Tragedy Trail | Page 9

as if he faced a horror that
he could not understand.
"Pardon me, Mr. Trimble, but you cannot have an interview with Mrs.
Burke," he said.
"Why not?"
"Mrs. Burke is dead."
"Dead?" cried Terry Trimble and Detective Darter in a breath.
"We were in her little sitting room," the physician said. "I was
suggesting methods of quieting the young ladies, the boarders, who are
almost panic-stricken. Mrs. Burke gasped as she was speaking to me,
and then collapsed. She died instantly, Mr. Trimble. Her death was
caused by poison--the same sort of poison that killed the two girls!"

CHAPTER IV.
THE BRIDE-ELECT.
WHEN Terry Trimble heard the unexpected intelligence the physician
had to impart he allowed his monocle to drop from his eye and clapsed
his hands behind his back. Those were the only ways in which he
betrayed the surprise he felt.
There was silence for a moment, save for Darter's heavy breathing and
the physician's gasps of horror, and then Trimble spoke in his usual
quiet voice.
"Well, well!" he said. "This is unexpected, to say the least. This case

grows interesting. It gives promise of being a thing out of the ordinary."
"For heaven's sake, sir!" the physician cried. "Can you realize what has
happened? Three women have died mysteriously in this house within
three hours--died of poison. And it does not seem to shock you! Can
you not do something? Are you 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