Deadly Nightshade by Elizabeth Daly

toe.”
    Martha spoke for the first time, in a thin, childish voice:
    â€œHe went to school with Charlie.”
    â€œToo bad; and so unnecessary.” Gamadge climbed into the car, and they drove off; Pottle escorting them, and the gypsies watching their departure with interest. At the entrance to the short cut Mitchell stopped.
    â€œSee if you can’t get something out of the boy about that woman in the car,” he admonished Pottle.
    â€œThe minute I start asking them anything, they freeze up. I can’t throw quarters around.” Pottle was annoyed. “And that reward of yours is going to get you a fine crop of lies from those gypsies, Mr. Gamadge. They’ll do anything for money.”
    â€œWell, I hadn’t offered anything when William came through with his information,” replied Gamadge, mildly.
    â€œHe certainly gave those women away! I knew they knew all about nightshade.”
    â€œWhatever he told us doesn’t matter to the gypsies. You can be pretty sure of that. They hadn’t warned him off any of those subjects, and I don’t think they’d ever heard about the woman in the car before. Wild horses wouldn’t drag a family secret out of William Stanley. I don’t believe,” he added, “that they know a thing about the nightshade poisonings; if little Elias handed any of it around, they aren’t aware of it.”
    â€œWho in time is Elias?” demanded Mitchell.
    â€œThe sick boy. I don’t think he’s had a long or serious illness, but he’s not talking yet. When he is, I think he’ll have forgotten all about the nightshade, if he ever knew about it. It’s a long lapse of time for a child of that age.”
    â€œYou handed the old lady a new one,” remarked Pottle, starting his machine. “After this, all her customers are going to be companions of Serious.”
    â€œI hope it will be good for trade.”
    â€œWhat’d you think of Martha?”
    â€œVery attractive.”
    â€œShe’s sixteen years old. When she gets to be Georgina’s age—twenty-five, I think—she won’t have any teeth, either. Well, so long.”
    He rode off, and Mitchell turned into the short cut.

CHAPTER FIVE
    â€œA Curse on the Place”

    â€œL ADY IN A CAR! Lady in a car!” grumbled Mitchell. “Of course she was a tourist. I bet Tommy Ormiston saw her, and got her mixed up with everything else that happened to him on Tuesday morning.”
    â€œShe certainly does keep cropping up, doesn’t she?”
    â€œYou brought her up, this time. I don’t butt in on your system—not any more; but I should think you could have got something a little more definite out of William Stanley.”
    â€œIt was no use trying, with his family standing around like basilisks. They didn’t know what I was getting at. Let them think it over, and perhaps they’ll let William earn his bicycle.”
    â€œYou going to buy that boy a wheel?”
    â€œI saw a very nice little one in a window as we went through the Center; marked down. Secondhand goods. It was only seven dollars.”
    â€œWe won’t let Bartram offer any rewards, yet. We knew he’d get a lot of fake information and crank letters.”
    â€œThe gypsies won’t write us any letters, whatever else they may do.”
    â€œI wouldn’t be too sure.”
    They passed abruptly from dazzling sunlight to a glimmering dusk; trees met overhead, branches swished wetly against their mudguards, tires sank into watery channels between the ruts. Mitchell observed that it was hardly ever dry in here. Gamadge braced his feet, enduring the bumps in silence. A wagon track on their left disappeared into what looked like virgin forest.
    â€œWhere does that go to?” he asked.
    â€œNo place, unless it comes out on the upper road. Wood choppers use it, I guess. Here we are.”
    Coarse grass on both sides of the