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In Preparation
Murder Case Number 33
Kidnapping Case Number 7


Poison Case Number 10
A detective novel from
the files of the Michael
Joyce Agency
By
LOUIS CORNELL
NEW YORK
Brentano's · Publishers
MCMXXXI


Copyright 1931 by Brentano's, Inc.
O 7^
Manufactured in the United States of America
by The Cornwall Press, Inc., Cornwall, New York


Contents
I. Friday—The Incredible Client I
II. Friday—Can This Be Poison? 16
III. Friday—The Wrong Man Is Stricken 32
IV. Saturday—The Clue in the Tomb 48
V. Saturday—-Why Joyce Did Not Quit 63
VI. Saturday—A Flitting in the Dark 81
VII. Sunday—Sinister Lore 97
VIII. Sunday—The Clutching Hands 110
IX. Sunday—Jimmy Accuses 125


Contents
X. Sunday—A Lesson in Black Magic 139
XL Sunday—Tell-Tale Faces 153
XII. Monday—A Verdict from Headquarters 171
XIII. Monday—Secrets of Van Zanten Manor 185
XIV. Monday—Ghoulish Business 201
XV. Monday—The Last Corpse Speaks 216
XVI. Monday—Bullets Wild 223
XVII. Tuesday—The Doctor on the Grill 232
XVIII. Tuesday—The Evidence Piles Up 248
XIX. Tuesday—What the Garden Told 263
XX. Tuesday—Rabbits and Obeah 275
XXI. Wednesday—Joyce Clinches the Case 287
vi


Poison Case Number 10





CHAPTER ONE
Friday—The Incredible Client
Inspector m1chael joyce settled his robust frame
comfortably in his leather-upholstered desk chair,
crossed his legs and threw a glance around the private
office of his detective agency. He said:
"Kay, you're now going to write a letter that marks
a milestone in the history of this outfit."
The red-haired girl with the shrewd gray eyes, whose
status for some time had been much more that of an
assistant than of a secretary, reached promptly for her
note-book and pencil.
"All right, Inspector."
"Never mind about taking dictation. You can write
a grand letter yourself without my slinging the words
at you. Drop a line to Mr. Bischoff of the Standard
Trust Company, and tell him that his terms are satis-
factory. We'll guard his old bank for him, the main
building and its four branches, as well as handle such
confidential matters as may come up."
1


Poison Case Number 10
Kay flashed a curious look straight into her chief's
quizzical eyes.
"What's there so remarkable about a letter like
that?" she challenged. "We've already got the Murray
Hill National, the Gansevoort Trust, and a slew of
other banks."
Inspector Joyce shook with an infectious Irish
chuckle.
"I thought I'd have you guessing. Well, I'll tell you.
With this new contract, my business goes into the
three hundred thousand dollars a year class. It's the
mark I've been shooting at for years. Three hundred
grand, clear net profit, will keep the lot of us out of
the poorhouse—so now, Kay, I'm getting old, and
ready to loaf."
"I can't quite see you doing that," the girl answered,
a trifle uneasily. "It doesn't fit in with my notion of
your temperament at all. Besides, the agency would
go to pieces without you."
"Don't you believe it. The Joyce Detective Agency
can run itself now. My son Tom can sit in this chair
—with Mr. Symes to coach him a little, now and then."
"Young Mr. Joyce has a great deal of ability," said
Kay, an absurd touch of sadness in her voice.
"But he isn't a born detective, eh?" The chief's blue


The Incredible Client
eyes clouded. "You got that from me. I've raised hell
with him often enough, God knows. But you must
have heard me tell him also, that fifty detectives are
made by discipline and experience for every one that's
born smart. I think Tom is close to a finished job
now."
"I didn't mean even to hint at a criticism of him,"
the girl protested, flushing unreasonably.
"And I'd not be suspecting you of the same," Inspec-
tor Joyce bantered. "The question before the house,
Kay, me darling, is my right to loaf. I've earned it, by
God! and I drilled the boys out there, and they'll work
hard for any one I place in charge. They're an able
and loyal bunch."
He threw his arms wide, and indicated beyond the
glass partitions of his private office a scattering of men
engaged in one of three simple-seeming occupations.
They were either writing at desks, telephoning, or con-
sulting records among the serried squads of steel filing
cases. The suite was not crowded, for the reason that
most of the operatives were out covering assignments.
An air of tenseness, hurry and impending drama was
nevertheless conveyed by the stooped, busy forms. A
newspaper office on the fringes of the rush hour is
much like that. The men worked with their hats on.
3


Poison Case Number 10
A girl employe had sat down in a corner to bang off
a report on the typewriter, without taking the time to
remove her coat.
Through the open windows could be glimpsed a
drift of clouds against a blue September sky, and a dis-
tant view of the lumpy silhouette of the Statue of Lib-
erty. The Joyce Agency occupied the twenty-fourth
floor of a building on lower Broadway, overlooking the
harbor.
"When I say loaf, I don't mean I'll go and sun my-
self on a front porch in Florida," boomed Michael
Joyce, not waiting for an answer to his last remark.
"But I'm sick of routine. I want time for my hobbies."
"Your museum of deadly weapons ?" said Kay. "I've
heard you tell that you found your best specimens, in-
cluding the antiques, through working on queer cases.
But even I didn't know you had any other hobbies."
"Several of them—at the back of my head. Things
I've never had the leisure to follow up. Can't you fig-
ure the temptation to become one of those guys that
call themselves moneyed connoisseurs? I can do it
with the best of 'em."
"Not you, Inspector. Never!"
"Why not?"
"You'd miss the thrills of the game down here.
4


The Incredible Client
There's not a day when something strange and excit-
ing isn't brought to you for a solution, because you're
the greatest private detective in America."
"Every single day? Three hundred and sixty-five
real hot cases each year? Kay, me darling, you're ex-
aggerating."
"Either a new case, or a development in some old
one."
"There hasn't been one today."
"There may be," she insisted stoutly.
"Aw, you're a romantic girl, though I will say I pre-
fer you to most men as a side-kick when there's a job
of roping some white-collar crook. Talk about the de-
tective instinct. You've got it, Kay." The grizzled
detective's voice was rich with blarney, a sure sign, if
Inspector Joyce were speaking to one he was fond of,
that he meant what he said. "There's no girl can kid
me out of retiring. I'll put it up to the Sheriff here."
He turned to a desk behind his own, where, through-
out his conversation with Katharine Carey, commonly
known as Kay, a man had been working on a bulging
dossier of brown cardboard concerning the activities
of a notorious safe-cracker. This operative had ap-
parently seen nothing and heard nothing that his chief
was doing. He had labored with a peculiar self-efface-
5


Poison Case Number 10
ment, a preternatural silence, which had prevented the
very papers under his hands from rustling.
As Joyce turned, however, the man also swung
around automatically, so that they met each other half
way, and it was obvious that not a word which had
been spoken had fallen on deaf ears. The assistant was
small of stature, and both in the matter of features and
clothing he was so drab and inconspicuous that a re-
porter would have found it difficult to find words to
describe him. He was typical of nine out of every ten
men who ride beside one in the subway, or dine at the
next table in a restaurant. If, later on, some untoward
circumstance makes it important to mention traits that
would help to identify such a person, one is at a com-
plete loss to do so.
But. in addition to being typical of the herd, which
gave him his protective coloration, so to speak, a quality
invaluable to the Joyce Agency, G. Borden Symes had
perfected a technique of evasiveness which extended
even to the motions of his body. Two minutes after
you had observed him in a certain spot, you were not
sure that you had seen him at all. That he should be
nicknamed the Sheriff seemed farcical, since that title
is associated in the popular mind with bluff and hearty
men from the West. But Symes had actually found
6


The Incredible Client
his way into detective work through having served a
term as sheriff of an upstate county.
"What's your answer, Sheriff?" asked Joyce. "Of
course you heard what I was saying."
"You have earned a rest, if you want one, Inspector,"
murmured the Sheriff, in the most colorless tones im-
aginable.
"Aw, now, cut loose! Be a human being, for once,
will you? Miss Carey thinks it's not in me to retire.
She as good as claims I can't do it. You've known me
long enough to have an opinion as to whether that's
true or not."
The lack-lustre eyes of the Sheriff brightened a little.
"I'd say that idleness would make you very unhappy,
Inspector. Don't you remember how you carried on
when you were laid up with a sprained ankle, just as
the Saunders kidnapping case was coming to a head?
You ran the whole business from your sick bed. And
you were hobbling through the dives of Red Hook on
the trail of that Sicilian bombing plot, a week before
the doctor discharged you. You're not the man to quit
at fifty, Inspector."
Joyce reached for a cigar, and as he lighted it he
straightened in his chair.
"Nonsense," he retorted, a little curtly. "I see every
7


Poison Case Number 10
job through to the finish, of course. But I'm not a
slave to this damned detective work. I've been dream-
ing all my life of things that have precious little to do
with chasing murderers and the rest of it, and now
thank God I can pay for my fancies."
The Sheriff's body flowed from the waist upward,
rather than turned, back to its crouched position above
the dossier relating to safe-cracking. His long fingers
rearranged a couple of sheets without producing a
sound. About the corners of his lips there hovered the
phantom of a smile.
"Get off that letter to Mr. Bischoff, there's a good
girl, Kay," pursued the chief. "But before you sit
down to the typewriter, will you find Tom and send
him in to me?"
"Okay, Inspector."
As Kay Carey went through the doorway, an office
boy passed her, advanced to Joyce's desk and stood
stiffly.
"There's an old gentleman outside wants to see you,
sir," the boy said.
"What's his business, kid?"
"He wouldn't say, sir—wouldn't give me no name
neither."
8


The Incredible Client
"You ought to know better than to bother me with
messages from cranks like that.”
"He was very particular about seeing you, Mr. Joyce.
And-he's a swell old gink-one of those rich guys in
a tall hat.”
"A handsome old 'gink' in a silk hat, eh?" chuckled
Joyce whimsically. "He's probably lost his wife's fa-
vorite dog, and wants me to find it for him. Mr. Tom
Joyce will take care of him in a few minutes. Savvy?”
sance, Sheriff," commented Joyce.
“Still-at a detective agency!” the Sheriff mumbled,
deprecatingly. “Some of the best prospects act like
nuts. I sort of hate to see you turn business away, In-
spector.”
"You have absolutely no temperament,” groaned
Joyce. “I should think I'd make it clear that I'm cele-
brating my liberty today. Prospects, from now on, are
up to you and Tom."
A moment later, the office boy re-entered.
“The gentleman said I was to tell you, sir, that his
father gave you your first job,” he blurted out.
“My first job,” Joyce repeated, his eyes lighting.
“How come? Did he say any more than that?”


Poison Case Number 10
The boy looked embarrassed, and shifted from one
foot to the other.
“He-he just mentioned that you'd want to see him,
'cause of his father giving you your— ".
"I heard you the first time,” interrupted Joyce. He
frowned and tapped with his finger-tips on the plate
glass that covered his desk. "All right, bring him in.”
He stood up, a muscular and soldierly figure, to re-
ceive his visitor. The latter, as he entered, created an
amazing impression of elegance rescued from some
bandbox of the early years of the century. He was
dressed in a cutaway coat, ascot tie, pin-striped trousers
and spatted shoes. He held in one hand a silk hat,
fawn-colored gloves, and a polished malacca cane. The
salient feature of his face was a heavy white mustache
that curved in impeccably barbered horns. But at the
second glance one noted that he had weak brown eyes,
and that the folds into which the flesh of his aristo
cratic face had relapsed were drained of blood until
they had the unwholesome appearance of wax.
“To whom have I the honor of speaking?" asked
Joyce curiously.
The old gentleman looked from Joyce to the stooped
back of the seated Sheriff, and visibly hesitated.
IO


The Incredible Client
“This is one of my most trusted assistants,” Joyce
gruffly explained.
"I understand, Inspector Joyce. I am Nicholas Van
Zanten, of Van Zanten Manor.”
“Where's that?”
“Van Zanten Manor? Why, Staten Island, of
course!"
"Happy to meet you, Mr. Van Zanten. But-er-
what's this about my having worked for your father?”
"Not precisely for him. In 1900 he was acting
Treasurer of the United States, and it fell to him to
cope with a conspiracy of counterfeiters. You were one
of the young detectives on the case, and I remember
his speaking highly of your talents.”.
“Well, I'll be darned!” exclaimed Joyce, reverting to
the informal manner that was most natural to him. “I
remember that case. I started with the Pinkertons in
1900. They were hot on the affair of the cross-bones
yellow-backs, so called because a flaw in the design of
the false tens and twenties which flooded the country
looked under the magnifying glass like a set of cross-
bones. That was my first case. But I was only a cub,
and it's great to know Treasurer Van Zanten took no
tice of me."
"He did, indeed. And I have followed your career
reu
II


Poison Case Number 10
with warm interest as a result. I admired your work
in the New York Police Department, where you rose
in less than ten years to be an Inspector."
"The title has stuck to me ever since," chuckled
Joyce.
"I used it myself just now. Need I say more to prove
that I am a devotee of the chronicles of your fascinating
profession?"
"You're a sure enough fan. But you didn't come
here to discuss that, I take it. Are you worried about
anything?"
Van Zanten seated himself slowly in the nearest
chair, crossed his hands over the head of his cane and
rested his chin lightly upon them. His watery eyes
roved the office. A look of the most dreadful appre-
hension and grief flitted across his features. Yet when
he answered the detective, he did so with a forced
laugh.
"I admit to having been worried, Inspector. I thought
I needed your help. But I am almost ashamed now of
the impulse that drove me to you. I fear I am nothing
but a nervous old man, and I'm minded to let this be
just a social visit after all."
Joyce was familiar with the reticence complex, which
crops up at the last moment when certain men face
12


The Incredible Client
their chosen confessors. Physicians, lawyers, dentists
and priests encounter it, no less frequently than private
detectives. It operates to suppress tragedies rather than
trifles. In the case of a courtly weakling like Nicholas
Van Zanten, it moved Joyce to keen curiosity.
"Suit yourself, sir. I may not be at this desk to-
morrow. But I am today—and you're here. It wouldn't
do you any harm to get my advice." He snapped out
the words, launching them like darts against the armor
that masked the other's timidity.
Notwithstanding, Van Zanten continued to tempor-
ize.
"Have you a son, Inspector?" he asked.
"Why, yes. My boy Tom is twenty-five years old."
"Is he in this work with you?"
"He is."
Van Zanten sighed.
"You are a fortunate man. A brilliant career which
you have built up for yourself, and a son to share it
with you! I should like to meet your Tom."
'That's easy. He's standing outside the door. I'd
sent my secretary to fetch him, just before you called."
Joyce signaled through the glass partition with his
right hand, and Tom and Kay Carey entered. He
presented them briefly to Van Zanten.
13


Poison Case Number 10
The old gentleman bowed with elaborate ceremony
to the girl. One had the feeling that he restrained
himself with difficulty from kissing the back of her
hand. Then he turned and stared at Tom with cryptic
intensity. Tears misted his eyes, and his lower lip
trembled.
"A fine, upstanding young fellow," he said. "The
double of my Jimmy. But you were wiser than I, In-
spector. You married in time to have a grown son
of this sort, before you were too old to be a companion
and guide to him. I did not take a wife until I was
nearly fifty."
Michael Joyce felt slightly irked by the display of
sentiment. It struck an odd note in the precincts of a
detective agency, and it was a form of time wasting
in which it did not seem proper for an unheralded
caller to indulge.
"You touch me in a soft spot there, Mr. Van Zanten,"
he muttered. "But I'm kind of anxious to get to the
bottom of your business."
The other resumed his seat, threw back his head and
said with unexpected firmness:
"Yes, I have decided to tell you the story and obtain
your best judgment regarding it."
14


The Incredible Client
"Perhaps you would prefer to have Tom and Miss
Carey step outside?"
"It is not necessary. They are confidential employes,
I suppose, no less than the other man who is present."
"Right. Well, I'm listening to you."
"Inspector Joyce," said Van Zanten, his voice hard
and appallingly convincing. "I am afraid I am going
to be murdered."
■
15


CHAPTER TWO
Friday—Can This Be Poison?
HEN
WHEN Nicholas Van Zanten declared with the very
accents of truth that he was afraid he was going to be
murdered, the atmosphere in Joyce's private office ab-
ruptly changed. The social pleasantries were thrust
aside, and the room grew charged with a psychic cur-
rent as definite as electricity. Tom and Kay stiffened
into attitudes of professional attention. The noiseless
Symes turned his blank face toward the center of in-
terest.
But it was Michael Joyce himself who underwent the
most complete transformation. His good-humored,
jesting Irish mannerisms fell away from him, and he
became at once the keen analyst of mysteries. His blue
eyes glittered like blades.
"What's your main reason for thinking yourself in
danger, Mr. Van Zanten?” he asked.
"Within the past year, two members of my family
have died in suspicious circumstances,” the man an-
swered starkly.


