A Beautiful Poison

“Misplaced?” Jasper asked incredulously. “It’s your only one. How could you lose it?”

“I don’t know what happened to it. Mr. Walley is going to get a new book with carbon copies, so we have a duplicate from now on.”

The missing ledger certainly sounded suspicious. “So all your recent records are gone.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Two gentlemen and a woman with her baby soon came into the store. The clerk left Allene and Jasper to wait on them.

“Whatever happened to the bottles the police collected?” Allene whispered. “Did they test them?”

“Yes. The bottle of laudanum was certainly too strong for Hazel, even if she was a habitual user of paregoric.”

“Didn’t her body look . . . sick? Was there anything else?”

The questions seemed to flood Jasper at once; a distinct expression of discomfort filled his face. “She . . . her brain was engorged with blood.” He blinked a few times, as if trying to remove a vision from his head. “It was classic for an opium poisoning, but . . .” He seemed unsure.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. After all, it’s one thing to give a high dose of opium to someone like you or me. It’d knock us flat,” he said, snapping his fingers for emphasis. “But Birdie’s mother used it for years. I’m sure there were times when she took a little extra, you know, to sleep or for a particularly bad day. A wrong dose, even of the concentrated kind, should have maybe knocked her out for a day or two, but killed her? Doubtful. Which means she took a huge dose of the laudanum. Far too much.”

“Was anyone else in your office suspicious?” Allene asked.

“Yes and no. It’s a pretty straightforward case. No one obvious wanted Hazel dead. She has dependent children and no life-insurance policy. But then again, there’s the letter. ‘You’re welcome’? It seems like someone might be killing people but covering their tracks so they’re not implicated—and at the same time telling us, as if they’ve done us a favor. But who could that be? I’m afraid we’ve hit another dead end here.”

“Not entirely dead.” Allene sidled up to the clerk, who was helping the patrons. He seemed nervous and annoyed that Jasper and Allene were still in the store. “Say, who was the pharmacist who filled the bottle for Hazel Dreyer? Do you know?”

“No,” he said, and turned back to the customers. His no was clipped and abrupt. He was a horrible liar.

“We need to know,” Jasper insisted.

“I am busy helping these customers. I believe I’ve answered all your questions. And you are not the police.” His neatly shaven upper lip was shiny. He was sweating now.

Allene circled around the desk to where the clerk was standing. The customers raised their eyebrows and watched, while the clerk pointed and babbled.

“You’re not allowed—ma’am, you need to go—I’m busy—”

Allene smiled sweetly and marched right up to him. She spoke loud enough for only the clerk to hear.

“I don’t think the other customers would like to know that one of your regulars died of an accidental poisoning because of your store’s carelessness. Tell us who the pharmacist was, and we’ll leave.” She smiled again. “Please.”

The clerk went positively sheet white. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not to tell.”

“Or you’ll lose your job?”

“No.”

“You don’t want this person to get in trouble. Is that it?” Allene cooed.

The clerk nodded mutely. The customers drained out through the door, no longer interested in the drama that couldn’t be heard and wasn’t as entertaining as a Charlie Chaplin movie.

“Is he family?” Jasper asked him. The clerk shook his head. “Friend?” he tried again.

“Yes. No. Yes,” the poor clerk babbled.

Allene crossed her arms, a tiny smile on her lips. She understood. There was no other explanation for trying to protect someone who didn’t fit into any proper category.

“It’s all right,” Allene whispered. Sympathy transformed her face. A useful look. “Truly, we aren’t looking to have your . . . special friend fired. We only want to speak to him.”

After a stare down of only ten seconds, misery suffused his features. “Charles Sweeney. He lives south of Prospect Park. But he already got fired by Mr. Smith. He’d only been a pharmacist for a year. I think he was glad to leave,” the clerk admitted, before imploring Allene, “Please, ma’am. He’s a good person. It was an honest mistake. There are so many opium tinctures, and so many recipes for compounding. He said he thinks he dispensed the wrong one. He meant no harm, honest!”

Jasper touched Allene’s arm, and she backed away. They came together and nodded to each other. Perhaps it was his look of desperation and wrung hands, but she felt like they’d squeezed every ounce of truth out of this poor boy.

“Very well. And have the police already questioned him?”

“Thoroughly, ma’am. But they don’t know about . . . me and him. Please leave him be. He never even liked working as a pharmacist. His pa made him do it. He oughtn’t go to jail over a mistake.”

“I understand,” Allene said. She turned to Jasper. “Let’s go.”




Pretending that Dr. Norris requested it from the charge officer, Jasper was able to obtain the interview notes on a certain Charles M. Sweeney, former pharmacist and now unemployed inhabitant of Kensington, south of Prospect Park. The next day, Allene went alone because Jasper could no longer take daytime hours off for their intrepid investigations. She made sure Dawlish dropped off Birdie at the factory doors first (the commute was far longer now, and Allene insisted). Birdie had taken the mysterious letters with her, packaged carefully in an envelope by Allene. She said she’d try to stop by the handwriting specialist during her lunch hour. Allene was irritated that Birdie didn’t want to bring her along for the analysis, but Birdie put her foot down.

“Be reasonable. He’s a shy and private man, and he’ll be embarrassed that I’m even there. If I bring a stranger, he may refuse to help us.” So Allene agreed.

When Dawlish parked on the corner of Flatbush and Church, he reached for his door.

“No,” Allene said. “I’m not getting out. Just watching.”

“Excuse me, miss?”

“Hold on—there.” She peered from the shadows of the motorcar. A young man with a perfectly waxed mustache exited a building. He was wearing a crisp plaid jacket, pearl-gray gloves, and perfectly tailored trousers that were becoming to his tall frame. Allene popped her head out the motorcar window and yelled “Sweeney!” before ducking back inside.

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