Tragedy Trail | Page 8

to the bathroom, had taken a drink of water and remarked that it tasted queerly, and then had stepped back into the other room and dropped dead.
"Analyzing the water and having the glass examined?" Terry Trimble asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Let us consider the second girl, then. Miss Higgins, I believe you said her name was. Did she drink of the water?"
"That is the funny part of it--she didn't."
"So she couldn't have obtained the poison by drinking water, as you think her chum did. Have you considered a suicide pact?"
"I thought of it," Darter admitted. "But the landlady and the rest of the girls declare Alice Patton and Mabel Higgins were not that sort. They seemed glad to be alive--both healthy and happy and working. A suicide pact doesn't seem possible."
"Anything is possible," Trimble said. "Suppose we assume that Alice Patton had some secret trouble and Mabel Higgins knew of it. Alice had threatened to take her life, and her chum coaxed her out of the notion and told nobody. Finally Miss Patton does the deed. Her chum thinks a lot of her, the horror of her death grips her, and she takes poison herself. That might be the case without the world being aware of the girls' trouble, you know."
"By Jove, I believe you've hit it already!" Darter exclaimed, with enthusiasm.
"Ass!" Trimble commented. "Where would the second girl get the poison? If it is a poison difficult to obtain, she wouldn't have some of it around, would she, awaiting the day she might decide to take her own life? And you told me that the landlady was with her all the time after her chum's death. Don't jump to conclusions, Darter. Some day you'll land wrong and snap an ankle."
Darter expressed his chagrin, but managed to smile at the same time.
"Well?" he asked.
"It may have been an accident, but I doubt it when I remember that there were two victims and that they died almost a couple of hours apart, and especially do I doubt it when I remember that Miss Higgins did not take a drink of water. When we get the report of the analysis of the water and glass, we may know more about that. And now let us consider the idea of foul play."
"Everybody says neither of the girls had an enemy."
"Everybody doesn't know everything," Trimble commented. "They may have had an enemy without knowing it themselves."
"How could that be?" Darter asked.
"Great heavens! Suppose some foolish fellow saw the girls day after day and grew infatuated with one or both of them. Suppose they repulsed him, laughed at him, forgot him. But if he was a man who didn't forget a thing like that, a man with mind perverted enough to plan murder----"
"I see," said Darter.
"You're as blind as an owl in daytime," Trimble told him. "That's just a supposition. I suppose I shall have to look into this matter, confound it! And I was reading an excellent book of poetry. Get me right--rotten poetry, but an excellent book!"
"I am yours to command, Mr, Trimble," Darter said.
"How soon shall we know about that water and glass?"
"Very soon, sir. I told headquarters to telephone to me as soon as the chemist got through."
"Then, while we are waiting for the report of the chemist, I'll have an interview with Mrs. Burke," Trimble said.
The doctor came into the room as Trimble spoke. His face was white, his breath seemed to come in gasps, he acted 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