Can This Be Poison?
"Was there a police inquiry in either case?"
"Oh, no! Nothing like that."
"Then it's merely your own suspicions that have
been aroused?"
"Perhaps. Others may be alarmed, but if so they
have kept their fears hidden from me."
"Have you discussed the matter with any of your
relatives or friends?"
"No."
"So much the better, if there's foul play to be in-
vestigated. Now tell me the story from the begin-
ning."
"Willingly. I"
"Just a minute," interrupted Joyce. "Say first why
you think your death might follow the two that have
already occurred." It was a favorite ruse of his to get
a narrator started, and then to wrench the all-impor-
tant conclusion from him before the threshing over of
facts and fancies had possibly caused him to substitute
some new-born theory.
"Because I am the next in line save one, Inspector,"
replied Van Zanten, flustered. "That is—that is, if a
plot to destroy us all indeed exists."
"Hm! We'll come back to that when you've fin-
ished talking. Go ahead."
17


Poison Case Number 10
"But I don't know where to begin."
"No vagueness, please. Tell me about your family."
"Ours is one of the oldest names in New York."
Van Zanten brightened". "We trace our ancestry to the
early Dutch settlers. The founder of the line built
a house on Maiden Lane, Manhattan. Since the Van
Zantens moved to Staten Island, our home has been
handed down from father to son for five generations."
"Are you wealthy?"
"Moderately so."
"Would you say the crimes you suspect are being
committed for vengeance, or for money, or what?"
"There can be no question of vengeance. No one
has any cause to hate us. But the million dollars or so
that the estate is worth has a curse on it. It has inspired
deeds of violence for the past hundred years."
"Are you tormenting yourself about supposed mur-
ders that have stretched over a century?"
"No. Dear me, no! What happened in the long
ago was often terrible, but not mysterious. Two gal-
lant men lost their lives in 1846, in duels for the hand
of a Van Zanten heiress. My great-grandfather was a
suicide."
Joyce shook with exasperation as the other came to
a stop. Van Zanten's devious approach to the real issue
18


Can This Be Poison?
and the, necessity of coaching him were hard for a de-
tective to bear.
"Please state, sir, who the persons were that died
recently, and why the circumstances were suspicious,"
he said severely.
"A year ago, almost to the day, my brother George
was seized with violent stomach cramps which came
and went for three days. At the end, his tongue seemed
paralyzed. Just before the final attack, he tried to
gasp out some last message to us, but could not pro-
nounce a word."
"Poison, eh?"
"I fear so."
"And the second case?"
"I attended yesterday afternoon the funeral of
George's daughter and only child, my niece Mary. Her
symptoms had been different, and even more alarming.
We found her in bed in convulsions on Tuesday morn-
ing. She obtained a little relief toward nightfall, not
sufficiently to tell a collected story, alas! An hour after
dawn, she was dead."
"That might have been poison, too, though not the
same kind of poison. Did both patients receive medical
treatment before they succumbed?"
"Yes."
*9


Poison Case Number 10
“What causes of death were certified?”
"George died of acute indigestion, the doctor said.
Our little Mary of angina pectoris, culminating in the
bursting of a blood vessel on the brain."
There was something infinitely pathetic about the
tremulous tone in which Nicholas Van Zanten uttered
the phrase, "our little Mary."
"Were autopsies held on the bodies?”
“No, Inspector.”
"Great grief! Why not? It would have been the
logical thing to demand, since you evidently didn't feel
right about what happened.”
"To tell you the truth, I suspected nothing wrong
when George died. He had been a life-long sufferer
from indigestion. He had had several attacks which
resembled the fatal one."
“Then the man may actually have been taken off
by indigestion?”
“I even consider that probable. I am not convinced
that George was murdered.”
“But you consider it strange that his young daughter
should have followed him, I take it. Why didn't you
have a post mortem in her case?”
“I suggested it," said Van Zanten. He hesitated.
“But-but I was persuaded that that would be foolish.
20


Can This Be Poison?
Some one in whom I have great confidence pooh-
poohed the idea."
"The attending physician?" snapped Joyce.
"Oh, no! A—a valued employe and loyal friend,
sir."
"Now we're getting somewhere. Who is this indi-
vidual?"
"I refer to Mr. Alexander Fawcett, the manager of
the Van Zanten estate."
"Is he a relative?"
"No."
"A salaried employe, then?"
"I provide him with an income, of course. He is an
extremely competent man."
"Do you suspect him of having had a hand in the
deaths of George and Mary Van Zanten?"
"Absolutely not. I was not being ironical when I
called him loyal. He is closer to me than any other
living person. I only fear that the warm humanity of
his nature, his distaste for evil thoughts, misled him
when he advised me not to have an autopsy performed
on the body of my niece."
"I see." Joyce reflected for a moment. He perceived
that he would be forced to probe for the continuity
of Van Zanten's story, that every fact would have to
21


Poison Case Number 10
be dug out of the man by a process of direct question-
ing.
"You have hinted," he went on, "that these deaths
may have been brought about to affect the inheritance
of your million dollar fortune. Also, that you may be
a victim because you would be the next one in line
for elimination. Is that right?"
"Yes, God help me! But I said the next save one."
"Who is that one?"
"My spinster sister, Constance," replied Van Zanten
with a peculiar brusqueness.
"Your sister is the only immediate surviving member
of the family, except your son?"
"Yes."
"And if you and Miss Constance die, the entire for-
tune will fall to your son?"
"Obviously. But do not imagine that I have thought
o2 Jimmy as the plotter. That would be too gro-
tesque."
"You perhaps believe that he is being made the
beneficiary of crime, without his knowledge."
"That would be more likely, though I am loath to
believe it."
"Is there any outsider whose own interests would be
served by such a scheme?"
22


Can This Be Poison?
"Jimmy is engaged to a girl of whom I do not ap-
prove,” said Van Zanten slowly, and dragging out the
words with difficulty. “Her name is Celestine Curtis.”
“Ah! Why do you disapprove of her?”
“She is not his social equal. She comes of a poor
working family.”
“Poor, eh!” growled Joyce, seizing on the significant
word. “But what about her character, her personal
qualities?”
“Just a pleasure-seeking, cigarette-smoking flapper,"
declared Van Zanten wrathfully. It was characteristic
of him to use a term already outdated to pillory this
daughter of the modern era.
“Did I understand you to say that young Mr. Van
Zanten was about the same age as my Tom-twenty-
five?"
“No, Inspector. The lads resemble each other. But
Jimmy is a few weeks less than twenty-one years old.”
“Not quite of age, then! He can't marry without
your consent. Might that be a factor in the mystery?”
"Possibly.” Van Zanten frowned and stroked his
white mustaches. “It has a greater significance, how-
ever, than this–er-this silly betrothal. My son's mi-
nority, I mean. I should tell you that, as a precaution
in view of my advancing years, I had appointed my
23


Poison Case Number 10
late brother George to be Jimmy's legal guardian,
should I pass away first."
"But it was Mr. George Van Zanten who died," com-
mented Joyce drily.
"Precisely. Discovering nothing sinister in that fact
at the time, I simply appointed another guardian."
"Who?"
"My manager, Mr. Fawcett."
"Did he suggest it?"
"Why no, Inspector. We are in the habit of talking
over everything that comes up affecting the estate, Mr.
Fawcett and I. At our first conference after George's
funeral, it naturally occurred to me to pass on the re-
sponsibility of the guardianship to him."
"Supposing that murder has been done, do you now
fear for Mr. Fawcett's life?"
"Hardly. George Van Zanten, in addition to being
guardian, had a share in the fortune which passes to
surviving members of the family. So had Mary. But
the small legacy I have made Mr. Fawcett would go
to his own heirs, if he died. Nothing would be gained
by destroying him."
"Logical enough, if you hold to the idea that this
is a plot against the Van Zanten million. Do you con-
sider your son in danger?"
24


Can This Be Poison?
“He may be. Indeed I cannot guess how sorely we
are to suffer. All is conjecture in my mind, Inspec-
tor.”
"Has it taken the form of wondering whether the
scheme might be to establish Miss Constance as the
sole inheritor?”
“No, no—that would be insane. Constance is a re-
ligious woman, whose time is occupied with charities.”
"Are you in sympathy with her charities?”
"I cannot say that I am, Inspector. In fact, they ir-
ritate me. She is passionately devoted to the work of
a mission which seeks to convert the tranquil islanders
of Bali from their Brahmin faith. She also maintains
a home for stray dogs and gives tombstones for the dog
cemetery connected therewith.”
For the first time since Van Zanten had said he was
menaced by death, Joyce's lips twitched in amusement;
but his gravity returned swiftly.
“Outside of those you have named, what persons
compose your household ?” he asked.
“There is only Mrs. Fawcett.”
"Anything remarkable about her?”
"She is a gentle, modest woman of about forty and
performs her duties of housekeeper most unobtrusively.
We are all fond of her.”


Poison Case Number 10
"How many servants have you?"
"Five, including a butler, a gardener, a cook and two
maids."
"Do you consider them trustworthy?"
"Decidedly. All of them have been with us for
years."
Joyce fell silent and stared at the wall beyond Van
Zanten's head. His hand reached automatically for a
paper knife which was really a finely-wrought dama-
scene dagger, and his thick yet sensitive fingers wan-
dered over the surface of the weapon, searching out the
convolutions of the carved handle, testing the edge of
the blade, weighing the few ounces of the deadly trifle,
and passing it from finger-tip to finger-tip, from palm
to palm. It was a trick he had when he was thinking.
His collecting of lethal instruments and his love of
toying with them was the form which an odd impulse
toward dilettantism had taken in the case of this ex-
Pinkerton sleuth and police official.
But Nicholas Van Zanten fidgeted at the prolonged
pause. "I feel sure, after talking to you, that there
.should be a confidential inquiry into the deaths," he
said. "Will you undertake it?"
Joyce looked around. "No," he answered bluntly.
"This is no job for me."
26


Can This Be Poison?
"Why, Inspector? Why?" the other wailed, in naive
disappointment.
"Your course is very clear and simple. Have the two
bodies exhumed and the contents of the viscera ana-
lyzed. Any investigator would demand that as your
first move. If poison is not found, there's no mystery.
If it is, the affair becomes a public scandal and the
police step into it right away. What need have you
for a private detective?"
"But if I choose to employ one, is that not my privi-
lege? I want a secret inquiry, in advance of any pos-
sible post mortems upon George and Mary Van Zanten.
I understand you were in the business of accepting such
commissions."
The drab countenance of Sheriff Symes reflected, by
a general drooping of the muscles rather than any ex-
pression about the mouth and eyes, its approval of the
client's sentiments and its grief at the indefensible re-
luctance of Joyce. Kay Carey and Tom looked more
patently worried.
"I am on the point of taking a vacation," declared
the chief coldly. "But it goes without saying that if
you are so good as to employ my organization for de-
tective work of any kind, my assistants will take care
of you."


Poison Case Number 10
"I want you, Inspector Joyce—you yourself," pleaded
the old man unhappily.
"I'll not mince words with you, Mr. Van Zanten.
The evidence isn't convincing enough to force me to
clear the decks and go into action, at the expense of
personal plans. Any death may turn out to have been
a murder. But your facts don't spell murder."
"They don't?"
"No, except as a long chance. Two members of your
family have died a year apart. Their symptoms were
alarming, but not unique. A reputable physician has
certified that they perished of natural causes. You're
pretty sure that your brother had nothing but indi-
gestion. You haven't made me believe that the girl
was poisoned; do you believe it?"
A morbidly crafty expression, founded upon some
deeply-rooted horror, took hold of the waxen flesh of
Van Zanten's face and remained fixed there. He fum-
bled for his wallet and pulled from it an unmounted
photograph of post card size, which he handed to
Joyce.
"I was with Mary when she died," he said harshly.
"I asked Mrs. Fawcett, who had been nursing her, to
step out of the room for a minute. I fetched Mary's
i>wn camera from a cupboard and snapped this. No-
28


Can This Be Poison?
body saw me do it. An-an instinct told me to get a
picture of our little girl before the undertakers went to
work on her.”
Joyce's lips tightened about the stub of his cigar, as
he scrutinized the photograph. It had been taken with
a strong Graflex lens, and could not have been clearer.
He saw the well-shaped head of a young woman
against a white pillow. It was impossible to judge
whether the features had been beautiful, so terribly
were they distorted. The eyes were wide open, and
rolled to one side in their sockets. The jaw had fallen,
yet the lips were sucked against both the upper and
lower teeth, forming a ghastly rictus with a leftward
sag. Pinched nostrils and taut cheeks completed the
register of anguish. Lumps in the bed clothes indi-
cated that Mary's hands were crisped above her breast
and her knees drawn up to her stomach. The body
was on its back.
Joyce looked from the picture to Van Zanten, and
stared wordlessly.
“The dead face says, 'Poison!"" the old man croaked.
The detective beckoned to Symes and Kay and Tom.
They advanced and examined the photograph over his
shoulder. Kay shuddered. But after a moment, all
three withdrew in well-trained silence.
29


Can This Be Poison?
gentleman say. The full name is Nicholas Van Zan-
ten, of Van Zanten Manor, Staten Island.”
Efficient and swift, Kay turned to a filing cabinet
and selected a stout manila folder. She lettered across
the front of it the words:
POISON CASE NO. 10


CHAPTER THREE
Friday—The Wrong Man Is Stricken
Now that he had accepted Van Zanten as a client,
Joyce treated him with courteous firmness. He knew
that he would have to be tolerant of the man's devious
approach to the crux of any question, but he proposed
to control and anticipate him as much as possible. The
case claimed from him an absolute professional loy-
alty. Van Zanten had become simply one of the hu-
man factors through which he expected to reach a
solution.
"I'm at your service," he said. "A secret inquiry
should, and shall, be made. What strikes you as being
the best way to have me meet your family, without
their knowing who I am?"
"I'd been thinking about that, Inspector. Suppose
you come out with me as a house guest. I'll introduce
you as a former business acquaintance."
"Not bad. Call me Charles P. Ryan, a construction
engineer who's just returned from South America.
This is Friday. I can stay over the week-end. If it's
32


The Wrong Man Is Stricken
necessary for me to remain longer, we can fix up a
story."
"That will be splendid. Can we start at once?"
"No, Mr. Van Zanten. I have some details to attend
to in the office, and a bag to pack. Besides, it wouldn't
look normal for me to show up with you in the middle
of the afternoon."
"What then?" The other's face twitched nervously,
as if he feared that Joyce was going to slip out of his
hands.
"You return home now, and announce my coming.
Have your car meet me, if you will, at the St. George
ferry at six o'clock."
"Your wishes are my wishes, Inspector."
"Very good. And, by the way, in an affair of this
kind a woman assistant would be invaluable to me.
Allow me to bring Miss Carey."
At the mere mention of a person of the opposite sex,
Van Zanten forgot his tragedy and became gallant. He
turned toward Kay, smiling and bowing from the
waist. "Delighted. The pleasure will be all mine,"
he said. "But how am I to explain the presence of so
charming a stranger?"
"She can pass as my daughter," answered Joyce
crisply. His manner brushed sentiment out of the
33


Poison Case Number 10
way. "Please take care not to make any slips of the
tongue in using our names. I'm to be Ryan—Charles
P. She becomes Miss Dorothy Ryan."
"I shall be very careful, Inspector," replied Van Zan-
ten meekly.
He and Joyce stood up at the same moment, and the
detective left the office with him, to see him to the
elevator. A businesslike air prevailed for a moment
after their going. Not one of the three assistants so
much as commented upon the grim photograph of the
dead Mary; they had seen others almost as terrible.
Symes had resumed his compilation of the chronicles
of a safe-cracker. A sheet of paper in Kay's typewriter
was already half-filled with notes concerning the events
at Van Zanten Manor.
But Tom passed his fingers through his thick blond
hair. He flushed, and his eyes looked troubled.
"I've bought a pair of seats to take you to the Follies
tonight," he said sulkily to Kay.
She shook her head, without glancing up. "You
heard the boss. He's adopted me over the week-end.
I'm your sister, Tom. Isn't that nice?"
"Don't kid me, please. I never was more serious
in my life. I—I don't want you to go out on this
job."
34


The Wrong Man Is Stricken
The girl interrupted her typewriting then, and stared
at him. "Why?"
"It's no work for a woman. It cheapens her, and it's
often dangerous. Dad should know better than to
drag you into it."
"Your dad is a great detective," Kay replied indig-
nantly. "He loves his profession, and he's taught me
to love it. What's good enough for him is good enough
for me. Old-fashioned notions about woman's place
in the world leave me cold."
The two talked without the least embarrassment in
the presence of Sheriff Symes. They took it as a mat-
ter of course—and they were right—that among his
friends he was all of the three monkeys of the Japanese
toy rolled into one: he saw nothing, heard nothing and
spoke nothing of what had not been intended for him.
The man had a curious faculty for conveying this im-
pression. It made him the ideal ferret type of sleuth.
For strangers, to their sorrow, also imagined him to be
uninquisitive and discreet.
"Maybe this is not a good time for me to tell you,
Kay," said Tom Joyce, "that I could like you a whole
lot better if you weren't so wrapped up in the private
agency business."
"Isn't it sweet of you to like me at all!" she answered
35


Poison Case Number 10
pertly. "Have you stopped to consider that I'd think
more of you if you took a greater interest in detective
work?"
Tom parted his lips to make a retort, but interrupted''
himself as his father strode into the office.
"Will you jump into a taxi and run up to the flat,
Tom?" he asked with smooth authority. "I don't want
to phone and trust this to servants. Pack my week-end
bag. You know, the set-up, the one containing noth-
ing that has initials on it. Stop by Kay's house and
have her sister do the same stunt for her. You can be
back here by five-thirty."
"Surest thing you know, Dad," the young fellow
replied briskly, and hurried away.
"And I'm going to spend the time, Kay, refreshing
my memory on poisons and toxic symptoms in the hu-
man body. If the telephone rings, you answer it and
say I'm busy."
Joyce went to a bookshelf in the corner. He took
down a bulky volume, over which he pored with in-
tense concentration as he walked back and forth or
rested one shoulder against the nearest support. It was
one of his idiosyncrasies seldom to read seated. He
made no notes. But occasionally he raised his head,
a slight frown between the eyebrows, and gazed
36


The Wrong Man Is Stricken
blankly at the wall while he mentally analyzed some
knotty scientific point. His memory was prodigious.
At exactly five-fifteen, he restored the book to its
shelf, sat at his desk and watched the door fretfully
for Tom's reappearance. His son arrived within five
minutes with the two bags, and Joyce's face lit up. He
was far from being a fidgety man, except sometimes
where Tom was concerned. He had taken to worry-
ing that Tom might fail him in small matters.
"All right, Kay," he cried. "Let's get started."
The girl arose like a soldier coming to attention. She
went to the women's cloak room, and was back with
her hat and a light coat on, her nose powdered and
her lips rouged, in less time than it takes the average
girl to wash her hands. Joyce admired that quality in
her. He grinned his approval, and nodded ever so
slightly. She flushed with as much pride as if she had
been awarded a medal of honor.
They descended to the street and caught a cab to
South Ferry. It was at the height of the rush hour,
when clerks of both sexes, laborers and honest burgh-
ers who have been in town shopping, swarm in then-
thousands aboard the municipal ferry boats. The move-
ment toward the island borough of Richmond is one
of the lesser streams of New York's commuting traffic,
37


Poison Case Number 10
but between five and six-thirty each evening it makes
a brave showing.
Joyce and Kay struggled with their bags into the
main cabin of the Dongan Hills, the most recent addi-
tion to the harbor fleet. There was not a seat vacant.
They found the decks almost equally crowded, and the
men's section below was a horror of unwashed hu-
manity in the mass and of billowing tobacco smoke.
The broad, open aisle that ran from end to end of the
boat was jammed with trucks and private cars, with
their motors and lights off and their brakes on. One
had the alarming feeling that if the unwieldly craft
should give a sudden lurch, this tangle of vehicles
would be catapulted into the water.
The engines of the ferryboat had begun to throb and
she was nosing her waddling course out of the slip,
when Joyce and Kay decided to remount the interior
stairway. The latter was clear. Swinging doors shut
it off from the passengers; it was a perfectly tranquil
retreat.
Half way up, Joyce set down his bag and laughed.
"This is against the rules of the Department of Plant
and Structures," he said. "No one may ride on the
stairway, as you'll notice by that sign. But cops and
ferry bootblacks usually do. So why shouldn't we?"
38


The Wrong Man Is Stricken
"It's the only place where we can talk," remarked
Kay.
"Precisely."
They sat side by side on the steps, like a couple of
children. Kay was burning to ask a dozen questions
about the case on which they were bound, but she was
far too well disciplined to start the ball rolling. It
was for her chief to speak, if and when he was ready.
She hoped he would tell her what poison he thought
had been administered to Mary Van Zanten. But he
opened up along a different line.
"Kay, girl," he said, "who do you believe our old
fashion-plate client suspects?"
"Celestine Curtis, his son's fiancee," she replied
promptly.
"You're wrong. He certainly got all steamed up
when he mentioned her. But what did he accuse her
of? Of pleasure-seeking and cigarette-smoking. He
called her a flapper. A gentleman of that school would
never think of 'murderess' and 'flapper' in the same
breath. He'd have promoted her to be a vampire, at
the very least."
"Yet she may be guilty. A motive can be pinned on
to her."
"If it was a murder, anybody may be guilty."
39


Poison Case Number 10
“Surely that unfinished message proved a murder."
“Not conclusively. ‘Danger-you-I am d i
Blank! That's what it said. Mary may have intended
simply to end with the word 'dying.'”
“She'd already written `danger.' Could she have
meant that she thought herself suffering from a con-
tagious disease?”
“Pretty far-fetched. A dying person doesn't need a
reason for going hysterical over the idea of danger.
But I was asking you for your impression of Van Zan-
ten's suspicions."
"Shut out Celestine Curtis, and I'm at a loss,
Inspector. He evidently has complete faith in his
manager, Fawcett, and he looks upon his sister as a
harmless simpleton.”
“Granted, Kay me darlin'. Where does your process
of elimination bring you?”
Kay thought for a moment. “His son!” she gasped.
"Just so."
"But why—why?"
“Which 'why do you mean? Why Van Zanten sus-
pects his son? Or why I knew that that was what he
had on his mind? We'll let the first drop, because it's
too early to express an opinion.”
"I guess I did mean the other thing."
40


