She lay back and closed her eyes. “Molly,” she asked after a while, “do you think we were right about our suppositions? Do you think that Anson killed Fanny, and then Dorcas, and now he’s trying to kill me?”
“It hardly seems possible,” I said. “I met him this morning and he seemed such an affable sort of man. But I understand that some murderers are extremely pleasant in their manner. And he has now achieved what he wanted, hasn’t he? Fanny’s money and his freedom.”
“So it would seem. But if he’s tried to poison me, how did he do it? He hasn’t been anywhere near me and I keep my room locked when I’m out.”
“A challenge, to be sure. Look, Emily, I think you should see a doctor—a good doctor—and tell him what you suspect.”
“He’d think I was an hysterical female.”
“I could ask Daniel for you. I know they have physicians who work with the police and he would certainly know how to test for poisons.”
“But what could it be?” She asked. “The symptoms resemble nothing I can think of. The gastric upset and the flushed skin might indicate arsenic, but we know that Fanny’s hair tested negative and she didn’t look at all flushed in the end, did she?”
“I’ll go and seek out Daniel,” I said. “I’ll make him listen to me and then I’ll be back.”
“All right.” She lay back and closed her eyes. “I think I’ll just sleep a little,” she whispered.
I closed the door quietly behind me and tiptoed down the stairs. As I came out of that dark stairwell into the sunlight I looked down at my arm and noticed something: my light beige costume had black hairs all over it.
Twenty-seven
I went to Daniel’s residence but of course he wasn’t there in the middle of the afternoon. However, I left a note for him, telling him that I’d be at home and needed to see him as soon as he had a free moment. I bought some groceries on my way home. Among them were barley to make barley water for Emily and bones and vegetables to make her more soup. I put the barley and the soup on to boil and then all I could do was wait. I paced impatiently around my kitchen, down the hall, around the living room, looked out of the front window and then back again. I knew there were things I could be doing but I found it impossible to settle. For once I didn’t even want Sid and Gus’s company.
If Daniel doesn’t come this evening, I’m going to police headquarters to root him out in the morning, I decided. And I’m calling a doctor for Emily myself. But about seven o’clock, just as it was starting to get dark, there was a knock on my front door and Daniel himself was standing there.
“Thank God,” I said and flung myself into his arms.
“What is it?” he asked, holding me away from him so that he could look at my face. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Emily, the girl whose family I have been investigating,” I said. “She was the friend of Fanny Poindexter who died, and now she has come down with similar symptoms. I’m really afraid that she has been poisoned too.”
“Hold on,” Daniel said, his big hands gripping my shoulders. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions, shall we?”
“But I’ve seen her, Daniel. She was fine yesterday and now she’s very sick.”
“This kind of flu will do that to you,” he said. “You should know. You came down with it yourself.”
“But I wasn’t vomiting and I’m sure I didn’t look as awful as Emily now does. And you’ve now had the tests administered, haven’t you? You now know what killed them?”
“I do have the answer for you,” he said, leading me across the room and seating me firmly in my one armchair. “My chemist friend tells me that there was arsenic in the sample of stomach mixture that you gave me.”
“See, I knew it!”
“And,” he continued, “that this would not be a completely unusual ingredient in such a mixture in minute amounts. The amount was minute. Not enough to harm anyone.”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly deflated. “And the hair sample from the other woman?”
“Also contained a trace of arsenic.”
“Aha!”
“Which is also not so unusual, according to my friend. If she had taken any similar mixture, particularly one made up for her influenza . . .”
“Which she had,” I agreed. “She said it tasted disgusting and she stopped taking it.”
“Then the amount in the hair is quite consistent with that. It remains in the system for a long time, you know. And again he said the amount was not enough to kill anybody. So you see, my dear, sweet, overemotional Molly, there was no poisoning. They all three caught the same disease.”
“What about another poison?”
“My friend agreed that most usual poisons apart from arsenic are fairly fast-acting. The victim becomes violently ill and dies soon afterward. Of course the world is full of unusual poisons, but it would take an expert to know and to administer them. Was this husband you suspect such a man?”
“No, he’s a lawyer. From a good family,” I said. “I’m sure he has no such knowledge.”