QED by Ellery Queen Page B

Caswell’s chaperonage, he rushed upstairs, kicked open the uplocked door, and dashed in.
    Ellen was still in bed. He listened frantically to her breathing; he took her pulse; he shook her, shouting in her ear. Then he damned her perversity and the unlocked door, which was an example of it.
    â€œPhone Conk Farnham!” he bellowed at Mrs. Caswell.
    There followed a scene of chaos, not without its absurdity, like an old Mack Sennett comedy. Its climax came when, for the umpteenth time in ten days, Dr. Farnham arrived on the run with his little black bag. It was surely Conk’s opinion, thought Ellery, that he was hopelessly trapped in the antics of a houseful of lunatics.
    â€œSleeping pills,” the doctor said. “Slight overdose. No need for treatment; she didn’t take enough. She’ll come out of it by herself soon—in fact, she’s coming out of it now.”
    â€œThis must be it on the night table,” Ellery mumbled.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe medium of the pills.”
    A cup of scummy cold chocolate sat there, almost full.
    â€œThat’s it, all right,” said Dr. Farnham, after touching the tip of his tongue to it. “It’s loaded. If she’d swallowed the whole cupful, Ellery, she’d have been done for.”
    â€œWhen will she be able to talk?”
    â€œAs soon as she’s all the way out.”
    Ellery snapped his fingers. “Excuse me, Conk!” he said, and dashed past Mrs. Caswell and tore down the stairs. In the breakfast room, silent and glum, sat Jo and Chris and Wolcott Thorp.
    â€œHow’s Ellen?” Chris asked, half rising.
    â€œSit down. She’s all right. This time. Now we can start worrying about next time.”
    â€œNext time?”
    â€œSomebody slipped a lethal overdose of sleeping pills in her hot chocolate before she went to bed last night—unless you’re prepared to argue that Ellen is the type who would attempt suicide, which in my book she definitely is not. Anyway, she took only a few sips, thereby surviving. But whoever tried to kill her may try another time, and my guess is the time will be sooner rather than later. So let’s not dawdle. Who knows who prepared the hot chocolate last night?”
    â€œI do,” said Joanne. “She prepared it herself. I was in the kitchen with her.”
    â€œAll the time she was fixing it?”
    â€œNo, I left before she did.”
    â€œAnyone else in the kitchen at the time, or near it?”
    â€œNot I,” said Christopher promptly, wiping his brow, which for some reason was damp. “If I ever give way to one of my homicidal impulses toward Ellen, I’ll use something sure, like cyanide.”
    But no one smiled.
    â€œYou, Mr. Thorp?” asked Ellery, fixing the curator with a glittering eye.
    â€œNot I,” said the little man, stuttering.
    â€œHad anyone gone up to bed?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” said Jo, her eyes worried. “No, I’m sure no one had. It was just after we finished that crazy farce of yours in the drawing room—when Ellen pranced out, I mean. A few minutes later she came downstairs again to prepare her chocolate. All the rest of us were still here. Don’t you remember?”
    â€œNo, because I was seeing Chief Newby out, and we talked outside for a few minutes before he drove off. Unfortunately I share the general weakness of being unable to be in two places at the same time. Did Ellen go directly upstairs with her chocolate?”
    â€œI can answer that,” said Christopher. “I’d gone to the library to lick my wounds, and Ellen came in for a book to read in bed, she said. She wasn’t there more than two or three minutes. She took one of yours, if I’m not mistaken.”
    â€œMaybe that’s why she fell asleep so soon,” said Jo with a little snap-crackle-pop in her voice.
    â€œEven that,” said Ellery with a bow, “is not