The Wrong Man Is Stricken
“That's better. I want you to think straight, before
you express yourself. You'll never be a detective until
you do.”
Kay hung her head.
“When the old man first came in, he was mighty
sentimental about sons in general. He almost cried
over Tom,” Joyce went on. “You heard him envying
me. Yet he was scared for his own life, and not for
his son's. He's trying to kid himself that some one
expects to benefit through this Jim becoming the sole
inheritor. But his real fear is blacker still."
"Do you think there's much chance of his being
right?"
"I think he's easily hoodwinked, and that's all.”
“The man who got himself made the heir's guardian
and then advised against a post mortem on Mary's
body doesn't seem to me to be above suspicion.”
“Fawcett? Not a bad theory, Kay. But it's too ob-
vious. Until I meet these people and size them up, I
refuse to commit my mind on any suspect.”
They continued to discuss the mental quirks of
Nicholas Van Zanten, but Joyce studiously avoided the
question of poisons. If he had obtained hints from his
tome on legal medicine and toxicology, he preferred
for the time being to keep them to himself.
$1


Poison Case Number 10
The twenty minute voyage to St. George was made
by the pair in a seclusion as complete as if they had
been riding in an empty subway car. No sounds
reached them except the pulsing of the engines and
an occasional echo of the churning paddle-wheels. They
missed the splendid pageantry of New York harbor on
a long September afternoon. When they left the boat,
however, on the heels of a crowd that dashed madly
in the direction of waiting trains, busses and trolley
cars, bright sunshine was still flooding the scene. Day-
light saving had several weeks yet to run, and the ac-
tual solar time was five o'clock.
They went to the cluttered square outside the Ferry
Building, which like all other public places on Staten
Island gave the impression of a provincial city remote
from New York. The square was nothing but a stone
platform resting on pillars, between the railroad cuts
on either side. A flock of shabby taxis waited there.
The eye readily picked out the only car of any preten-
sions, a limousine of an ancient model. Joyce and Kay
walked over to it.
"Is this Mr. Van Zanten's car?" the detective asked.
The driver turned quickly in his seat. He was a
man with a broad, stupid face and gnarled hands. His
uniform fitted him badly.
42


The Wrong Man Is Stricken
"Yes, sir," he answered. "You Mr. Ryan?"
Joyce nodded.
Instead of getting out, to open the door and help *
with the bags, the driver manipulated the catch from
the inside. The visitors were left to settle themselves
in their seats as best they might. The limousine glided
forward.
Through the glass partition, Joyce studied the fel-
low's broad back for a moment. He lowered his voice
and addressed Kay:
"Does this chauffeur say anything to you?"
"Mr. Van Zanten spoke of having five servants. He
did not include a chauffeur. Driving the car is not this
man's regular job."
"Good girl. But suppose he's from a garage."
"No. His coat wouldn't be lumped up between
the shoulders, in that case, and he'd have better man-
ners. It's not the butler, because they couldn't spare
the butler so shortly before dinner. Besides, I noticed
his hands. It's the gardener."
Kay's eyes twinkled as she spoke. This was an old
game with Joyce, to test her on the A.B.C. of detective
observation. It was a joy to her to show him how
rapidly she improved. But she had not anticipated
43


Poison Case Number 10
the warmth with which he suddenly covered both the
hands in her lap with one of his great palms.
"Sure, I'd look far to find a daughter that could
make me prouder," he said.
The possible double meaning in his words left Kay
Carey speechless.
The car circled the Richmond Borough Hall and
climbed a long, winding street leading to the top of the
hill on which the homes of St. George clustered. A
few tall apartment houses had recently been thrown
up, here and there, amidst the weather-stained brick
and frame dwellings of the older inhabitants. But the
township was soon left behind. The limousine gath-
ered speed and flew along a broad turnpike, pom-
pously named Victory Boulevard, which ran down the
center of the island. Pleasant suburban houses with
lawns and shade trees now succeeded each other at
short intervals. It was amazing to realize that this
was an integral part of the City of New York.
Barely two miles beyond St. George, the car turned
westward into a side road which curved in an easy
grade over a low ridge of land and terminated at a
gateway flanked by crumbling gray pillars. The iron
gate was closed, and the chauffeur was forced to jump
out twice, to open and to shut it. After that, the route
»
44


The Wrong Man Is Stricken
lay along a private driveway, far from well kept, but
bordered by trees of noble proportions. Cows and
horses grazed in a walled field. A fine old house, of
late Colonial architecture, was visible straight ahead.
"Van Zanten Manor," commented Joyce. "It's a
regular estate. Several such have been held intact on
Staten Island."
There was time only to observe that the lawn was
as smooth as velvet, and that a fine rose garden ad-
joined the house on the left, when the limousine drew
up in front of the porch.
Joyce and Kay got out briskly. But a watch had
evidently been kept for them. The front door opened
before they could start for it and a maid came hurrying
to take their bags. Over her shoulder, they could see
the neat figure of Nicholas Van Zanten, who was
awaiting them just beyond the threshold.
The old man shook hands with them nervously. His
waxen face bore the stamp of some new worry. He
recalled the coaching he had received, however, and
greeted them as if by rote.
"I am so happy that you could pay us this visit, Mr.
Ryan," he said. "And here is your charming daugh-
ter, of course. How do you do, Miss Ryan."
"We're delighted to be with you," answered Joyce.
45


Poison Case Number 10
He stared hard at Van Zanten, to encourage him to
hint at what was really on his mind.
"But you'll have to put up with the company of old
folks tonight—just my sister Constance and I. Unex-
pected difficulties have arisen."
"Yes?" questioned Joyce, impersonal and polite for
the benefit of any servants who might be listening.
"My son did not know until I got home this after-
noon that you would be coming. He had made an en-
gagement which will keep him out until very late."
"But I can meet your son tomorrow. There is no
hurry."
"Something else has happened. My manager and
dear friend, Mr. Fawcett, is ill and confined to his
room."
The detective felt a thrill of excitement run through
him. But before he could ask a question concerning
Fawcett's malady, a tall and cadaverous figure stalked
out of the adjoining parlor, remarking in a voice that
rasped:
"Our guests, I presume."
Her severe features, flat chest and untidy gray hair
proclaimed the spinster, Constance Van Zanten.
Joyce shook hands with her. She demanded, without
prelude:
46


CHAPTER FOUR
Saturday—The Clue in the Tomb
Ihe darkening mystery of Van Zanten Manor was
not discussed at the cheerless first meal which Joyce
and Kay shared with their hosts. Constance's tongue
wagged in a persistent lecture on her philanthropic
hobbies, and she continued to monopolize the talk after
the diners had adjourned to the parlor.
Dogs were her chief preoccupation that evening, but
the welfare of the islanders of Bali came next. Some
missionary society had convinced her that their pe-
culiarly narrow view of the seven deadly virtues should
be made to prevail in that far tropical paradise. She
gave the better part of her income to bring the dubious
result to pass, and she enjoyed harping on it.
Van Zanten broke away at about eleven o'clock and
saw Joyce to his room. The old man was eager to sit
up for further talk, but Joyce cut him short with a
single request.
"Please go and see how Fawcett is doing," he said.
48


The Clue in the Tomb
"Give me an exact report on his condition, and after
that we'll go to bed. You're tired, and so am I."
In due course, Van Zanten returned, his face beam-
ing.
"Mr. Fawcett is much better," he stated. "His stom-
ach was sensitive for several hours after he vomited.
But the medicine Dr. Henkle left with him had a sooth-
ing effect. He is now free of pain, and his strength
is fast coming back."
"That's fine. Is Henkle the same doctor who at-
tended your late brother and niece?"
"Yes, Inspector. He is our family physician. But
about Fawcett—the doctor's first opinion that it was
just a touch of ptomaine poisoning seems justified,
eh?"
Joyce smiled cryptically. "The patient is out of
danger, at any rate. Let's get some sleep. Good night,
Mr. Van Zanten."
"Good night, Inspector, and rest well. Breakfast will
be served at eight."
In defiance of the accepted conventions of sleuthing,
Joyce did not start to prowl through the house the mo-
ment his host was out of sight. He did not even lie
awake and apply his master mind to an analysis of the
strange circumstances surrounding the deaths of two
49


Poison Case Number 10
members of the Van Zanten family, as well as the pres-
ent illness of Fawcett. Most casually, he undressed,
got into bed and slept with the soundness natural to a
perfectly healthy man.
He opened his eyes at half-past seven, because he had
mentally set that hour for arising. Like all experi-
enced detectives, soldiers and travelers, he had trained
himself to need no alarm clock. He bathed, shaved
and dressed swiftly, and entered the breakfast room
downstairs precisely at eight.
The only person ahead of him was a young man
whose cleancut features and blond complexion were
not unlike those of his son Tom. But this youth had
cheeks that tended to be hollow, a tight-lipped mouth
and precociously weary eyes. He was evidently more
serious for his years than Tom Joyce. He advanced
courteously to meet the visitor, and held out his hand.
"Mr. Ryan, I presume," he said. "My father has
told me a lot about you. I am James Van Zanten."
Joyce made small talk, while he appraised the other
keenly. "He tries hard to be a forceful character," he
thought, "but there's an inferiority complex gnawing
at him. The result of some one obsession, perhaps.
He's not always sure of himself."
"By the way, have you heard how Mr. Fawcett is
5°


The Clue in the Tomb
this morning?" the detective asked, at the first con-
venient pause in the conversation.
"He's quite all right," the lad answered, his eyes
suddenly growing hard. "In fact, he's up and at his
gardening already."
"His gardening?"
"Sure. The garden is his special hobby. That's
why we have such grand flowers."
Jimmy waved his hand in the direction of the French
windows, and for the first time Joyce glanced out-
doors. He saw a perfect riot of the hardier blooms
that do not vanish with summer. Chrysanthemums
of many shades were especially noticeable. Close to
the house, a dozen varieties of roses were still blossom-
ing. A man with a pair of shears was hovering about
a bed of fading hollyhocks in the near distance. Far-
ther down, another man crouched on his haunches,
plying a trowel.
"An honest to God garden," commented Joyce. "It's
a sight for sore eyes."
At that moment, the elder Van Zanten and Kay
Carey entered the breakfast room together.
"Good morning, Mr. Ryan. 'Morning, Jimmy," the
old man cried in the cheeriest tones that Joyce had
heard from his lips. "I found this young lady in need
51


Poison Case Number 10
of a guide around the old house, and here we are.
What a lovely day it is! And the scent of those roses
is mighty sweet."
He introduced his son to Kay, naming her meticu-
lously as Miss Dorothy Ryan, and they all sat down to
breakfast. Constance Van Zanten, it was explained,
was not in the habit of arising so early.
They chatted across the table about matters of no im-
portance. Joyce refrained from saying anything that
might have led the Van Zantens to mention recent
tragic events. He preferred to study the peculiar grav-
ity of Jimmy's demeanor throughout a talk of a nature
gay rather than grave. Had the boy been harder hit
by his cousin Mary's death than the family realized?
Joyce wondered. Or was he suffering from remorse?
Why, too, was he unable to suppress a certain note of
frigidity whenever the name of Alexander Fawcett
was mentioned?
Of lesser interest to the detective, but still important,
were the personalities of the maid who served at table
and of the housekeeper, Mrs. Fawcett, who dropped in
for a few minutes. Joyce found the two women ut-
terly colorless, as he had found the butler at dinner
the night before. All were of the stolid servant type,
including Sarah Fawcett. The latter lacked the social
52


The Clue in the Tomb
presence expected of the wife of a man who had risen
to be manager of a great estate. She stammered, and
she wore her hair in an incredibly old-fashioned "bun"
at the back of her head.
"You must let me show you and Miss Ryan about
the grounds," Joyce heard Van Zanten saying. "There
is much to see. The early morning is the best time,
before the sun gets too warm."
"We'll enjoy that immensely," the detective an-
swered.
Kay, who had been devoting herself to Jimmy, ad-
dressed the lad with a touch of coquetry: "It rained a
bit last night. You can help me over the puddles, if
there are any."
But Jimmy looked at her moodily. "I'm awfully
sorry, Miss Ryan. I have to leave right away, to attend
a lecture in Stapleton."
The oddity of this assertion did not escape Inspector
Joyce. "A lecture on a Saturday morning. That's real
devotion to the cause of self improvement," he re-
marked in an off-hand manner.
"Jimmy is taking a preparatory course before he en-
ters Johns Hopkins," said old Van Zanten.
"Johns Hopkins! Is he going to be a doctor?"
53


Poison Case Number 10
"Why, yes. He has always had a passion for medi-
cine."
"You bet I have," said Jimmy.
The statement interested Joyce profoundly, though
he did not reveal that fact by so much as the flicker of
an eyelash. He felt irritated anew at the secretiveness,
or the lack of clear thinking, which marked his ven-
erable client's methods. Why on earth had Van Zan-
ten not told him that Jimmy was a medical student?
At nine o'clock, the group arose from the breakfast
table. Jimmy went to the garage, and presently re-
appeared in a small roadster. He sketched a vague
salute with his left hand, and drove toward the gate
at breakneck speed. It was evident that his nerves were
in shreds.
The others stepped hatless into the autumn fairyland
of the garden. It had been years since Joyce had seen
a private tract to compare with it, and the mild, sweet
weather that morning made it the more delicious.
Flowers of almost every description were cultivated
there, to deck the changing seasons with color. Many
of the annuals had ceased to blossom, and their leaves
were withering. But their places had been taken by
the sturdy chrysanthemums and asters, and an exotic
note was struck by giant tiger lilies from Japan. Dec-
54


The Clue in the Tomb
orative shrubs abounded, plants grown for the sake of
their vivid leaves, as well as borders of boxwood that
had been clipped into a variety of formal shapes.
The garden stretched for a full acre behind the house.
Starting with the rose-beds that adjoined the southern
wing, it curved also toward the southwest and ended
at a greenhouse some thirty feet long. The whole tract
was meticulously tended, the earth spaded and freshly
manured. It seemed as though it would tax the capac-
ities of four men, much less of the two who were work-
ing there.
As he approached the men, who had drawn closer
together, Joyce observed them covertly. The crouch-
ing one with the trowel proved to be, as he had ex-
pected, the chauffeur of the evening before. The other
was a loosely-built, stoutish man in his later fifties. He
wore his hair a trifle long in the back, which gave him
the appearance of a politician of the William Jennings
Bryan school. Seen face to face, his salient features were
his smooth, plump cheeks which showed no traces of
the years, and a pair of remarkably bright hazel eyes.
Even when the rest of his countenance was in repose,
his eyes appeared to be beaming.
"Mr. Ryan and Miss Ryan," said Van Zanten pom-
55


Poison Case Number 10
pously, "I want you to know my manager, Mr. Alex-
ander Fawcett."
Fawcett transferred a huge pair of shears to his left
hand, and extended his right. He turned his face to
the sunlight as he did this, and his complexion was
revealed as being abnormally pasty, with a bluish tinge
about the nostrils. Nevertheless, his eyes laughed.
"I'm happy to meet you," said Joyce. "But your
courage in getting to work so early has me worried for
your sake. I hear you were very ill yesterday."
"Not very ill—oh, no!" answered Fawcett, drawling
his words. "My stomach was upset. The doc called
it ptomaine, but I think a little roach powder or some-
thing like that must have fallen into my soup. It didn't
feel like ordinary food poisoning."
"I hope the ill effects have all worn off," remarked
Van Zanten solicitously.
"Sure, sure. Thanks for your interest. I feel fine.
I'm a hard man to kill."
"This garden is the best medicine for you, no doubt.
The family tells me you're responsible for it. It's a
marvelous garden," Joyce threw in.
Fawcett's eyes positively danced. "Isn't it!" he cried,
with childish vanity. "I give it every spare minute of
56


The Clue in the Tomb
my time, and Mr. Van Zanten can tell you I don't neg-
lect the business of the estate either."
"The abundance of flowers is only half of it,” de-
clared Joyce, for want of something better to say. He
was by no means a connoisseur of horticulture. "I'm
just as much impressed by the wonderfully neat ap-
pearance of the beds.”
“Constant care does it-care and love of the plants.”
Fawcett automatically clipped off a dead leaf with his
shears. He stepped back and studied the appearance
of the bank of asters he was tending, then snipped
twice again.
"Pruning is important,” he went on. “And you've
got to fight the confounded weeds, too. Weeds! I
hate 'em.” He stooped and tore up an offending strag-
gler by the roots.
As Van Zanten, Kay and himself strolled on to the
far end of the garden, Joyce mused that Alexander
Fawcett, whatever else he might be, was a character.
The rolling meadows of the estate, with tall isolated
trees here and there, gave the feeling of the deer-
park of an English country seat. Unfortunately, there
were no deer, but Van Zanten proudly led the way to
the quaint walled field which the detective had noted
on his way in.


Poison Case Number 10
"A comer is reserved for horses," he explained.
"See, a paddock has been fenced off for them at one
end. I may ride in an automobile for convenience
sake, but I keep a few horses all the same to remind
me of the good old days." *
Joyce glanced at the pathetically aging steeds. He
was more interested in the small, but first-class, herd
of Hereford cattle that grazed in the main section of
the field. The handsome blooded beasts with their red
bodies and white faces were good enough to be the
pride of any gentleman farmer.
"Huh! Swell cows!" the detective grunted. "Who
takes care of them?"
"They are one of Mr. Fawcett's fads. He thinks it
good business for the estate to exhibit them at shows,
where they usually win prizes."
"Fawcett can't possibly look after them himself. The
flowers keep him and the gardener hopping. There
must be a herdsman."
"That's right. A man who lives outside the gates
reports for duty at certain hours. I had forgotten."
"Does he ever come up to the house?"
"Seldom. Only on pay days, as a rule."
"I see. You realize, Mr. Van Zanten, that I've got to
have the low-down on every single person who's been
58


The Clue in the Tomb
in contact recently with the members of your family."
These words seemed to remind Van Zanten that, for
the first time that morning, he was free to address
Joyce in the latter's actual role of a private detective.
"What do you make of things here, Inspector?" he
asked, his voice rising sharply. "Was Mr. Fawcett
poisoned? You heard what he said about roach pow-
der, and—and his being hard to kill. He has sus-
picions. It is fantastic. I can't for the life of me see
what the criminal would gain by murdering Mr. Faw-
cett."
"Nor I," answered Joyce noncommittally. He threw
up his hand. "Don't excite yourself. I'll discuss the
whole business with you when I'm ready, but not
before."
Van Zanten's face fell. Looking suddenly and pa-
thetically older, he turned from the cow pasture and
went with his mincing footsteps down a path that did
not have the appearance of leading anywhere in par-
ticular. He pointed out ancient trees, which he said
had been standing when his ancestors bought the prop-
erty a hundred years before. He called attention to the
fact that between the trunks of two elms one caught a
glimpse of a silver ribbon which was the far waters of
the Kill Van Kull.
59


Poison Case Number 10
Joyce felt a trifle bored. But shortly after they had
left the greenhouse in Fawcett's garden behind them,
the pathway dipped abruptly, the manor and its en-
virons were wholly lost to view and a fresh landscape
unrolled itself. The most prominent object now was
the pointed roof of a small chapel, some fifty yards
distant.
"What's that?" the detective inquired, his interest
quickened.
"The entrance to our family vault," Van Zanten re-
plied.
"I thought so. A private burial place, eh?"
"Yes. Many generations of the Van Zantens lie"
"Are the bodies of your brother and niece there?"
Joyce interrupted.
"Of course."
"Let's take a close look at it."
They advanced along a graveled walk, and presently
were peering through the iron grill-work of the chan-
try. The chamber on the ground level was about fif-
teen feet long by eight wide, big enough for a cofiSn
to be easily turned around in it and to furnish standing
room for a dozen persons. In the east wall there was a
mullioned window, below which hung a plain black
cross. A narrow shelf obviously had been intended to
60


