Murder Comes First by Frances and Richard Lockridge Page A

loading of the capsule. Theoretically.”
    â€œVery,” Weigand told him. “Did your mother have a dog, Mr. Logan? Any kind of an animal she might want to dispose of?”
    Paul Logan shook his head.
    â€œWhat happened,” Bill told both of them, “is that someone with access to Mrs. Logan’s medicine cabinet put into the bottle of vitamin capsules a capsule filled with a lethal dose of cyanide. The purpose was to kill her. The poison capsule could have been put in yesterday; it could have been put in a week ago—two weeks ago, for that matter. The bottle was two-thirds empty. Originally, it contained fifty capsules. Say she’d take, at the prescribed rate of two a day, oh—thirty, thirty-five. There’s your two weeks, since the capsule could be placed anywhere the murderer chose in the bottle.”
    He looked at the other two men.
    â€œWhich is the reason,” he pointed out, “that there’s no point in asking either of you, or anyone else, for that matter, where he was when Mrs. Logan died—or where he was yesterday, or the day before.”
    That was the trouble with poison, Bill thought. He mentally damned poisoners. They were, when they used something like cyanide, more merciful than most who killed. But they were also much harder to catch.
    â€œWhoever killed your mother, Mr. Logan,” he said, “had to have two things—access to the medicine cabinet; motive for murder. Access for a minute would be enough—we may find that a hundred people had it. You obviously did, Mr. Logan. You, Mr. Sandford?”
    â€œSure,” Sandford said. “And the servants, Mrs. Hickey, her daughter. Any guest Grace may have had in the past two weeks who wanted to wash his hands, or her hands. There’s a bath downstairs, two—I think it is—on the floor above. Grace usually suggested anyone use hers. It’s more convenient.”
    â€œRight,” Bill said. “So—”
    â€œCome to think of it,” Sandford added, “my wife’s one of the few people I can think of who couldn’t have planted the stuff. Not within the past two weeks. She’s been away a month—month and a half.”
    â€œHowever,” Bill Weigand told him, “you don’t know where. So—you don’t know she couldn’t have been in, say, St. Louis, flown back here for a day, flown back there, continued her trip.”
    â€œLook—” Sandford began, standing up, very tall, flushed.
    â€œYou brought it up,” Bill told him. “I’m merely suggesting the problems, not that your wife was here, Mr. Sandford. I’m merely stressing that, in cases like this, we fall back on motive.”
    And do we fall, Bill thought. And does a jury want more!
    â€œWe—” Bill started again, and this time Mullins interrupted him from the door.
    â€œLieutenant,” he said, “Mr. and Mrs. North are here.” He paused. “They’ve come back,” he said.
    Pam North was at the door behind Mullins and Jerry was behind her.
    â€œOh Bill,” Pam said, “something—oh.”
    Bill said “Hello Pam,” and waited.
    â€œWe called Dorian,” Pam North said. “Right after we dropped the aunts at the Welby. She’s all right, Bill.”
    â€œDorian?” Bill repeated. “Was there supposed to be—?”
    â€œWe thought you’d want to know,” Pam said. “We were going to call, but if there’s one here it isn’t listed. But the Plaza’s just around the corner, anyway.”
    Slowly, Bill Weigand ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair.
    â€œBut you’re busy with Mr. Sandford and—” Pam said, and stopped and looked at Paul Logan.
    â€œMrs. Logan’s son,” Bill told her. “And her nephew. Barton—” But then he paused in turn. In some fashion, Pamela North appeared already to know Barton Sandford.