Tragedy Trail | Page 4

outside on the steps to the house.
The police detective who answered the call was a man of wide metropolitan experience. His name was Darter. He was acquainted with the doctor, who told him all that he knew in a few words.
"Sorry if it bothers Mrs. Burke, but we've got to get to the bottom of this," the detective said.
The coroner's assistant arrived and made his superficial examination, and the body was removed. Then the detective and the doctor went to the back parlor, where Mrs. Burke was speaking in low tones to her boarders, girls with horror written in their faces. They could not believe that Alice Patton, the favorite of the house, who had been eating dinner with them so short a time before, was dead.
The detective whispered to the landlady, and she, in turn, took Mabel Higgins into another room, the detective and the doctor going along.
"Miss Higgins," the detective said, "I want you to tell me, please, just what happened. Try to be as calm as possible, and tell me everything. Do not omit a thing, no matter how insignificant it may seem to you."
Mabel Higgins strove to be calm, but her recital was interrupted by frequent fits of sobbing. Alice had come into her room to work on the piece of embroidery, she said. The girl had appeared as cheerful as usual. She insisted on getting the water, when Mabel wanted a drink, saying that she wanted one herself.
"Did she take it?" the detective asked.
"I think she did," Mabel replied. "It sounded like it. I couldn't see her, of course. And then she drew a glass of water for me and came back into the room. She began to say something, and then seemed to choke. I turned over to look at her. She dropped the glass and clutched at her breast--and dropped on the floor."
Mabel Higgins began sobbing again, and the detective waited until Mrs. Burke comforted her and she was calm once more.
"Please come up to the room with us, Miss Higgins," he said then.
The girl went, with Mrs. Burke's arm around her waist. She stood near the door, white, shaking, looking at the place on the floor where her dead chum's body had been.
"Is this the water glass?" the detective asked, picking it up from the floor.
"Yes, sir."
He went into the bathroom with the doctor, and they looked at the toilet preparations and investigated the tiny medicine chest. There was no poison of any description, no empty vial.
"How would that stuff have to be carried?" the detective asked the physician.
"It could be carried in almost any way. It might be in liquid form, or merely a bit of paste, or a powder."
"And how soon does it cause death?"
"That depends upon conditions, of course. The poison is virulent. I should say that, taken into the stomach, or introduced directly into the blood, it would cause death in from two to ten minutes, depending upon the constitution and general condition of the victim."
"Then the girl could have swallowed it in here when she took a drink and have reached the other room before she dropped dead?"
"Yes. But it would have had to have been in a bit of paper or a small bottle. However, if it was in paste form, a piece one-quarter the size of a pea would have done the work, and it could have been carried in a corner of a handkerchief. A speck of the stuff would cause death in some cases."
"Possibly, then, she committed suicide."
"But this poison cannot be obtained readily, even by chemists or members of the medical profession," the doctor protested. "And that girl was not the sort to commit suicide."
"You never can tell."
"That's true, of course," replied the doctor.
They went back into the room.
"Miss Higgins," the detective asked, "do you think it impossible that Miss Patton killed herself?"
"Oh, she wouldn't have done such a thing!" Mabel Higgins cried. "She was happy--glad to be alive--healthy--had no sorrows or trouble at all. She was joking with me just before----"
"Sure she didn't have any trouble?"
"I would have known it if she had been in trouble. We have been chums for about three years. She always told me everything--and I always told her everything. I'm sure that she wasn't in trouble, or anything like that."
"No man in the case?"
"Oh, no! She did not care much for men. Neither of us had a sweetheart, if that is what you want to know. We seldom went out evenings, except together, and no men called on us here. It wasn't anything like that."
"Did you ever know of her having an enemy?"
"Never! She wasn't the kind to have enemies!" Mabel Higgins declared.
"You are sure that you have told me everything?"
"Why, yes! She was sitting there working on the centerpiece and talking in an ordinary way