The Clue in the Tomb
do service as an altar. A trestle stood ready to be con-
verted into a catafalque. The floor of the chapel other-
wise was bare.
"I guess it was the custom long ago to hold the last
rites here, instead of in the house," remarked Joyce.
"Only when the person had died of a contagious dis-
ease. Small pox and cholera used to be terrible
scourges, and the dead were isolated as quickly as pos-
sible," explained Van Zanten listlessly.
"Hm! That flight of steps straight in front of us
leads to the vault, of course. Is it one big chamber
down there?"
"Yes, with ledges around the walls, upon which the
caskets rest."
Joyce's eyelids narrowed, and his blue eyes glinted
as they made a slow survey of the chapel. He raised
his left hand and tugged at his chin.
"The funeral of your brother George took place here
a year ago, did it?" he demanded.
"Yes, Inspector."
"And that of Mary Van Zanten two weeks ago?"
"Why yes, yes." The eyes of the old man clouded
with facile tears.
"Has the chantry gate been opened since Mary's
burial?"
61


Poison Case Number 10
"Certainly not."
"How many sets of keys are there to this chapel and
vault?"
"Just one set. A key to the chantry and a key to the
door of the vault." Van Zanten's face twitched
nervously.
"In whose possession are they?"
"In mine. I keep them in a wall safe in my bedroom.
But why do you ask? What—what do you think has
happened?" vociferated the old man, his voice soaring
to a tormented treble.
Joyce thrust his hand between the bars of the chan-
try grill, and pointed. "Look at those footprints," he
said. "They can't be more than six hours old. It
rained last night, and they are still wet."
Blatantly visible, now that attention had been called
to them, the tracks of a muddy pair of boots described
a zigzag, both going and coming, from the door to the
head of the vault stairway.
62


CHAPTER FIVE
Saturday—Why Joyce Did Not Quit
The knowledge that some secret prowler had been
fumbling among the coffins of his ancestors at the dead
of night seemed to have a more demoralizing effect
upon Van Zanten than anything which had occurred
hitherto. The man's already waxen cheeks paled to a
sick gray. He clutched at the bars in front of him, and
it was necessary for Joyce to fling an arm around him
to save him from sagging to his knees. His mouth fell
open grotesquely, beneath the curling white mustache.
"What object can the ghoul have had?" he mum-
bled, when he could control his breath.
"Should I know, just by looking at the footprints!"
Joyce answered on a note of sarcasm. "I must ask you
to get a grip on yourself, Mr. Van Zanten. This busi -
ness calls for horse sense and steady nerves."
Kay thought that she had never known her chief to
be so openly contemptuous of a client. She wondered
why this should be. Clients, after all, were traditionally
held to enjoy the privilege of indulging in hysteria.
63


Poison Case Number 10
"I want to help you," said Van Zanten meekly. "But
what can I do?"
"Nothing much, except keep your eyes open. Funny
stuff may be pulled when I'm not looking. Watch out
for it. And be sure not to act as if you'd seen a ghost
down here."
"I shall try, Inspector."
"Then let's go back to the house. Slip me the keys
to this place the first chance you get, and I'll find a way
to check up on the dirty work unnoticed."
The three retraced their steps silently. When they
reached the garden, they saw Fawcett's assistant work-
ing at a distance among the roses. The man's back was
turned toward thsm.
"What's the gardener's name?" asked Joyce.
"Andrew Burns."
"Have you had him long?"
"About five years."
"Suppose you take us through the kitchen. I want
to see the cook, as well as your second maid—the one
who didn't serve at breakfast."
"This is the time to find all the servants together,"
agreed Van Zanten. "Cook will be serving them their
second meal of the day, before she prepares our lunch-
64


Why Joyce Did Not Quit
eon. They're at work so early in the morning, it is our
custom to let them eat ahead of us."
As befitted good detectives, Joyce and Kay tagged at
the heels of their host through the rear quarters of
the mansion, showing interest in the ancient bake-
ovens and the copper pots and pans, but apparently
caring little about the persons who worked there.
The second maid, Pearl Brown, was of a kind with
her fellow, Sally Jenkins, and the butler whose ponder-
ous name was Bucklestrope. But the cook earned
covert attention for more reasons than one. In a
poison case, a cook was patently a factor to be taken
into consideration. This cook happened to be a crea-
ture who would have aroused curiosity under any con-
ditions. Joyce had expected her to be a family retainer
of American stock, or perhaps a motherly German.
She was a Negress so black that her skin appeared to
have been dusted with soot, her lips a dark purple and
her eyeballs yellow. Her lean old frame and quick,
nervous movements suggested the life of the jungle.
She was the antithesis of the kindly Negro mammy
type one associates with American households. The
gaudy bandanna handkerchief with which her head
was bound completed, somehow, the impression that
she was no stranger to the rites of Voodoo.
65


Poison Case Number 10
"Where are you from?" Joyce asked her bluntly.
The woman gave him a blank stare, and Van Zanten
replied for her, an odd, fussy note of challenge in his
voice:
"Aunt Ellen is a Jamaican—a native of the British
West Indies, you know. She has been with us for a
quarter of a century, no less."
"I see," commented Joyce with a pretence of indiffer-
ence. But as soon as they were out of earshot of the
kitchen, he said:
"That cook's a queer-looking specimen. Do you
really feel all right about having her around?"
"I trust her more completely than any other servant
in this house," answered the old man earnestly. "Why,
Inspector, she's a simple-hearted savage, and she's de-
voted to us. She ran away from a sailing vessel that
dropped anchor off Staten Island twenty-five years ago.
She came here begging food, and we gave her a job.
In all that time, she's never once crossed the harbor
to New York City."
"What was she doing on the ship in the first place?
They don't have female cooks at sea."
"She claims to have been selling fruit to the sailors
in a Jamaican roadstead. A sudden storm forced the
vessel away from land, and she was brought up here."


Why Joyce Did Not Quit
"Huh! It's quite a story. Mr. Van Zanten, I've now
met everybody I need to meet, except two persons: your
family physician and your son's fiancée."
“Dr. Henkle will undoubtedly be here this morning.
He'll drop in to learn how Mr. Fawcett is feeling after
last night. He may be here already."
"That's good. And the young lady-Curtis is the
name, isn't it?”
"Celestine Curtis is foisted upon us every Saturday
without fail,” snapped Van Zanten venomously.
“Jimmy meets her in Stapleton when his lecture is
over, and brings her here for lunch. You'd think she'd
know her company displeases me, but this younger
generation has no sensitiveness.”
Joyce concealed a grin behind his hand. "If she
weren't coming today, you'd have to invite her," he
said drily.
They went on to the parlor, and as Van Zanten had
promised, they discovered there the very logical pres-
ence of Dr. Alphonse Henkle. The latter was dressed
in a morning coat of correct style but shoddy material.
He was just drawing on his gloves. His bag stood on a
chair. The moment he heard footsteps, he turned,
threw his head back and smiled theatrically. One per-
ceived then that he wore a pointed gray beard which


Poison Case Number 10
matted on his cheeks, and that the black ribbon at-
tached to his eyeglasses was unreasonably wide.
"Good morning, Mr. Van Zanten," he cried heartily.
"You look prime. But the patient—tse, tsel What a
man! Out in the garden working since six o'clock, he
tells me, and not a sign of the ptomaine that laid him
low. Nature is the best physician, after all, Mr. Van
Zanten. I've done my duty and given our friend a pre-
scription, but I fear he'll toss it under one of his rose-
bushes. Ha, ha!"
"This doctor is the biggest ass I've seen around here,"
thought Joyce.
Nevertheless, he exerted himself to be pleasant, and
in his role of a construction engineer lately returned
from South America he answered the series of banal
questions hurled at him the moment they had been
introduced. He asked none in return. And when
Henkle had gone strutting to his decrepit sedan, the
detective merely inquired of his host:
"Where does the doc practice?"
"In St. George," answered Van Zanten.
Joyce whistled softly between his teeth. "Well, it's
getting on for midday," he remarked. "I suppose we'll
be having lunch soon, and I can take a slant at Miss
Curtis."
68


Poison Case Number 10
ner of his right eye. It was a secret signal between
them when he thought he was beginning to see to the
bottom of a mystery. Her heart throbbed with excite-
ment. She had no inkling of what clues he might
have discovered. To her, the puzzle was as obscure as
ever.
Luncheon brought together the entire household of
Van Zanten Manor, with the dynamic addition of
Celestine Curtis. The clear gray eyes, the virile blond
hair and the wholesome sun-tanned complexion of this
plebeian girl declared her to be a devotee of life itself
rather than of a mere cult of modernity. She might
smoke cigarettes avidly, but she had the free, light car-
riage of a dancer and the strong shoulders of a swim-
mer. Her blunted features were so vital that it seemed
of small importance that they were not conventionally
beautiful. Her talk was a jet of eager self-expression
which Van Zanten would inevitably find lacking in
social poise, but which did not justify him in calling her
a fool.
To Michael Joyce, ex-policeman and the descendant
of sturdy Irish immigrants, Celestine seemed attractive
beyond the average. He commented to himself that
the slightly anaemic young heir of the Van Zantens
was showing good sense in planning to marry a woman
70


Why Joyce Did Not Quit
whose blood would rejuvenate their strain. The snob-
bish rudeness of the spinster Constance, whenever the
young girl opened her mouth, stirred the detective's
bile and made him doubly a partisan of Celestine.
Constance Van Zanten! A walking ruin of woman-
hood, loveless and eccentric, who had stalked in to
luncheon with two French poodles on leashes, and who
fed the beasts with dainties from her plate. If that was
the sort of thing that ladies could get away with, Joyce
knew that he preferred the commonest of healthy clay.
"You haven't told me a tenth of what I want to
know about South America," Celestine was crying
when they arose from table. "Golly, I'd like to travel
in those countries! Give me half a chance and I'd
make the trip on a small schooner and take my turn
with the rest of the crew."
"You'll be making it one of these days in your own
yacht, maybe," laughed Joyce. "Then you can boss the
crew, which will be more fun."
Nicholas Van Zanten, precise and conscientious, in-
terrupted with the speech he had rehearsed on the sub-
ject of bridge.
"Our charming guest, Miss Ryan, is—ah—fond of
cards," he said. "It seems to me that a rubber or two
would help pass the afternoon most pleasantly."
71


Poison Case Number 10
Celestine clapped her hands. “Great. We've got a
bridge player in our midst. I'm certainly glad I came
today.”
The withering Constance snorted and took her de-
parture swiftly, dragging her poodles on their leashes
when their corpulent bodies balked at the stairs.
"Count me in,” said Jimmy quietly. “I suppose
you'll take the fourth hand, Mr. Ryan."
Joyce shook his head. “Thanks, but I don't play the
game.”
Alexander Fawcett's beaming eyes were turned upon
Van Zanten with a raising of the brows. “Why, Nich-
olas, are you figuring on letting them draft one of us?”
he asked, in mock dismay.
The detective thought it worthy of note that, for the
first time in his hearing, the estate manager had called
Van Zanten by his Christian name. He had not be
lieved the pair to be quite so intimate.
The old man fussed and preened, stroking his mus-
taches to cover his embarrassment. He made a self-
conscious plotter.
"Just so, Alec, just so!” he said. “We've got to help
the young folks out. It had better be you. I am really
-ah-so infernally slow at cards.”
"All right. I can spare an hour from the garden,”
72


Why Joyce Did Not Quit
answered Fawcett promptly. He smiled genially at
everybody and wagged his head, as much as to say that
their punishment would be on their own heads for ask-
ing him to be a partner at bridge.
The maid Pearl went to fetch the collapsible table/.
Joyce stretched his arms and then lighted a cigar. "I'll
go and read for a while, if you don't mind," he said.
"By all means, sir. I propose to watch these experts
and get some pointers on the game," remarked Van
Zanten.
Joyce sauntered over to the library, which was in the
opposite wing of the house. He made a swift survey of
the books. Except for a few modern novels on a center
table, they were all old editions, sets of Washington
Irving and Hawthorne, Dickens and Sir Walter Scott.
The glass doors of the cases had been kept meticulously
clean on the outside, but apparently had not been
opened for weeks. The strip of shelf in front of each
row of books was covered with a thin film of dust. If
the family did any reading, it was not from the collec-
tion in their ancestral library. There were no reference
books; he checked that point carefully.
Within ten minutes, the detective slipped quietly up-
stairs. He located Constance's room by the yapping of
her dogs and the muffled sound of her harsh voice chid-
73


Why Joyce Did Not Quit
from the rack in the hall, and left the house unobtru-
sively yet with no excess of secrecy. The voices of the
bridge players could be heard in the parlor. He
thought it probable that his departure had not been
noticed.
Avoiding the garden and striking straight across the
fields, Joyce walked at a leisurely pace until he was
out of sight of the house. He then made for the burial
vault of the Van Zantens. Drawing the keys from his
pocket as he approached it, he was about to insert the
larger one in the lock of the chantry. But he held his
hand and stood for a long time staring between the
iron bars of the door. His eyes gleamed, though other-
wise his face was impassive. He had made an observa-
tion that interested him vastly.
The muddy footprints he had seen there some three
hours before had vanished utterly. The floor of the
chapel had been wiped clean with a mop.
Finally, the detective stooped and scraped the soles
of his shoes with a knife. He stamped on the gravel of
the pathway until the soles were dry and would leave
no tracks. Then he turned the key in the lock, swung
the gate open and entered the chapel. He descended
the flight of steps, fumbled with the much more com-
plicated lock on the door leading to the vault itself and
75


Poison Case Number 10
in time forced it to yield. He was now in the presence
of the dead.
Accustomed as he was to visiting even more grue-
some places, such as the morgue or the dissecting rooms
of hospitals, the dismal atmosphere of the Van Zanten
vault chilled his blood. It was an oblong crypt fully
thirty feet long, and it was faintly lighted by a single
airshaft protected by a grating above his head. Three
ledges ran all the way around the chamber. The mid-
dle ledge was filled with caskets lying end to end, and
the one nearest the ground had but a few vacant places.
A number of ancient coffins were stacked on the floor
in a far corner. The top ledge was reserved for the
pathetically small boxes of infants.
Joyce produced a pocket electric torch and went over
the vault slowly. He first examined the floor and dis-
covered, as he had expected, that it had recently been
mopped here and there. The cleaning process had not
been as thorough as in the chapel, but all footprints
had been erased.
The detective turned his light upon each coffin. He
paused longest in front of a brand new oaken casket
on the middle ledge. Here, without doubt, lay the
body of Mary Van Zanten. He could find no indica-
tions that it had been tampered with. Adjoining it
76


Why Joyce Did Not Quit
was the slightly time-stained box that held her father.
Joyce stooped and examined the name-plates on the
lids, to make sure that he was right.
Then he swung about brusquely and left the sad
charnel house, locking the doors behind him. He
walked back to the mansion without concealment of
his course. As he passed through the garden, he again
saw the gardener Burns at work among the rose bushes.
The hulking fellow saluted him, and he returned the
greeting.
Joyce re-entered through a back door which stood
ajar, and found his way to the parlor. Kay Carey was
sitting there alone, reading a magazine. The bridge
table with cards scattered all over it still occupied the
center of the room.
"Well, what happened to the game?" he asked
curtly.
She jumped up, smiling and shaking her head. "It
was no go, Inspector. Mr. Fawcett played so badly
that Jimmy and Celestine got mad. They all got to
scrapping, and old Mr. Van Zanten went upstairs in a
huff. Mr. Fawcett quit, too, to attend to his prize cat-
tle. The kids have gone driving in the roadster. They
asked me, of course, but I pretended I had a headache."
77


Poison Case Number 10
"It doesn't matter. I've made up my mind about the
situation here—and we're going home."
"Home!" repeated Kay, astounded. "You're drop-
ping the case?"
"Yes and no. I'm willing to be consulted, but I can't
waste my time snooping in this family circle. If there
is a case, there's only one way to open it up. The police
must be called in and the bodies exhumed. I told Van
Zanten that already, and I'm going to tell him again."
The girl's quick mind leaped to a conclusion. "You
found out something at the vault?"
"I found that the footprints we saw in the morning
had been carefully wiped away," said Joyce grimly.
"But surely that's a very strange and suspicious cir-
cumstance. Why did somebody sneak in there, in the
first place? And why is he covering up his tracks?"
"Suppose Van Zanten himself did the sneaking, be-
cause his nerves are all shot and he thinks ghouls have
designs on the bodies. He claims to have the only set
of keys. Listen, Kay, that old fellow is as dippy as
hell. He sees a crime behind every sickness, includ-
ing indigestion. The rest of this crowd, except Celes-
tine, are the usual collection of morons and parasites
you find on these country estates run to seed. There
78


Why Joyce Did Not Quit
may be a poisoner among them, but I'll have to be
shown."
"Remember the photograph of Mary Van Zanten
and her last message," pleaded Kay.
"Ye-es—that photograph," said Joyce slowly. "It
had me hopped up for a while. But is it evidence?
Not on your life. The only evidence would be toxic
substances in the dead girl's viscera, as revealed by a
post mortem. If I stay here, I'll have to demand such
an autopsy at once. The moment I do that, the in-
vestigation is no longer secret. I might as well quit
gum-shoeing now."
"You think there's nothing in the idea of our advance
work saving Mr. Van Zanten?" asked Kay respectfully.
"The surest way to save him would be to make his
suspicions public. Exhume Mary's body and scare off
the poisoner—if any. I'm going right upstairs to tell
him so."
Joyce strode out of the parlor, crossed the hall and
started to mount the stairs. His foot was barely on
the third step when a shrill and dreadful scream broke
the Saturday afternoon silence of the old house. A
pause during which the echoes still seemed to resound,
and then a crescendo of shrieks and the sound of run-
79


Poison Case Number 10
ning footsteps. The maid Sally Jenkins appeared at
the head of the stairway.
“What the devil is the matter with you?” roared
Joyce.
Sally reeled against the balustrade and clutched at
her throat. “Poor old Mr. Van Zanten— " she
gasped. “Oh, God! He's been murdered.”
“Murdered! Where is he?"
"In his own room, sir.”
Joyce rushed by her and flung himself into Van Zan-
ten's bedchamber.
The body of the old aristocrat who had prophesied
this denouement just twenty-four hours before was
slouched in a big armchair between the bed and the
window. His head was thrown back, with mouth and
eyes wide open, and his chest was arched forward as
though he had suffered a violent convulsion. His
arms were hanging on either side of the chair.
The detective knew at a glance that Nicholas Van
Zanten indubitably was dead.


