Tragedy Trail | Page 9

utterly without a heart, sir?"
"Rubbish!" Trimble exclaimed, screwing his monocle into his eye again. "Collect your wits, doctor. It would do a lot of good, I presume, if I exclaimed at the horror of it, cried out that the guilty person should be apprehended, took off my coat and waistcoat and ran around in a circle! Let us be calm, doctor! We cannot return the dead to life, but we may find the murderer, if there is one. Excitement will not aid us."
Darter and the physician looked ashamed. The latter gulped as he glanced at the self-possessed Trimble.
"It must be murder; yet I cannot see how, either," he said. "This particular poison----"
"What is it?" Trimble asked.
The physician told him.
"I know about it," Trimble surprised him by saying. "You cannot get it at one pharmacy in a thousand--which is as it should be. You are certain that all three women died from this poison? Very well. Our first task is to find out how they obtained it, how it was introduced into their systems."
"The Patton girl said something about the water tasting unusual," the doctor said.
"So I understand," Trimble replied. "But did the Higgins girl drink water after Miss Patton died? Did Mrs. Burke take a drink of water afterward from any faucet in the building?"
"I know that Mrs. Burke did not. I was with her all the time after Detective Darter warned her about the water."
"And our idea of a suicide pact is gone," Trimble continued. "Two girl chums of the romantic age might indulge in a suicide pact, as often has been the case, but such a woman as Mrs. Burke would not. It is either accident or murder. Let us go into Mrs. Burke's sitting room."
The agitated physician led the way, moving quickly along the hall toward the rear of the house, where Mrs. Burke had used a suite. He had not informed the boarders of their landlady's death, and he whispered that fact to Trimble now. Trimble, in turn, asked Detective Darter to see that a policeman was stationed in front of the house to allow anybody to enter, but to prevent anybody inside leaving.
"Just keep this quiet for the time being," Trimble instructed him. "We'll tell the boarders later."
They went into the sitting room. The body of Mrs. Burke was on the floor. Terry Trimble bent over it and regarded it carefully for a time, and then got up, adjusted his monocle, and looked around the room. His inspection was slow, painstaking, minute.
Then he asked to be shown to Mabel Higgins' room, where Alice Patton had died, and he made another investigation there. He ordered the doctor and Detective Darter to tell their stories again from the beginning, to relate everything that had happened, that had been said and done.
When they had finished Trimble shook his head in perplexity.
"There seems to be something missing," he said. "We have overlooked something vital, probably something small and insignificant on its face. I find no connection between the facts you have given me and a solution of these crimes."
"You mean that you are up against a stone wall?" Darter asked. "If you are this is a case that will go down in history as an unsolved mystery!"
Trimble glared at him.
"I admit that I am up against a stone wall at present," he said. "But I need not turn back. Why not climb the wall, or find a path round it, eh? The greater the seeming mystery, the better I like it. The solution probably will be simple. I have an idea, Darter, that the examination of the water and the glass will reveal nothing. We know for certain that neither Mabel Higgins or Mrs. Burke touched the glass after Alice Patton drank from it. We've got to look for something else. We've missed something."
He walked around the room again, looked into the bathroom, and then went into the hall and started down the stairs, the doctor and the detective following closely.
"Notify the coroner about Mrs. Burke, proceeding as usual," Trimble ordered. "I shall interview the other boarders. Take me in, Darter, and tell them my name and business here."
Darter escorted him in and made the proper announcement. The young women appeared more frightened than before. Trimble adjusted his monocle and smiled at them.
"Let us all be seated and make ourselves as comfortable as possible, please," he said. "No doubt these tragedies have shocked you, but unless we are calm we cannot explain them, and I feel sure that you want them explained. We cannot do anything worth while unless we get back our normal minds and look at things in a sane way. Do any of you know of anything that may help?"
He waited in vain for an answer. Some of the women shook their heads.
"Now I ask you