaigns, speaking; an officer who never
for an instant imagined that his orders would not be obeyed. "Get a tourniquet on that
man's leg, you!" He moderated his voice and manner about half a degree and spoke to
Vehrner. "You are not the doctor, you're the patient, now. You'll do as you're told. Don't
you know that a man shot in the leg with a .45 can bleed to death without half trying?"
"Yo'-all do like de Cunnel says, 'r foh Gawd, yo'-all gwine wish yo' had," Sergeant
Williamson said, entering the room. "Git a move on."
He stood just inside the doorway, holding a silver-banded malacca walking-stick that he
had taken from the hall-stand. He was grasping it in his left hand, below the band, with
the crook out, holding it at his side as though it were a sword in a scabbard, which was
exactly what that walking-stick was. Albert looked at him, and then back at Colonel
Hampton. Then, whipping off his necktie, he went down on his knees beside Doctor
Vehrner, skillfully applying the improvised tourniquet, twisting it tight with an
eighteen-inch ruler the Colonel took from the desk and handed to him.
"Go get the first-aid