CHAPTER SIX
Saturday—A Flitting in the Dark
Joyce was far too experienced an investigator of crime
to touch the corpse of Van Zanten before the arrival
of the examiners specified by law in such cases. He
briefly studied the old man's contorted face, and made
a few mental notes. Then he commenced a rapid sur-
vey of the room, in a quest for clues that might hint
at how the grisly result had been brought about.
On the window sill, within arm's length of Van Zan-
ten's chair, there stood a carafe half filled with water
and a glass which had recently been emptied. Finger-
prints on the outer surface of the glass and the mod-
icum of water inside pointed to the fact that the vic-
tim had drunk from it. This was the most obvious
medium for the poison which probably had caused his
death, whether he had been murdered or was a suicide.
Because his keen eyes seldom missed a detail, Joyce
noticed that there was a flaw about the size of a grain
of wheat close to the upper rim of the tumbler.
He refused to be satisfied with the water as possible
81


Poison Case Number 10
evidence, and looked, without avail, for subtler indica-
tions of foul play. While he was thus engaged, the tall
and bony Van Zanter spinster Constance appeared in
the doorway. She was deathly pale and leaned on the
jamb for support. Since her bedroom was located only
a few steps down the corridor, Joyce knew that she
could have arrived more promptly. It was unthinkable
that she had failed to hear the screams of the maid.
Horror—or some other motive—had caused her to
hang back from the scene.
"My brother!" she said in her harsh voice, which
tended to stammer ra'ther than to gasp. "Wh-what has
happened to him?"
Joyce waved his hand at the body in the chair. "You
can see for yourself. He's been dead for at least a quar-
ter of an hour."
"Dead! You can't be sure. We must call Dr.
Henkle."
"Call him, if you like. But at the same time phone
the police. This is murder, or suicide."
The dread words moved her to irrational anger.
"No, no, no!" she shrieked. "Such a thing couldn't be
—not in our home. You're a madman."
"Thanks," said Joyce drily. "All the same, I insist
on the police being notified."
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A Flitting in the Dark
"What right have you to give orders? I'll get Dr.
Henkle over here."
Joyce was tempted to tell her who he was, but
thought better of it. With Van Zanten gone, their ver-
bal contract was canceled, and his only legal standing
in connection with the death was that of a private citi-
zen who had knowledge of suspicious circumstances.
Before getting high-handed, he would wait to see what
could be done with Fawcett and Jimmy.
And at that moment, footsteps were heard upon the
stairs. Constance stood aside. Fawcett, his wife Sarah
and Kay entered the room. The estate manager's head
was cocked at a queer angle, which caused his longish
hair to droop toward one shoulder, and which brought
his slight double chin into relief. His eyes gleamed,
but had lost their kindly merriment.
"I came in from the paddock just now, to find the
women yelling murder downstairs. What's going on
here?'' he demanded.
Joyce stared narrowly at him, and again pointed at
the corpse. "Dead!" he said.
"Oh, my! My poor friend Nicholas. Oh, my, my!"
Fawcett repeated the inadequate words over and over
again. He wrung his hands, then used them to cover
his face. Tears oozed out between his fingers. "How
83


Poison Case Number 10
could he be struck down this way? It doesn't seem
possible."
The detective made no answer. He preferred to let
Constance Van Zanten speak.
"Dr. Henkle must be summoned, Fawcett," the acrid
spinster snapped, with a curious new note of authority
in her voice. "This Mr. Ryan, however, this house
guest of ours, says that the police ought to be called
in, too."
The manager lowered his hands and looked at Joyce,
frowning. "Why do you consider that necessary, sir?"
"Mr. Van Zanten told me yesterday that his brother
and niece had both died suddenly in this house. Now
he passes away, in a chair—like that!" Joyce was
measuring every word. "Don't you think yourself that
the cops should look into it?"
Fawcett moved his head slowly up and down.
"There's a lot in what you say. All these sudden
deaths—and my own illness last night. It may be a
poison plot."
"Poison!" exclaimed Constance, her teeth suddenly
chattering. "Stuff and nonsense."
"Well, an autopsy will tell the tale." Fawcett was
galvanized into activity. He turned to his wife.
"Sarah, please phone at once to Dr. Henkle."


A Flitting in the Dark
The drab woman who looked like a servant scur-
ried to obey him. For the past several minutes, she
had been gazing with expressionless eyes at Van Zan-
ten's body.
"It is only due Henkle to call him, as family phys-
ician," Fawcett went on to explain. "Let him pro-
nounce Nicholas dead, and I shall then be in favor of
asking the police to investigate."
"You are within your legal rights there," said Joyce.
"But I warn you not to allow any unnecessary tamper-
ing with the corpse, or with the objects in this room.
The suspicion is likely to be that it's murder."
"You seem to know a great deal about the law,"
sneered Constance.
"I do, Madam," replied Joyce curtly.
"There isn't going to be an autopsy," she cried. "I
won't allow it. I won't have my brother butchered
with knives."
"If the law requires it, we must submit," said Faw-
cett soothingly.
But the spinster was not soothed. "I won't have the
police here at all, unless Dr. Henkle says Nicholas was
poisoned," she shouted. "You're trying to take a lot
upon yourself, Fawcett. I am the head of this family
now."
85


Poison Case Number 10
eccentric Constance and the moody youngster Jimmy.
He had every reason to regret the death of the man
through whom it had been fairly easy for him to exer-
cise control.
He decided that Fawcett, after all, was the best per-
son to work with, in solving the poison mystery. And
almost immediately the latter gave him additional proof
of his shrewdness.
"Would you mind asking your daughter to step
outside?" the manager asked gently. "I don't think
that either you or I should stir from this room until the
doctor comes. But I do want to say something to you
privately."
Joyce glanced up at Kay, and nodded. "It's all right,
girl," he said. "Will you please shut the door behind
you, as you go out?"
The moment they were alone, Fawcett remarked:
"You see, it's this way. I know who you are, of
course. I recognized your face from pictures I had
seen in magazines."
"Yes?" countered Joyce, faintly startled. "What do
you think of my being here?"
"This morning I thought it was absurd—a fresh
proof of nerves on the part of my dear old friend
Nicholas. Now I realize that he was amply justified
88


A Flitting in the Dark
in engaging a detective. His instinct warned him that
his life was in danger."
"Instinct's a mild word for it," said Joyce. "The
cases of George and Mary Van Zanten had put him on
his guard."
Fawcett shrugged. "I confess that, at the time they
occurred, neither of those deaths impressed me as being
abnormal. I would no doubt feel the same way about
today's dreadful event, if it had been the only tragedy
of its kind to take place in this house. I am not given
to suspecting crimes. But three in a row! It is too
strange a coincidence, and should be probed."
"Do you want me to help, or will the police satisfy
you?" asked Joyce bluntly.
"Please stay on the case." Fawcett dropped his hand
on the detective's shoulder. "I shall support you in any
step you wish to take. From what I've heard of the
police, they're nothing but bunglers."
They talked for about fifteen minutes longer, when
into the room there erupted the histrionic and verbose
apparition of Dr. Alphonse Henkle. His bearded face
was set in a mask of dismay, which only partly suc-
ceeded in conveying an authentic emotion. His eye-
glasses dangled wildly on their broad ribbon, and in
89


Poison Case Number 10
some fantastic fashion he made his coat tails whirl
about his legs.
"Nicholas has had a seizure, they tell me. It's in-
credible!" he cried. "I simply won't believe he is dead.
I saw him this morning, and he was in marvelous
health—marvelous health, I say. He must have suf-
fered a slight embolism."
Joyce fairly shook with rage at the antics of this bur-
lesque physician. "Quit jawing before you've even
looked at the body," he snapped.
Henkle threw him a startled glance, and calmed
down in jerks.
"And be careful that you don't destroy any evidence
that might interest the police," added Joyce grimly.
The doctor thereupon went about his examination in
quite a competent manner. He applied the usual tests
with the stethoscope, and then scrutinized the blood-
shot eyeballs and slightly swollen tongue.
"Mr. Van Zanten has passed away. I judge that he
died about an hour ago, and would ascribe the cause
to heart failure," he said. He was unable to resist the
temptation to introduce an artificial quaver into his
voice at the finish.
"Heart failure is just another name for death itself,"
9°


A Flitting in the Dark
remarked Joyce coldly. "Would you sign a certificate
that this man died of heart disease?"
"Why—why no!"
"Or indigestion, or a clot on the brain, or any of your
medical rubber-stamps?"
Henkle looked thoroughly alarmed. "I am being
ridiculed," he announced, with a striving for dignity
that at any other time would have been comical. "The
symptoms in this case prohibit my making a definite
diagnosis without an autopsy."
"That's all I want to know from you. It goes to the
Homicide Bureau now."
"You charge murder?" shrieked Henkle. "Impos-
sible! Absurd!"
"I charge nothing—as yet." Joyce looked at Faw-
cett, who swung his top-heavy cranium in a slow, up-
and-down movement.
"I'm afraid we've got to have the police in," the
estate manager said, addressing Henkle. "This is go-
ing to be hard on Miss Constance, but we can't spare
her."
Joyce thought it odd that only Constance should be
credited with finding the police irksome.
With a certain aplomb, the doctor agreed: "Well and
good. But why do we let this man dictate to us?"
91


Poison Case Number 10
"He is Inspector Michael Joyce," drawled Fawcett,
his hazel eyes glowing, as if he took pleasure in paying
tribute to a distinguished character. "The name of
Ryan was assumed. He is the most famous private de-
tective in the country, and Nicholas employed him
because he feared he was going to be murdered."
The "Oh!" with which Henkle greeted this state-
ment was that of a genuinely thunderstruck and intim-
idated person.
"Suppose you notify the police, Inspector," Fawcett
went on. "You know the ropes better than I."
"Sure."
There was an extension telephone in the room. Joyce
promptly lifted the receiver from the hook, and put
through a call to the Bureau of Criminal Information
at New York City Headquarters. Archibald Kane, the
Deputy Inspector in charge, was a personal friend. In
a few crisp sentences, he gave Kane the facts about the
death of the owner of Van Zanten Manor, and added:
"I suspect poison. Send your best analyst over to the
Staten Island Morgue for the post mortem, will you?
Make it a special assignment. Thanks. You're a
pal."
Then, though Centre Street would pass on the news
automatically, he also telephoned to 78 Richmond Ter-
S*2


A Flitting in the Dark
race, in St. George, Police Headquarters for the Bor-
ough of Richmond. This hastened by a few minutes
the dispatching of detectives from the Borough Hom-
icide Squad, as well as an Assistant Medical Examiner,
two police photographers and a stenographer. He
knew that the Inspector commanding the detective di-
vision for Staten Island, the captain of the precinct and
a representative of the District Attorney's office would
not fail to come, too.
Then there remained nothing to do but to wait for
the invasion of the house by the massed representatives
of the Law. They came in half an hour and swarmed
into Van Zanten's bedroom, where both Joyce and
Fawcett still stood stubbornly on guard. The local In-
spector looked curiously at the private detective whose
name had become a legend since his resignation from
the Police Department, but he refrained from saying
anything. The most important persons for the moment
were the photographers, who immediately set up their
cameras and took pictures of the corpse from various
angles, as well as views of the room to show the
arrangement of every object in it.
The Assistant Medical Examiner then got to work.
His procedure seemed to be cursory, but it was merely
swift. Following some elementary tests and a shrewd,
93


\ A Flitting in the Dark
formed policeman had been stationed there, to hold
back all persons who were not residents. Beyond the
gates, he had met the gardener, Andy Burns, who had
told him his father was dead.
His young face drawn and as white as chalk, his
eyes dull, Jimmy entered the parlor where the inquiry
was being held. He uttered no exclamation of horror
or surprise, though clearly he was suffering mental
torture. In view of his proved absence since the bridge
game, only a few questions concerning the recent state
of his father's health were asked him. He made his
replies listlessly, but with clarity. That Joyce had lost
the name of Ryan and was functioning as a detective,
he seemed to take as a matter of course.
The moment they were through with him, Jimmy
went to his bedroom and locked himself in. Constance
Van Zanten had done the same thing. As last limbs
of a decaying family tree, they were a neurotic pair.
Because the evidence did not as yet justify even a pre-
sumption of murder, no arrests were made, nor was
any person held as a material witness. A policeman,
however, was placed on guard in the death room, as is
customary when the circumstances point to homicide.
The borough officials and detectives then took their
departure.
95


CHAPTER SEVEN
Sunday—Sinister Lore
The way in which Constance had decamped from the
Manor, as well as the route she had followed, offered
no difficulties as a detective problem. She had gone
down to the side door in the east wing of the house,
had let herself out and walked to the gateway of the
estate. This had been some time during the night.
Presumably, she had continued afoot until she reached
Victory Boulevard, where she would have been able
to catch a bus or a taxicab.
With Fawcett at his heels, Joyce had searched for
clues to indicate the method of her departure, and he
had found them quickly. From the sill of the east
door, her tracks were deeply imprinted in muddy soil,
running in a fairly straight line until they reached
the drive some fifteen yards distant and were lost in the
gravel there. It was impossible to mistake her foot-
prints. She wore a large shoe for a woman, with heels
of medium length. Joyce brought one of her old shoes,
and fitted it into the traces; they corresponded perfectly.
97


Poison Case Number 10
Her motive in making this flight in darkness down
a lonely road was much harder to explain. Fawcett
shrugged his shoulders when Joyce asked him for his
opinion.
"She is a very eccentric woman, Inspector, as you
must have noticed," the manager said.
"Eccentric enough to skip at a moment when it
makes her look as if she has something to hide?"
"Well, she has done it. That answers your ques-
tion."
"Perhaps. Has she ever run away from home like
this before?"
"N-no. But the death of her brother—coming on top
of two other deaths in the family—might have de-
stroyed her last vestiges of common sense."
Jimmy's contribution was scarcely more helpful.
The pale-faced boy folded his arms and included both
Joyce and Fawcett in a stare that tried to be truculent.
"So Aunt Connie's gone!" he said. "What are you
going to do—set the police to looking for her as a
fugitive from justice?"
"Don't be silly, Jimmy," answered Fawcett mildly.
"No one has any right, as yet, to mention murder, or
talk about fugitives."
98


Sinister Lore
"If you know of any places where she's likely to have
gone, you might telephone them," suggested Joyce.
"All right. There's her missionary society, and one
or two old maid friends she has in New York."
But a little while later the lad reported that Con-
stance had not been seen at any of her favored haunts.
Joyce noted the addresses.
A preliminary report of the findings of the post
mortem on Van Zanten's body might be expected
around noon. If the evidence were positive in char-
acter, it might even be conclusive. But until it came,
there was nothing to do but mark time. Joyce called
Kay, led her to the parlor and sat down for the first
private discussion of the case they had had since their
chat on the ferryboat. She had been looking forward
to this.
"Kay," he asked, "what do you know about poisons,
any way?"
"Not a great deal, Inspector," she replied. "Just
what a secretary who's ambitious to be a real assistant
would pick up in a detective agency."
Joyce smiled. "That could be a lot. We've had
some curious poison cases, though none to compare
with this one since you've been working for me."
99


Poison Case Number 10
"You believe that Mr. Van Zanten was poisoned,
then?"
"Who wouldn't, on the dope so far? But let's dig
into the subject in a general way. Poisoning has been
popular since the beginning of history, for bumping off
an enemy or simply getting rid of a person whose life
is blocking your plans. The last-named is the com-
moner reason in our times. The automatic makes kill-
ings that grow out of hate and rage so darned easy,
your modern feudist doesn't take the time to bother
with poison. Not very often. Poisoning is a cold-
blooded proposition. It's always premeditated. The
criminal tells himself that the cause of death will not
be found out—and half the time he's right."
"Really?" murmured Kay. "I thought our present
methods of chemical analysis of the contents of the
viscera were almost infallible."
"They sure are. But suppose it never gets as far as
a medico-legal examination. Suppose some doctor
who's a boob, or a crook, gives a certificate of death by
natural causes. That's what the poisoner counts upon.
You probably think this Doc Henkle you've seen
around here is a unique specimen. I wish I could be-
lieve it. Guys like him have made it possible for many
a poisoner to go unpunished."
1oo


Sinister Lore
"What are the substances generally used?" asked
Kay inquisitively.
"I was coming to that. There's arsenic and bichlor-
ide of mercury, strychnine and cyanide of potassium—
all of them common, easily-obtained poisons that have
figured in criminal cases without end. I'd say that
arsenic is the stuff that has found most favor with mur-
derers, because it's tasteless and sure to cause death if
given in sufficient quantities. The knowledge of it is
as old as civilization. The basic element is orpiment,
found as a pure mineral in certain places. What we
call white arsenic is one of the oxides that is extracted
from orpiment."
"I see you read that big book in the office to good
advantage," the girl said, with affectionate raillery.
Joyce smiled. "It brushed up my memory on cer-
tain points, but really I'm quite a sharp on poisons.
Now, as to arsenic; it's used for all sorts of legitimate
purposes. Doctors prescribe it in tonics and for the
treatment of skin diseases. Every drug store carries it.
It's the main thing in most fly-papers, and in sprays em-
ployed to kill insects and even weeds. So you see it's
not much of a trick to get hold of it.
"What your poisoner of the dumbhead sort overlooks
is, that arsenic lodges in the system and can be detected
IOI


Poison Case Number 10
months and years after the death of the victim. Abso-
lute tests for the finding of arsenic have been worked
out. The same is true of antimony, mercury, cyanide
of potassium and all the other mineral poisons."
"But the vegetable toxicants?" demanded Kay.
"Not quite the same story. Many of them evaporate
rather fast, and an early autopsy is necessary to turn up
direct proof. Yet they're apt to cause certain changes
in the tissues which an expert analyst can't miss. Take
strychnine, which is an alkaloid derived from nux
vomica, the seed of an Oriental tree; and also from the
St. Ignatius bean and some other plants. Strychnine
causes the most terrible convulsions, and at death the
arms and legs become as stiff as wood. This rigidity
has been found in the bodies of victims that had been
buried for six months and longer. It's an extreme
example, but you can take it from me the vegetable
poisons can be trusted to leave a sign of some kind."
"All of them?"
"Well, not all. Aconitine is an exception. That is
the most powerful of the alkaloids obtained from the
plant called wolfsbane in Europe, and aconite here.
But aconitine is a mighty rare poison. It has cropped
up in only one or two murders in the police records of
the last hundred years."
102


Sinister Lore
"You said that strychnine wasn't hard to get. Why?"
"Because it's a standard medicine. In small doses,
it's used as a heart stimulant and for the treatment of
nerve trouble. There again, you have a weapon that
can be had at any drug store."
"I should think it would be hard to get the necessary
prescription from a doctor," said Kay. "At least, for
a quantity large enough to be used for murder!"
Joyce grinned out of one side of his mouth. "Pre-
scriptions!" he sneered. "They can always be bought,
by crooks—from crooks. And there are other ways.
Strychnine is often sold on the q.t. by druggists, who
take a chance on the story that the buyer wants it to
kill rats or stray dogs. In almost every strychnine mur-
der that has been brought to book, the accused has hol-
lered to Heaven that he had the stuff around to fight
vermin. It makes swell rat-poison, and that's a fact.
The victim got some of it into his food by mistake, of
course, if you were to believe the argument for the
defence."
Kay made no comment, and after staring at the ceil-
ing for a moment, Joyce went on:
"Some other darned interesting, but uncommon,
poisons are hemlock, antiarin and curare. Hemlock
was the stuff they handed Socrates. It was distilled
103


Poison Case Number 10
from a bush resembling fennel, and it produced a mer-
ciful, slow paralysis which ended by hitting the heart.
Antiarin is taken from the sap of the upas tree. If
you've read the ancient travel books, you'll remember
that the bozos who first toured the Orient were told
that it meant death to sit in the shade of the upas. The
real lowdown was that the juice, when placed upon the
tips of arrows, destroyed an enemy within half an hour
after he was wounded. Curare comes from the bark
of a South American shrub, and is what the Orinoco
Indians use to doctor their darts."
"In naming those, you haven't begun to exhaust the
subject, have you?" suggested Kay.
"You said it. There are snake poisons, as well as
venoms extracted from the glands of frogs and the
bodies of many kinds of insects. Exhibits for a chem-
ist's chamber of horrors, all right. But for practical
purposes, we aren't likely to have to go beyond arsenic,
or some of the other standard concoctions I told you
about."
Kay took her cue promptly. She knew how Inspec-
tor Joyce's mind worked. His dropping of so broad
a hint meant that she was at liberty to question him
frankly.
104


Sinister Lore
"What poisons do you think may have caused the
deaths here?" she asked.
"Between you and me, and assuming there's been
murder done, George Van Zanten a year ago seems like
an arsenic case. He had recurrent stomach cramps for
three days, culminating in a violent seizure which
finished him off. That's a typical result for a real
strong dose of arsenic. The symptoms might pass as
those of indigestion. Absorbed in smaller quantities,
the powder has been known not to kill for several
weeks."
"But the paralysis of the tongue which our client
mentioned?"
"Queer! And it certainly throws doubt on the ar-
senic theory. The man being old, however, there may
have been a normal tendency toward paralysis, which
fastened on the tongue when he was dying."
"Are there any other poisons which produce similar
symptoms?" inquired Kay.
"None of the usual ones. C. P.—that's cyanide of
potassium—works like lightning. It scarcely has time
to reach the stomach before the victim drops dead.
That's why so many suicides go for it. Bichloride of
mercury, on the other hand, tears the organs to pieces
105


Poison Case Number 10
slowly, especially the kidneys. The sufferer is gnawed
by horrible pains until he finally goes into a coma."
"And strychnine?"
"Lord, no! The convulsions I just told you that
strychnine causes are ten times more severe than the
stomach cramps of arsenic. The patient twists around
like the damned in Hell. There is frequent vomiting,
with periods of stupor in between. Death can follow
in less than twenty-four hours."
"Then Mary Van Zanten was very possibly murdered
with strychnine?"
"Good girl. I hoped you'd draw your own con-
clusions. It seems crazy, of course, that any physician
could diagnose it as a death by natural disease. Yet
it has been done. In the John Parsons Cook case in
England, in 1855, several doctors declared that the man
had died of angina pectoris. He had been poisoned
with strychnine, and a guy named Palmer was finally
hanged for the crime. If you claim that medical
knowledge has advanced since 1855, you're right. But
science is no help if the wrong person is using it. Doc
Henkle may be more of a dummox than the English
medicos of seventy years ago."
"You're taking the stand that he's likely to have been
a dupe in this whole business?"
106


Sinister Lore
"So far—yes. The plot appears too deep for Henkle
to have originated it. It's working too smoothly for
that comic even to be the main agent. No one would
trust him to keep a secret. I'm including him among
my possible suspects, however."
Joyce lighted a fresh cigar, and puffed away for a
moment in silence.
"You may wonder why I now have poison theories
about George and Mary Van Zanten," he continued,
"when I'd started on the tack that exhuming the bodies
was the only thing to tell the tale?"
"No, I don't wonder. You had nothing to go upon.
The circumstances surrounding the death of Nicholas
Van Zanten have occurred since then."
"Smart kid. But that's not all. I hadn't seen Doc
Henkle in action. The first two bodies had been buried
on certificates signed by a supposedly intelligent phy-
sician. He might have been a crook, but how could I
picture him as a sap who'd find it hard to recognize the
nose on his own face? The proper caper was to take a
look at what he had buried, and then form theories.
"But when I heard him shout, 'Heart failure!' over a
man who had obviously been poisoned, I just naturally
figured out the real meaning of the symptoms he had
107


Poison Case Number 10
called 'acute indigestion' and 'angina pectoris' in the
earlier cases."
"It's great to listen to you thinking aloud like this,"
said Kay. "I sort of flatter myself I'm the only person
you'd do that with."
"You're right, Kay. I'm close-mouthed until I've
reached a solution. But I want to train you to use your
bean the way I use mine. You've got it in you to be-
come the finest woman detective in the business."
The girl flushed, gratified beyond words. She
touched the back of his hand with her finger-tips, then
drew them away swiftly. Joyce smiled, and with a
bearish gesture stroked the curls that were flying loose
above her ear.
After a prolonged pause, she asked:
"Do you have an idea what it was they fed to the old
man yesterday?"
Joyce shook his head. "Let's leave that until we get
the report on the post mortem."
"Then perhaps you can tell me why the family vault
was visited by the prowler, who later erased his foot-
prints?"
"Ask me a hard one. That visit was probably for the
purpose of tampering with the viscera of George and
Mary Van Zanten."
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Sinister Lore
Kay shuddered, in a sudden access of feminine
horror at the picture his words evoked.
They had exchanged a few more desultory com-
ments on the mysterious affair when the telephone in
the hallway rang. The maid Sally Jenkins answered
it, and presently called Joyce to the phone. Kay heard
him say: “Hello! ... Yes, yes ... Read it to me, will
you?" and then there was a long pause while the de-
tective listened. He said: “Thanks very much, Doc.
I'll get in touch with you later!” Walking back into
the parlor, with a face set as hard as stone, he stared
at Kay and announced:
"That was Doctor Allison Swift, the best autopsy
surgeon in the Police Department. He was assigned
to the Van Zanten case by my friend, Deputy Inspector
Kane."
“Well—what did he find?” inquired Kay tensely.
"Absolutely nothing. The stomach, intestines and
organs of Nicholas Van Zanten have revealed no proof
that he died of poison.”
109


CHAPTER EIGHT
Sunday—The Clutching Hands
.Late that afternoon, Inspector Joyce held a conference
with Alexander Fawcett and Jimmy Van Zanten. They
consented to it, it seemed, with a shade of reluctance;
for they had heard the preliminary report from the
Morgue without understanding what effect that would
have upon the case. Jimmy expressed the naive opinion
that nothing further should be said about his father's
death until the body had been sent back to them for
burial.
But Joyce had insisted, and the three men met in the
library behind locked doors. Kay had been excluded,
because the fiction still obtained that she was only the
detective's daughter.
"I have here a copy of the police surgeon's memo-
randum," said Joyce, drawing from his pocket an en-
velope which had been delivered to him by special
messenger an hour before. "Let me give you the gist
of it:
"Dr. Swift found that the only signs of disease in Mr.
no


The Clutching Hands
Van Zanten's system was a slight hardening of the
arteries, due to age, and an enlarged heart. This con-
dition would have lowered the old gentleman's re-
sistance to shock of any kind, physical or mental. The
stomach, et cetera, contained no substances of a deadly
nature that could be recognized. Yet the stomach was
in a bad state—red and irritated. The doc's exact
words are that 'death may have resulted from some un-
known poison which has acted upon the nerves and
other centers.'"
"Which means precisely what?" asked Jimmy Van
Zanten. "There can be no verdict of death by poison-
ing, can there, unless the poison is located and named?"
"Correct. But they're going ahead with a chemical
analysis of the organs, as well as the contents of the
viscera."
"Is that usual, when there is so little reason for pre-
suming a murder?"
"Not unless the police have suspicions of their own,
or unless there's a demand from some quarter. I de-
manded it, charging foul play."
"You surprise me. The ordinary post mortem calms
my fears. My father appears to have been a heart case,
after all. But I guess you feel obliged to live up to the
commission he gave you."
1n


Poison Case Number 10
"I do."
"And this—ah—this chemical analysis, is it sure
fire?"
"Yes, so far as the great majority of poisons are con-
cerned. But I'll say this: Mr. Van Zanten was knocked
over, as if by something he'd just swallowed. In that
case, the stuff should still have been in his stomach, un-
changed. It didn't have time to be soaked up by the
organs. If Dr. Swift couldn't find it in the stomach, it's
unlikely that the analysis will turn up a positive
sample."
Joyce refrained from saying that he had arranged
with Swift that Stas's process should be applied. This
infernally cunning method devised by a Teutonic
chemist consists of reducing^ the physical parts ex-
amined to their component elements, extracting the
alkaloidal deposits and isolating that which is abnormal
in a human body. The alkaloid thus arrived at may
be so mixed as to defy chemical identification. Yet
when tried upon a sacrificial guinea pig, it may pro-
duce the known symptoms inseparable from some rare
poison. It is then considered proven that the original
subject died of the same cause that killed the guinea
Pig-
Fawcett bobbed his head slowly. He fastened on the
112


The Clutching Hands
reminder that his late employer, if poisoned, had prob-
ably absorbed the lethal substance a short while before
his death.
“I noticed that the police took away the carafe of
water and the glass from Nicholas' room. I suppose
they tested them. Do you know the result?” he asked.
“Yes. The water in both receptacles was pure. No
clue there."
"Well, then—" Jimmy hesitated. “What is the object
of this conference? What do you want to do now?"
“Can't you think of something that it's our plain
duty to do?”
“Why no, Inspector."
"I want the bodies of George and Mary Van Zanten
exhumed, and autopsies held on them.”
Jimmy leaped up, his peaked face working convul-
sively. “No, no!” he cried. “I can't stand any more
messing with corpses. Uncle George and Mary weren't
poisoned.”
"How do you know? Your father thought they
were,” said Joyce coldly, and as the lad replied only
with sobs, he queried the estate manager with the rais-
ing of one eyebrow and the lifting of his chin.
Fawcett sketched a large negative gesture with his
right hand. “I can't agree with you, Inspector," he re-
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Poison Case Number 10
turned mildly. "Unless those police chemists you talk
about decide that Nicholas died of unnatural causes, I'd
not feel justified. How long do you suppose they'll
take?"
"At least a week."
"We'll forget George and Mary for that time."
Joyce got to his feet. "As you say. But if you won't
be guided by me, I'll pull out of this case."
"Please don't." Fawcett had risen, too, and he
dropped his broad, calloused palm of an amateur gar-
dener upon the detective's shoulder, while his eyes
glowed earnestly. "I'm thinking of this grief-stricken
boy and the poor, foolish lady who's gone into hiding.
I can't wound their sensibilities by disturbing the last
sleep of their dead, with so little cause! Really, until
the police make a final report on Nicholas, it would
be unseemly. But I want you to stand by us, as long as
the faintest suspicion exists that Nicholas was mur-
dered."
Joyce thought to himself: "Well, I'll be damned!
This Fawcett is a mushy tear-jerker. If he did the kill-
ing, his acting is good enough to land him in the mov-
ies." He was on the point of replying, when Jimmy
cut in:
"4


The Clutching Hands
"I'm opposed to having a private detective mixed up
in this. The Police Department is as much as we can
stand."
Fawcett turned on the boy in ponderous distress.
"I'll thank you not to antagonize the Inspector, Jimmy,"
he said. "Remember I'm your guardian for a month
longer. I am the one to say whether he stays in this
house."
There was something odd in the way Jimmy quailed
before the benign and refulgent eyes of his mentor,
and Joyce reached a quick decision.
"I'll stay, all right," he announced, "but only on the
condition that you engage me in writing."
"In writing?" repeated Fawcett, astonished.
"Yes. Just make it clear that I'm authorized to take
any steps I see fit to learn whether poisons have been
fed to members of this family. You needn't worry
about the bodies in the vault. A Board of Health per-
mit, applied for by you, would be necessary before an
autopsy could be held on either of them."
He had thought that Fawcett might refuse, but the
manager sat down immediately at the nearest desk,
drew out a letterhead stamped with the Van Zanten
crest, and wrote:
"5


Poison Case Number 10
"Michael Joyce, private detective, is hereby authorized
to investigate, at his discretion, the alleged poisoning
of residents of Van Zanten Manor, Staten Island, New
York.
"Alexander Fawcett,
“Legal Guardian of James Van Zanten.”
"First rate,” remarked Joyce, after he had glanced
at the document. “Now, have the young gentleman
countersign it, if you don't mind.”
Fawcett silently raised his eyes to Jimmy, and the
latter responded like a physical automaton. Neverthe-
less, rage and a sort of obscure hatred contorted his
face, as he scrawled his name below the one already on
the sheet. He walked from the room, without uttering
a word of apology, or stating where he could be found.
"I'll be going back to my flowers now," sighed Faw-
cett. “There's still quite a spell of daylight left.”
“Yeah,” said Joyce, with seeming indifference.
He left the library shortly after Fawcett had departed,
looked up Kay and drew her to a secluded corner of the
parlor.
"I want you to hop over to New York as fast as you
can make it. You'll go to the office first. I'll phone
to have Tom and the Sheriff wait for you, but I don't
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The Clutching Hands
want to give them orders over the phone. The orders
mustn't be overheard by anybody here."
"Right, Inspector," the girl answered, and stood by
like a soldier for further instructions.
"You see, it's this way. I've got Fawcett to appoint
me in writing, and we're going to rip this case wide
open."
"If Fawcett did that willingly, he can't be guilty,"
Kay said.
"Maybe not. He acts as if he's innocent. I'm kinda
for him, but perhaps it's just that he's smart. Now
listen. You'll tell my son to check up on all sales of
poisons in the Borough of Richmond during the past
year. He can put two or three operatives on the job,
and after they're through with the Staten Island drug
stores and doctors' prescriptions, let 'em canvass the
nearby Jersey towns. The city-wide reports at 505
Pearl Street—Department of Health—should be looked
at for a possible clue. The likeliest poisons are arsenic
and strychnine, and the idea is to learn whether they
were bought by a person from this house. Tom's bright
enough to look after that end of it."
"He certainly is," said Kay.
Joyce smiled. "As to the Sheriff, I want him in St.
George. He's to snoop for information about the per-
117


Poison Case Number 10
sonal lives of the Van Zantens, Fawcett and his wife,
Celestine Curtis and Doc Henkle. I want the neigh-
borhood gossip, and most of all some dope on where
Fawcett came from before he landed the job here."
"You don't think you should ask Fawcett the direct
question?"
"Better not to. It might make him suspicious, and I
want the dirt, if any. Of course, I'll draw him out as
much as I can, and also see what I can get on the
servants. But I'm planning to stick close to this house.
Let Symes do the gun-shoe work round about the
whole section. He'll find a way to report to me as a
phoney gas inspector, or something; he knows that
game."
"Okay. I'll tell him."
"And now for your own assignment. You're to try
to find Constance Van Zanten in New York City and
trail her, until further orders." Joyce handed Kay the
list of addresses of the spinster's haunts, which he had
obtained from Jimmy the day before. "I hate to lose
your help here. But none of the boys at the office have
seen the woman, and you have. Maybe it won't be for
long."
"I'll do my darndest."
"I know you will. As you go upstairs to pack your
118


The Clutching Hands
bag, stop in the old girl's room and take one of the
pictures of herself. If you fail to locate her easily,
we'll have the office work from the photo. Now hurry;
there's a good kid."
While Kay was getting ready, Joyce put through a
call to the city, and in guarded terms instructed his
assistants to await a messenger. Then he sauntered out
to the garden, where he found Fawcett troweling the
roots of a bed of magnificent dahlias.
"I've decided to send my daughter home," he said,
without preliminaries. "Would you be so kind as to
have her driven to the ferry right away?"
The estate manager got to his feet, brushing red soil
from the knees of his trousers. "Surely, surely," he
answered. "I don't blame you for sending her from
this house of gloom."
Fawcett waved his hand rather theatrically at his
man of all work, Andrew Burns, who was raking
manure among the rose bushes a few yards distant.
"Climb into your uniform, Andy, and take Miss Joyce
to St. George. Use the limousine."
As the hulking fellow approached, distinctly sullen at
the idea of doing emergency duty, it struck Joyce for
the first time that his broad, clodhopper's face reminded
him vaguely of some one. Perhaps he had seen him in
"9


Poison Case Number 10
other circumstances. Perhaps Burns was a man with a
police record, who had been involved in one of his
thousands of cases.
But the next minute he acquitted the gardener of
being a crook, or at all events a crook who had passed
through his hands. Upon this point, Joyce's memory
was photographic and almost fabulous. He never for-
got the face of a criminal, though often the name and
other data had slipped him, and the precise identifica-
tion would have to be made by searching through his
records. He now concluded that Burns must have
crossed his path in some quite trivial manner, such as
riding on the same train, or working at some menial
task on which the detective had cast an eye.
He watched Andy's slouching figure until it disap-
peared in the garage, and then kept small talk going
with Fawcett. The safe departure of Kay assumed an
exaggerated importance in his eyes, he did not know
why. It was not long delayed. She was ready as soon
as the car was, and waved her handkerchief like a good
little daughter until a curve in the driveway carried
her out of sight.
"Fond of her, aren't you?" remarked Fawcett.
"I'll say so—very fond."
The estate manager rubbed his chin. "By the way, I
120


The Clutching Hands
didn't want to bring this up before Jimmy—he's so
morbid—but the keys of the burial vault are missing
from the late Mr. Van Zanten's safe. Did he give them
to you, Inspector?"
Joyce looked at the other steadily. "He did. He
had me visit the place yesterday."
"And did you discover anything strange?"
"No." He had made up his mind on a hunch not
to mention the ambiguous and vanishing footprints,
or to tell Fawcett that he feared a duplicate set of the
keys existed. Not yet, at all events.
"My, my! The vault had a horried fascination for
Nicholas. He used to slip down there himself, when
he thought nobody was looking."
Joyce had uttered the same idea to Kay, as a suspi-
cion. From Fawcett, it sounded like an attempt to
hide behind a dead man who could not contradict him.
But in the next breath he said, with a naivete that
Joyce found it difficult to believe was bluff:
"I think you should give the keys back to me."
"Why?"
"Because they have become one of my responsibilities.
If you need them at any time, I'd be glad to lend them
to you."
Joyce handed the keys over, without a word. He
121


Poison Case Number 10
had taken the precaution that morning of making an
impression of them in wax scraped from an old candle-
stick.
"Guess I'll look the garden over," he said. "Don't
interrupt your work to show me anything. I'll just
blow around."
"That's the best way to enjoy flowers," beamed Faw-
cett, and promptly resumed his tending of the dahlias,
turning his back as he troweled.
There was something queer about the landscape de-
sign of the garden, Joyce noticed. It was terraced more
abruptly than the contour of the land required, to form
a central lozenge, of which the long points were de-
pressed and the middle domed. Even an amateur
surveyor could tell that there was room there for a sub-
terranean chamber. Joyce played with the idea, be-
cause Fawcett's devotion to the garden prodded at his
brain. "If he's the guilty one, I bet he hides his
poisons out here. He'd maybe buy them long before he
intended to put them to use, and he wouldn't risk keep-
ing them in the house. A guy like him would have a
cache right in his own territory," he told himself. Yet
the notion of an underground retreat was far-fetched,
he admitted. The mound had probably been built up
with rocks.
122


The Clutching Hands
He drifted here and there, looking for a concealed
entrance to a grotto and finding none. The tool shed
interested him briefly. It was an earth-stained lean-to,
which gave no evidences of being used as laboratory.
Then he gave himself up to the enjoyment of an au-
tumn riot of vivid blooms, and the intoxication of per-
fumes among which the honeyed sweetness of jasmines
predominated.
Having strayed to the extreme northern end of the
garden, Joyce was behind the mansion, and he had lost
sight of Fawcett. An outhouse which he had observed
before, though with no great attention, impinged upon
his consciousness because of a muttering that pene-
trated the clapboard walls. Two or more persons were
in there, waging a heated argument.
The A.B.C. of detective work called for an investi-
gation, and Joyce stole forward. He could soon make
out the voices more distinctly, but the words were lost
and he only gained the impression that one of them had
an extremely odd timbre. Circling the hut—for that
was all it was—he found a single window, and peered
in. To his amazement, he saw Jimmy Van Zanten
shaking his fist in the face of the old Jamaican Negro
cook, known as Aunt Ellen. The bandanna handker-
chief on her head was awry, and her hands clasped
123


Poison Case Number 10
in front of her in a gesture of pleading. She was say-
ing: "No, Marse Jimmy! No, Marse Jimmy!" over and
over again. Joyce could tell that much by lip-reading.
He was about to rap on the window to attract their
attention, when the boy seized Aunt Ellen by the
throat, pushed her against the wall and shook her
fiercely, as if trying to choke her to death.
124


CHAPTER NINE
Sunday—Jimmy Accuses
Joyce had no intention of allowing the weird old
Negro woman to be killed by Jimmy Van Zanten. Be-
sides, the motive behind this attack might throw valu-
able light upon the case, and he wanted Aunt Ellen's
testimony. He leaped around to the door of the cabin,
smashed the flimsy lock with a blow of his shoulder,
and dragged Jimmy away from his victim.
"What the devil!" he said. "Are you crazy, mistreat-
ing her in this way?"
The lad was as white as chalk, and trembling all over.
"You have no right to interfere," he gasped. "She's
our servant."
"But not your slave—I don't think. Her being a coon
doesn't give you power of life and death over her.
What's it all about?"
Jimmy morosely declined to answer. He made a
move to leave, but Joyce threw up his hand. "You'll
stick right here for a moment," the detective ordered, ,
with unmistakable authority.
125


Jimmy Accuses
A couple of grocery boxes, on one of which Aunt Ellen
was sitting, and a larger packing case fixed up as a
dressing table, constituted the only other furniture.
There was, however, an unpainted board shelf above
the bed, and this was crowded with a collection of jelly
jars and candy boxes, from which protruded such in-
congruous objects as the stems of clay pipes, dried herbs
and bits of colored ribbon. On the little center table
lay a Bible, and tacked to the wall was a picture of the
late Queen Victoria of England, cut from a newspaper.
"I take it that Aunt Ellen lives here?" remarked
Joyce, looking at Jimmy.
"If that seems important to you, there's no reason
why you shouldn't know the truth," the boy replied
sarcastically. "She does live here. She never liked to
sleep in the house. This used to be a chicken coop,
which my father fixed over for her years ago."
"Really! A chicken coop. And does she make it her
home winter and summer?"
"Yes. She's all right, except in zero weather, when
she takes refuge in the big kitchen and sleeps beside the
stove like a dog."
Jimmy spat out his words viciously. The intonation
he gave to the phrase, "like a dog," was not kind, seeing
»*7


Poison Case Number 10
that he had attacked Aunt Ellen with his hands and she
was refusing to bear witness against him.
Joyce dropped his manner of a good-natured media-
tor. "I've got to have a private talk with you," he said
sternly to Jimmy. "Please step out on the lawn."
"Forget it. I don't have the time. I'm going driv-
ing in my car."
Until that moment, the youngster could not have
been blamed for thinking that he had to deal simply
with a private detective who knew his business, but
whose sense of professional etiquette never allowed him
to lose his temper. Crooks and insubordinate police-
men without number could have told him that if one
insisted on scrapping with Inspector Joyce, one caught
a Tartar.
The blue eyes suddenly hardened, and the pleasant
Irish mouth became as grim as a shark's mask. "You'll
do as I say, Mr. Van Zanten. On the lawn, within ten
feet of this shack," he ordered icily.
Jimmy wilted, and went out.
"I want you to stay here until I come back," Joyce
said to the old Negress. But as she glowered at him
blankly, he decided to take no chances with her. He
had himself broken the lock to get in. So he pulled the
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Jimmy Accuses
door shut, and dragged in front of it a block for chop-
ping firewood which he found outside.
The heir of the Van Zantens was standing under an
apple tree, at the point where the garden stopped and
the lawn began. Joyce walked up to him.
"Get this straight. I'm investigating three deaths
that look like murder. You've got to co-operate."
"What right have you"
"You signed a paper employing me," Joyce inter-
rupted. "But that's not really important. It only pro-
tects me from a technical charge of trespassing on this
estate. Why, you damned pup, I've the right of any
citizen to collect evidence that may result in bringing
a murderer to justice."
"Go ahead, then. Mr. Fawcett wants you here, and
I've agreed to it. But you can't do anything to make
me suffer if I leave you to your own devices."
"No? Has it struck you that your father died more
than twenty-four hours ago, and there hasn't been a
single newspaper reporter come to get the low-down
on the story? Funny, isn't it? The tabloids just eat
up a poison mystery, especially when the victim is a
rich man. Well, I'll tell you why the news hounds
haven't been around. I blocked 'em. I used to be an
Inspector in the Police Department, and I've got
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Poison Case Number 10
enough pull to have kept the death of Nicholas Van
Zanten off the blotter, so far. One word from me, and
the bars will be down."
"The newspapers will have to find out some time,"
muttered Jimmy, his peaked face going a shade whiter.
"Sure. But if we can fix the guilt before they start
blatting, you'll be saved a lot of grief. You don't want
them to prejudge the case, do you, and write you all
up as if you were monkeys in the zoo?"
"I'll lock myself away from the reporters."
"Like hell you will! If you don't talk to me now,
you won't get the chance. I'll have you placed under
arrest as a material witness, and you'll be facing the
reporters from behind the bars of the County jail."
The force of Joyce's personality and the manner in
which he bit off his words had the effect of a third
degree upon the boy. His will broke. A hard, dry
sob shook him, and tears came into his eyes.
"What do you want to ask me?" he gasped.
"Did you murder your father?"
"Oh, God-no!"
"Do you know how he was killed?"
"I do not."
"Have you suspected foul play?"
"Yes."
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Jimmy Accuses
"In the cases of your uncle and cousin, also?"
"Yes."
"Poison?"
"Yes."
"Then why have you done nothing to bring these
events to the notice of the police?"
"Mr. Fawcett and Dr. Henkle said Uncle George
and Mary died natural deaths. Dad believed them, so
why shouldn't I? I—I guess I believe them still. When
Dad was hit yesterday, I found the house full of detec-
tives, including yourself. I hated to admit the idea of
murder, so I just left it to you."
"You're a medical student, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, let me tell you, Mr. Van Zanten, you show
signs of making one of the world's worst doctors. You'll
bring disgrace on the medical profession, you will, if
you don't make a better use of the scientific knowledge
that's pounded in to you. You must have picked up a
lot of dope on poisons—more than the layman knows,
any way—and yet you've allowed these deaths in your
family to occur without investigation. You ought to be
ashamed of yourself."
Jimmy's shoulders drooped, and suddenly Joyce
struck at him from a new angle.
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Poison Case Number 10
"Why were you choking that old Negro woman?"
"I—I don't like her, Inspector."
"That's a fine reason to give me. Not trying to say
you wanted to kill her, are you?"
"Of course not."
"Why don't you like her? Out with it."
"It's a long story. She came here as a sort of tramp,
and Dad took a fancy to her, as he may have told you.
I was always scared of her as a kid. I don't take to
savages—don't like any of the wild exotic stuff that goes
into adventure stories, and that most boys think ro-
mantic. Aunt Ellen isn't an American darky. She's
from some tropical island, and her ways give me the
shivers."
Joyce shook his head. "That's not good enough. You
grew up with this woman around, and you must have
got accustomed to her. No one jumps at a person's
throat—but, oh hell! Quit stalling. Give me the real
reason."
"She practices voodoo," muttered Jimmy.
"She does, eh? On exactly what do you base that
statement?"
"As far back as I can remember, she has tried to make
us drink herb teas which she brews with God knows
what. Ghastly stuff! She doesn't call it medicine, but
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Jimmy Accuses
claims it has magic properties. Dad sometimes fell for
the idea, to please her. I've heard him kidding her
about how much better he felt after one of her potions,
but there were times when I was darned sure that the
muck made him ill."
Joyce pricked up his ears. "This is kinda interest-
ing," he said. "Go right on. Spill all that comes back
to you about Aunt Ellen and her teas."
"She isn't given so much to prescribing them for
sickness, though I've known her to do that, too. She
considers them good for old age, or to restore happiness,
or to put one in the right frame of mind to succeed
in an undertaking. Things like that. She mumbles
charms over the cup before she hands it to the person
to drink."
"And what about the other side of the story? What
about curses? Does she ever fix up a brew intended
to bring trouble upon an enemy?"
"She's said more than once that it's possible to do
that, but that such is the devil's work and she's opposed
to it. I think she's an old hypocrite. Still, I've never
had proof that she harmed any one."
"Hm! Have you drunk her teas yourself?"
"When I was a child—yes."
"What effect did they have on you?"
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Poison Case Number 10
"None that I could notice. They tasted filthy, that's
all."
"Has everybody else in this house drunk them, one
time or another?"
"Everybody except Mr. Fawcett. He'd laugh when
they were offered to him, and tease Aunt Ellen, and
blame Dad for encouraging her superstition."
"Do you know her methods—what herbs she puts
into the pot, and so forth?"
"I do not. She's everlastingly at it in that chicken
coop of hers, but I've shut my eyes to it. Until today,
when I got to thinking of her mumbo-jumbo on top of
my other troubles, and I went out and raised the deuce
with her."
With a pretence of complete skepticism, Joyce stifled
a yawn. "Of course, I'm taking this with a grain of
salt," he said. "It comes too pat. Murder and sudden
death, and a witch doctor to finish the picture. Hot
stuff!"
"You don't believe she brews voodoo teas?" de-
manded Jimmy indignantly.
"Can't say that I do—not a hundred percent, any-
way. It seems to me your father wouldn't have talked
poisons in my office without mentioning this funny-
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Jimmy Accuses
business. Fawcett, too, would have sprung it, for his
own protection."
"Fawcett thinks Aunt Ellen is a joke—" began
Jimmy. He interrupted himself, and started back to-
ward the hut. "Please come this way, Inspector. I
bet I'll be able to prove it to you."
Joyce hesitated, but decided to follow the lad.
"She was preparing to make some of the stuff when I
butted in on her half an hour ago," Jimmy whispered,
as they approached the window stealthily. "That's
what got me so sore."
Peeping through the same dusty glass that had first
revealed Aunt Ellen being choked by her young mas-
ter, Joyce got glimpses of a bizarre spectacle.
A kettle was boiling on the stove, and giving off
clouds of steam. Ranged on the floor were three small,
uncovered pans. The ancient West Indian sat on her
haunches in front of the stove, and with the greatest
care selected dried leaves and twigs from a miscellane-
ous bunch clutched in her left hand. She dropped an
herb in one pan and then in another, observing no se-
quence, but apparently concocting three different re-
cipes with the ingredients she lit upon. Her lips worked
continuously, and it was clear that she was either pray-
135


Poison Case Number 10
ing or uttering an incantation. Once she reached sud-
denly for the Bible on her center table, kissed it and
replaced it before she went ahead with her dubious
task.
Joyce glanced at his companion, and raised his eye-
brows. "Why the Bible?"
"Oh, she's very religious! High Church of England,
if you please!" the other answered under his breath.
"But I've been told that that never stopped a savage
from practicing voodoo."
"You're right enough."
Aunt Ellen had now exhausted her handful of
parched vegetation, except for a few stalks which she
stowed away in a bottle that had contained raspberry
jam. She rose to her feet, took the kettle from the stove
and poured a little hot water into each of the pans.
The vapors that floated up from them appeared to be
extraordinarily thick.
The Negress then fell upon her knees. She clasped
her hands, and stooped until her body was hanging over
the receptacles containing her brew. Her position was
such that the watchers could see only her back, and the
steam curled on either side of her bent head.
Joyce drew back from the window, and faced Jimmy
Van Zanten.
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Jimmy Accuses
"Queer goings-on, all right!" he said. "Now get the
rest of it off your chest."
"I don't know what you mean, Inspector. There's
nothing more to tell."
"Just a natural born liar, aren't you? You must have
a bad conscience, and a low opinion of my smartness
into the bargain." Joyce seized him by the collar and
shook him. "Come across pronto! Come clean!"
"What do you think I'm hiding?" the boy panted.
"Your motive for attacking Aunt Ellen. You say her
voodooism got your goat on general principles. Bunk!
What has she done that has a bearing on this case?"
Jimmy hung his head. "I—I wanted to get a con-
fession from her before I talked," he stammered. "But
the fact is, she—she gave Dad one of her teas to drink
yesterday morning."
"And he swallowed it?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"She claimed it would calm his nerves."
"Does any one in the house except yourself know
that he drank this stuff?"
"I don't think so. I happened to be standing by. It
was just before breakfast."
"A few minutes ago, Mr. Van Zanten, I asked you
137


CHAPTER TEN
Sunday—A Lesson in Black Magic
As soon as he had forced Jimmy Van Zanten to put
into words his accusation that Aunt Ellen was the
poisoner, Joyce relaxed the pressure he had brought to
bear upon the boy. He seemed almost to lose interest
in him. Carelessly, the detective tapped him on the
shoulder and said, as though he were giving advice
rather than issuing an order.
"You can go to your room. It will be dinner time in
a little while. I don't think you should be off the estate
more than you can help until this investigation is
over."
"I'd intended to drive to Stapleton and bring back
my fiancee, Miss Curtis, to dinner," Jimmy replied.
"Oh, all right! I'll be glad to have another talk with
the young lady. She struck me as being a sensible
girl"
"Are you going to question Aunt Ellen now?"
"Yes. And don't get ahead of me in letting Fawcett,
or anybody, know that you and I discussed her."
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Poison Case Number 10
"You can trust me not to, Inspector," Jimmy assured
him, suddenly tractable.
Joyce watched his retreating figure until it disap-
peared into the house. Then he stepped back to the
door of the Negress' hut, shoved aside the chopping
block with which he had barricaded the door and en-
tered without knocking. He found Aunt Ellen sitting
bolt upright on the same packing case where she had
been when he left her. His swiftly roving eyes noted
immediately that the three pans which held her brew
had been hidden from sight. The kettle was still on
the stove, but simmering faintly because it was over to
one side. Joyce assumed that the woman had heard
some of Jimmy's final outcry at the window, and that
she had prepared against his own prompt return.
He stood looking at her for a minute or two, without
speaking. His voice when it came was gentle and coax-
ing.
"I'm not trying to harm you at all," he said. "I'm
your friend. If you'll answer a few questions I want to
ask, we'll get along nicely."
Her irises were so black they could not be distin-
guished from her pupils; they were like round pebbles
framed by her yellowed eyeballs. Into these strange
140


A Lesson in Black Magic
wa
orbs there now seemed to come a flicker of light, but
her lips remained stubbornly closed.
“Mr. Jimmy treated you very badly just now," he
pursued. “I didn't approve of that.”
The old body stiffened. “Marse Jimmy can do what
he like to dis-hyah nigger. He's de son of my own
Marse Nicholas, God rest him!”
“I know how you feel, Aunty,” said Joyce, pleased
to have found a way to pierce her shell. “But the young
gentleman was a little rough. I don't think he under-
stands you."
The Negress shook her head ambiguously.
"In fact, I'm sure he doesn't,” Joyce continued. "He
was giving me his ideas about you, and he had a lot
of things quite wrong. Wouldn't you like me to tell
you at least one of them, to show what I mean?"
Her curiosity was betrayed by a quivering of her
eyelids and twitching of her hands. She condescended
to nod.
"Well, he called you a voodoo woman. I know that
you aren't one of those, Aunt Ellen. Voodoo is what
they do in the forests of Haiti, and the Haitians got it
from some of the wickedest tribes in Africa. Slaves
brought it over long, long ago. It's the worship of the
devil, and the priests think nothing of sacrificing hu-
141


Poison Case Number 10
man beings and drinking their blood. That's voodoo."
"Mr. Detective, you know what you's talking about,"
she cried in an astonishingly clear voice. "I swear to
God I have no dealings with voodoo."
"Of course not. That's what I said myself. But it's
no secret to me what you do go in for."
Joyce had assumed that since she was not a native
of Haiti, it was highly unlikely for her to be a practi-
tioner of true voodooism, which is confined in the
western world to the French-speaking black republic
and to certain sophisticated circles in Harlem, New
York's Negro quarter. The cult of the serpent—both
the Petro and the Legba rites—excite horror among the
natives of the other West Indian islands. The last-
named have only a vague idea of what it is all about,
but they have heard of the slaying of "the goat without
horns," as the human sacrifice is called, and they asso-
ciate it with Haiti, a land with a bad reputation in such
matters.
Furthermore, it was equally easy for Joyce to guess
at the milder form of African sorcery which a woman
from Jamaica was likely to practice.
"You think you know all my secrets, white man?"
Aunt Ellen asked, with a faint grimace that passed for
a smile. "Let's hear how you call 'em."
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A Lesson in Black Magic
"You do a little obeah," Joyce told her. "The church-
people would blame you for that. Your minister would
be very angry, if he found out. He'd make you con-
fess before the congregation and pray to God for for-
giveness. But you can't see what harm there is in going
back to the wisdom of your fathers. Religion is one
thing for buckras, and it's another for black folk. They
have their mysteries that they keep to themselves, so
you have yours. Suppose you cook some leaves and
say the right charms over them; yes, and fix up a good-
luck or a bad-luck sign with chicken feathers, bones
and red string! Why, it's just obeah, isn't it?"
The woman had been listening to him with a grow-
ing amazement. Her jaw dropped, but her eyes be-
came as alert as those of some wild creature. "Where
you learn about such things?" she demanded. "Who
tell you we call white folk 'buckras' where I come
from? Who teach you to talk obeah? Marse Nicholas
neber knowed dat, nor Marse Jimmy neither."
"I've traveled more than anybody in this house,
Aunty. Sure I've been in your country—in Jamaica. I
lived up in the Santa Cruz Mountains for a long time,
and I rode horseback all the way from there to Spanish
Town." Joyce glanced about the room, as he spoke.
His eyes fell upon a large knife-like implement, the


A Lesson in Black Magic
"And Miss Mary?"
"She die too quick. I no have time to make medi-
cine for her."
"What about your old master yesterday?"
"I give him a draught to keep him safe, but him go
jus' de same."
"Then your obeah has not been working?"
"No, sah."
"Why is that?"
"Since twelve months, dere is a curse on dis family."
"Whose fault is it? Who put the curse on?"
Aunt Ellen shrugged her shoulders in exaggerated
fashion. "It's de Debbil's work. But I no like dat
doctor who laugh loud all de time and stroke his
beard. Why he no save my white folks?"
"Dr. Henkle may not have been able to do anything
to save them," Joyce said noncommittally. "What do
you think of Mr. Fawcett?"
"He make mock of me, but I no can say he is a bad
man," she replied, with an air of scornful indifference.
So far, Jimmy Van Zanten's version of the old
woman's relations with the members of the household
had been upheld, save for his damning charge that she
was the author of premeditated murder. Joyce took a
fresh tack.
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A Lesson in Black Magic
The old woman bestowed a perfectly inscrutabie
stare upon him, which softened in a moment into one
of her rare smiles. Without making any comment in
words, she got up and fetched the pans from the nar-
row space between the stove and the wall, and ranged
them on the floor at his feet. Joyce stooped to examine
the liquid, which was no longer steaming.
Dusk was falling outdoors. It was getting quite dark
in the hut. Aunt Ellen busied herself with the trimming
and lighting of an old-fashioned kerosene lamp, which
she placed on the center table. Then she returned to
her seat upon the packing case that had once held
groceries.
The detective smelled the concoctions one after the
other, dipped a finger in each, and touched it to his
tongue. He could make nothing of either the odor
or the taste.
“Who are these for, Aunty?” he asked.
“Marse Jimmy."
"All of them?”
“Yes, sah."
"But they are different, aren't they?”
“Oh yes, sah!”
“What way do you think he should take them?”
“One is for now, so's him no fall sick. Nex' one for
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Poison Case Number 10
supposin' his belly hurt him. Las' would save him, if
he's a-gwine to die," declared the aged sybil.
"And do you figure you could get him to swallow
any of them?"
"Mebbe so—mebbe no!"
Joyce scratched his head. "Well, promise me you
won't try to put them into his food or drink, without
his knowing it."
Aunt Ellen made the sign of the cross, and he was
reminded of the bizarre fact that she professed the
creed of the extreme ritualistic branch of the Church
of England. Many of the colored people in the British
West Indian colonies are of that persuasion. "I swear
it," she announced solemnly.
"Would you say that Marse Jimmy is in danger of
falling ill soon?"
"Yes, sah."
"Why?"
"I toT you already. Dere is a curse on dis family, an'
all de children of God dat live in de house of de Van
Zantens."
Without asking her permission, Joyce got up and
fumbled among the objects on the shelf where she kept
her bottles and candy boxes. She watched him with an
intense concentration of her coal-black eyes, and he
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A Lesson in Black Magic
could hear the quickened breathing of the half-savage
creature. Yet she raised no objection to his free and
easy behavior.
He lifted the lids of the various boxes and saw a
jumble of trivial objects: the feathers of birds, especially
the soft neck feathers of chickens; round pebbles from
the beach, the tiny bones of bats and mice, and a large
selection of colored threads and twine. This he knew
to be the paraphernalia of obeah. Absurd and harmless
stuff, he felt sure, and he did not take the trouble to
examine it closely. The potions that Aunt Ellen mixed
were really all that mattered in this business.
He ended by selecting three empty phials from one
of the boxes. He rinsed them carefully in a pail of
water which was standing on the floor, and filled each
of them from a different pan of the recently manu-
factured brew. They fitted into his waistcoat pockets,
and as he stowed them there for future chemical analy-
sis, he looked at Aunt Ellen and smiled. The woman's
natural intelligence told her that he was appropriating
them for the same reason that he had taken samples
of her dried herbs, and no exchange of words was
necessary. He left her in possession of the main supply,
and this fact built up a confidence on her part which
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Poison Case Number 10
the detective could feel as though it had come to him
on a wave of telepathy.
The atmosphere in the little cabin, lighted by one
archaic oil lamp, became subtly weirder as the dusk
deepened out of doors. Joyce had the sensation of
being in the lair of a witch doctor, far away from New
York in the depths of some tropical forest.
"You've said twice that there's a curse on this family,
Aunty," he remarked. "Three deaths do make things
seem pretty bad. But I don't want you to talk about
curses to anybody but me. It scares folks, and it's
kinda crazy any way."
"It's crazy?" she queried in a surprisingly loud
voice. "No, sah! Dead and bury is not all. I knows
what Fs seen."
"You've seen something you haven't told me?" Joyce
asked curiously.
She nodded, and suddenly became reticent once
more. "De curse! De curse!" she repeated morosely
to no matter what question he put to her for the next
few minutes.
"I'm not denying it," he at last admitted craftily.
"I was just asking you not to frighten people who are
not as wise as you and I, Aunty. We know there's
magic in this world. Now, what did you see?"
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A Lesson in Black Magic
She leaned forward and scrutinized his face in the
dim light.
“Miss Constance leave dis house las' night a-walkin'
on her hands,” she said with stark abruptness.
“What?” he exclaimed, thunderstruck.
"A-walkin' on her hands-yes, sah! My blood turn
to water when I see dat. It is a bewitchment.”
"You must tell me more about it,” said Joyce softly.
"How can you be sure that you weren't fooling your-
self?”
The old woman touched her eyeballs with the fin-
gers of both hands. “True, I's a little blind. No can
see far. But it was moonlight las' night. I's a-roamin'
on de grass when I see Miss Constance come out of de
side do' with her feet in the air. Can't make no mis-
take about dat.”
"How did you know it was Miss Constance, Aunty?”
"Well, I no could have took my oath befo' God dat
it was her, until dis morning when I hear she leave de
house in de middle of de night. Dere ain't nobody else
dat has gone away from here."
“That's right-nobody else,” agreed Joyce.
"She walk clump-clump, mighty hard, until she
reach de carriage drive. I run to my bed an' hide my-
self from such works of de Debbil.”
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Poison Case Number 10
As she talked, Inspector Joyce's mind had been
swiftly analyzing her amazing statements. Of course,
Constance Van Zanten had not left the Manor walking
on her hands. That idea was preposterous. The aging
spinster would have been incapable of gymnastics of
the kind, nor would she have had any reason for in-
dulging in them. But some one else might have had a
powerful motive for making it seem that she had de-
parted normally, for creating the footprints which had
convinced Joyce himself when he had examined them
that morning. The person in question must be a man;
a woman would have been able to put on Constance's
shoes, and do it simply. The man had resorted to plac-
ing his hands in the shoes and covering the distance to
the graveled drive in the manner Aunt Ellen had de-
scribed.
The sinister implication of this theory was only too
obvious. Constance Van Zanten had not gone away.
Yet she had disappeared. She, too, had been murdered,
and her body must be hidden somewhere on the
premises.
152


CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sunday—Tell-Tale Faces
ces
PISN
WHEN Joyce returned to the house after his unex-
pectedly long interview with Aunt Ellen, he found
Jimmy, Celestine Curtis and the Fawcetts just complet-
ing a haphazard meal. Since he had been monopoliz-
ing the time of the Negro Cook, the solemn and con-
ventional butler, Bucklestrope, had made the best of it
and put some dishes together. He now proceeded to
serve cornbeef hash and half-cold vegetables to Joyce,
with a slightly injured air.
The members of the household and Celestine drank
their coffee and excused themselves. The detective's
mood of the moment caused him to be well satisfied
that they should do so. He wanted time to think.
Before allowing his mind to probe, however, into the
intricacies of the evidence, he issued a curt order to
Bucklestrope.
“Phone Dr. Henkle,” he said. “Ask him to be here
by ten o'clock. Use the extension in the kitchen, so
that no one overhears you.”
: 153


Poison Case Number 10
Thereafter, Joyce ate slowly, lingering over his des-
sert and coffee, while he mused about the extraordinary
complications of the Van Zanten poison case.
He first appraised the mental condition of old
Nicholas Van Zanten, when the latter had come to his
office two days before. The man had been genuinely
terrified. Why? Because he had feared for his life,
and events had subsequently proved in ghastly fashion
that his suspicions had not been chimerical. He had
seen his niece Mary die in agony, and had been shrewd
enough to assume that a rapid poison had been ad-
ministered to her. This had caused him to think back
to the death of his brother George and to imagine that
he, also, had been murdered.
Nicholas apparently had not known what poisons
were employed, nor how they had been taken into the
systems of the victims. Yet he had failed even to hint
at the peculiar circumstance that an old Negress was
in the habit of mixing barbarous and totally unscien-
tific potions for himself and his family. He had evi-
dently not believed Aunt Ellen capable of doing harm,
intentionally or otherwise. Joyce was not prepared to
acquit her so easily, not at any rate until he had had
her nostrums analyzed.
Again, the deceased head of the house had been
154


Tell-Tale Faces
vague about the motive for the killings and had been
doubtful whom to suspect as the master plotter. He
had tried, unconvincingly, to make a case against Celes-
tine, as an upstart who wished to marry into the family
and get her hands quickly upon the million-dollar in-
heritance. Actually, he had seemed secretly to dread
that his son Jimmy was guilty. Yet he had failed to
mention that Jimmy was a medical student, with a
presumptive knowledge of poisons. There was simply
nothing that Van Zanten had done or said which
Would help in solving the mystery. The only testimony
he would now be able to give would be the silent testi-
mony of his post mortem. And the same, Joyce firmly
believed, was true of the vanished Constance.
Searching for a definite theory, Joyce told himself
that there were three main points at issue. First: what
was the object of the series of murders? Second: to
whom did the finger of suspicion now point? Third:
what lethal means were employed, and how?
It was increasingly clear that the object must be
the destruction of Van Zantens. All the Van Zantens
who had been living in the Manor a year ago? That
was not so sure. There was only one of them left now
—Jimmy—and the plot might well have reached its
climax. Joyce had been given to understand that, ex-
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Poison Case Number 10
cept for a small legacy to Fawcett, Jimmy was the sole
heir. Who then would benefit by Jimmy's death? No
one in this immediate circle, for Celestine could enjoy
his money by becoming his wife. There must exist,
all the same, an heir at law who would get the fortune
in case Jimmy perished before he had time to marry.
Joyce decided that he would insist on seeing Nicholas'
will, and also learn the identity of the next of kin. It
was by no means impossible that the holocaust was
being engineered, through an agent or agents, to bene-
fit some person whose name had not as yet been men-
tioned. In that case, an attempt would be made upon
Jimmy's life—and made quickly.
Going on the assumption, however, that the plot was
confined to residents of this house and their close asso-
ciates, who was most likely to be guilty? Jimmy Van
Zanten himself? Joyce admitted that on the known
facts it looked black for the boy. The latter's surly
resentment of an investigation did not inspire confi-
dence. His having charged Aunt Ellen with being the
poisoner meant very little. His real reason for the visit
to the chicken coop might have been to bully the
Negress, because she knew too much about what he
had done. Her loyalty in not accusing him, despite the
156


Poison Case Number 10
to account afterwards. The butler and the two maids
were hardly the type. The gardener, Andy Burns, ap-
peared to be too much of a moron to plot anything
subtle. The dour Mrs. Fawcett probably was guided
solely by what her husband instructed her to do.
Yes, it simmered down to Jimmy Van Zanten on his
own hook, Fawcett or Henkle for purposes of black-
mail, or old Aunt Ellen running wild with her infernal
obeah.
Joyce arose from the dining table at about half-past
nine. He was thinking now of Kay Carey, and wish-
ing he had not sent her on that wild goose chase to the
city. She could have been useful to him here. Mighty
useful in roping the suspects, and helping him to solve
the third and most important of the problems he had
posed. What poisons had been used, and how—and
when? He could form all the theories he pleased about
crimes and motives, but if he failed to prove the means
and the circumstances, there would be no conviction
for murder.
He had no line on where Kay was apt to be at the
present moment. But he first called up her home, and
as he had feared he did not get any information. The
girl was on the trail of the undiscoverable Constance,
and like a good operative she would forget family ties
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Tell-Tale Faces
until the chase was either ended or abandoned. How-
ever, she would keep in touch with the office. It was a
bit late for any of the important assistants to be at the
office, but Joyce took a chance, and while he was wait-
ing for his phone connection an idea occurred to him
that made him grin at one side of his mouth.
The phone was answered by a very intelligent de-
tective named Dennis Sullivan.
"Hey there, Dinny!" the chief said. "Can you tell
me where Miss Carey is?"
"Trying to locate Constance Van Zanten, Inspector."
"Yes, I know. But when did you last hear from
her?"
"She phoned from the Bali Missionary Society half
an hour ago, and said the woman had not been seen
there."
"Good. She'll sure call again. Stick around for it.
Now get this. . . ." Joyce quit speaking the English
language, and substituted for it a strange collection of
syllables which but slightly suggested any known
tongue. He lowered his voice and constructed his
phrases slowly. An eavesdropper would have recog-
nized only the occasional use of the name, "Kay." The
jargon was an invention of Joyce for communicating
with his men in emergencies.
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Poison Case Number 10
Sullivan, at the other end of the wire, answered:
"Okay, Inspector! I get you."
He had no sooner hungup than Joyce heard the front
door open, and the bombastic voice of Dr. Alphonse
Henkle reached all the rooms on the lower floor in a
volley of greetings and optimistic remarks, which
swelled almost to the proportions of an uproar.
The detective walked quickly to the parlor, where he
found the young people and Fawcett exchanging trivi-
alities with the doctor. He nodded brusquely.
"How are you, Mr. Joyce?" cried Henkle. "But I
need not ask. You look in the pink of condition—Oh,
very well indeed! Now—er—what can I do for you?
I understand from the worthy Bucklestrope that it was
you who requested my presence here."
Fawcett pursed his lips, and an expression of anger
flashed across Jimmy's face. Neither of them liked to
hear that a step had been taken without their knowl-
edge. Joyce could have cuffed Henkle for springing
his line about the butler so tactlessly. But it really
didn't matter. He was getting a group together for a
purpose, which he was willing to bet they would find
it impossible to penetrate.
"That's right, Doctor. I've some questions I want
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Tell-Tale Faces
to ask you in the presence of these folks," he said
coolly.
Henkle looked uncomfortable, but replied: "I shall
be glad to give any information that may help in this
sad case. That is to say, so long as—er—I am not asked
to violate my professional ethics."
"You needn't worry. This is going to be painless. I
want your angle on the fact that the old black cook
here has been dosing the family for years with mys-
terious herb teas. And, mind you, she's a voodooist."
Joyce purposely avoided the term "obeah," since it in-
volved a shade of meaning unfamiliar to most
Americans.
"Are you sure? Why, this is preposterous!" ex-
claimed Henkle theatrically.
Fawcett wagged his large head, and smiled. "So you
are on to Aunt Ellen's childish superstitions! Is that
what you were talking about to her this afternoon?
I'd have mentioned her herb remedies myself, if I'd
thought them important."
Ignoring the estate manager for the moment, Joyce
concentrated on Henkle: "Are you trying to tell me
you did not know that the woman prepared such
draughts?"
"I said nothing of the kind. Of course, I knew it.
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Poison Case Number 10
But it never occurred to me that she might be practic-
ing voodooism."
"Whether she did or didn't may not cut any ice.
Voodoo is only a name. What I'm chiefly after is this:
what did you think of your friends actually swallowing
the stuff?"
"I disapproved, sir. Any doctor would."
"Did you try to prevent it?"
"I gave my advice to that effect. But—er—that is
about all one can do with wealthy patients. They
have the habit of behaving as they please."
"Did you ever look into the nature of the mixtures—
ever analyze them?"
"N-no."
"Then all I can say is, you're a poor excuse for a
family physician. The cook may be a dangerous faker,
and you should have checked that up."
Henkle looked extremely crestfallen. Joyce swung
around to Fawcett:
"What about you? Did you ever test 'em?"
"A few times," the manager replied tranquilly. "I
poured out some of the horrid stuff my poor old friend
Nicholas was going to drink, and tried it on a dog.
On another occasion, I poured it down the throat of
a chicken. Neither of them came to any harm."
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Tell-Tale Faces
"Well, that was one way of doing it. Better than
nothing, I'll say!” Joyce extracted a wisp of dried herb
at random from his pocket and showed it to the doctor.
"What plant would you say that was?” he demanded.
"I-I really don't know," answered Henkle, after
he had stared at it somewhat helplessly. “I am not a
botanist.”
“And you, Mr. Fawcett? Can you give a name to
it? It's one of Aunt Ellen's favorite samples.”
Fawcett took the sample, and used his thick gar-
dener's fingers to straighten out the withered leaves
with extraordinary delicacy.
“Why, it's common dandelion,” he announced. “I
guess old women in all parts of the world make dan-
delion tea."
Joyce smiled, and put the herb back into his pocket.
This line of questioning was killing time beautifully,
but wasn't leading anywhere in particular. He took
a surreptitious glance at the clock.
“I now want you to call Mrs. Fawcett and the serv-
ants in here,” he said.
“All of them, Inspector?” inquired the manager, his
countenance expressing a vague amusement.
“All except Aunt Ellen. Let's see; there's Andy
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Poison Case Number 10
Burns, your assistant, and the butler, and the two maids
Pearl and Sally. Be good enough to round 'em up."
Fawcett went in search of his wife, and presently the
drab woman returned with him, and followed by the
four astonished domestics. They stood in a row by
the door and gazed at the detective with various de-
grees of alarm at this sudden inquisition.
Joyce patiently asked them, one by one, whether they
had ever taken potions prepared by the ancient Negress,
either as remedies or good-luck stimulants. He figured
that Aunt Ellen's practices were no secret in this house,
and that it would do more good than harm to create
the impression that his suspicions were becoming cen-
tered upon her. If some one else were guilty, it might
make that person careless in covering up his tracks.
The replies were diverting, and a commentary on the
unreasoned contradictions of human nature. All the
witnesses except Andy Burns admitted that, more or
less, they had been patients of the obeah woman. The
coarse-featured gardener simply made a gesture of con-
tempt, and grunted:
"Such truck don't fool me."
Surprisingly, Sarah Fawcett was galvanized out of
her customary reticence and expressed an earnest faith
in the virtues of the nostrums.
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Tell-Tale Faces
"Doctors don't know it all,” she said. “The old-
fashioned healers, whether they be white or black, have
done a lot of good in this world and saved many a
mortal from the grave. I've often been helped by Aunt
Ellen. Her teas seemed to cheer me up, and they cured
my palpitation of the heart five years ago.”
Dr. Henkle shook his head, and made absurd gestures
with his hands. But it was at Fawcett's face that Joyce
glanced, following this declaration. The estate man-
ager continued to smile. Known to be a scoffer at
obeah, he nevertheless seemed utterly tolerant of his
wife's fancies.
Pearl and Sally declared with a certain embarrass-
ment that they had allowed themselves to be talked
into trying drinks, which Aunt Ellen had promised
would bring them rich husbands. No bad effects had
resulted, but they were still unwed.
The case of Bucklestrope, the portentous butler, was
a shade more humorous. His body quivered unhappily
when it became his turn to answer. No one could fail
to see that the forced confession was doing grievous
things to his dignity. He held up two fingers.
“Twice since I have served in this home, Inspector
Joyce-twice in sixteen years—I listened to that igno
rant Jamaican cook and imbibed her nasty doses."
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Poison Case Number 10
"Well, why did you do it?"
"She said they would cure me of the blues."
"And did they?"
"I experienced no symptoms, pleasant or otherwise,
sir," replied Bucklestrope dolefully.
Now that he had heard from all of them, Joyce was
forced to acknowledge that the evidence was not in
itself conclusive. These people had received non-
poisonous drinks at Aunt Ellen's hands, but that fact
did not by any means prove that she lacked the knowl-
edge to mix a lethal draught when the circumstances
appeared, in her warped brain, to demand one.
The detective abruptly addressed himself to Jimmy's
fiancee, Celestine Curtis. The girl had been leaning
against the mantel-piece, smoking cigarettes in her free,
modern way and listening with intense interest to the
rapid-fire dialogue. It was evident that she had never
before seen and heard a crime-hunter at work, and the
mere fact of being present gave her a thrill.
"You're the only person I haven't asked about this,"
Joyce said. "Did you ever experiment with the magic
tea, Miss Curtis?"
She brought her head around with a quick, graceful
motion that shook her virile blond hair into her eyes.
166


Tell-Tale Faces
"Golly, no, Inspector Joyce! I keep in training, and I
wouldn't take a chance on crazy mixtures."
"Well, you've heard of Aunt Ellen's doings, haven't
you?"
"Sure. They made Jimmy mad, but I thought they
were funny. I'm a newcomer around here, anyway."
At that moment, the telephone in the hall rang. It
was what Joyce had been waiting for, providing the call
was for him. As Bucklestrope moved out to answer
it, the detective went right on talking to Celestine. He
spun out a long speech, without real significance, about
the superstitions of West Indian Negroes. All he
wanted was to hold the girl in conversation, so that in
a moment it would seem natural to make a certain
request of her.
Bucklestrope returned to the doorway and an-
nounced: "It's a call from your office, Mr. Joyce."
"Oh, is it? I wonder whether you'd mind taking the
message for me, Miss Curtis. I'll come to the phone,
if there's anything important. But I'd rather dodge a
long routine report."
"You bet, Inspector," cried Celestine, and dashed
with her smooth athlete's gait into the hallway.
She was heard to pick up the receiver and say:
"Hello! The Inspector wants you to give me the mes-
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Poison Case Number 10
sage." A brief pause followed. Then Celestine gasped,
exclaimed: "What? What? Are you sure?" jiggled
the hook as if she had lost the connection, and finally
hung up. She came back into the room, her eyes
snapping.
"Your man just slung a few words at me and got off
the wire. It's a short message, but it's a darned im-
portant one to us, Inspector."
"Well, go ahead and repeat it," said Joyce casually.
"I don't object to any one present knowing, since you
happened to get it first."
"Your daughter has found Miss Constance Van Zan-
ten in the city. She's going to bring her back here, the
first thing tomorrow morning."
As this preposterous and totally untrue piece of news
was launched, Joyce's eyes swept the circle of faces with
a lightning-fast glance. He had arranged with his as-
sistant, Sullivan, to telephone the canard the moment
Kay actually communicated with the office and re-
ceived her instructions to come out in the morning,
alone. The fact that she would arrive without the
missing spinster could be then explained to the house-
hold, on the grounds that she had blundered into mak-
ing a false identification.
But the hoax had its purpose for this evening. It
168


Poison Case Number 10
Jimmy, who had not uttered a word at that session,
parted his lips to say something, but checked the im-
pulse visibly. His complexion always chalky, seemed
unusually white. He dropped a meerschaum pipe he
had been smoking, and it smashed to splinters on the
floor.
“Jimmy Van Zanten,” Joyce told himself grimly,
“looks as guilty as hell."
170


CHAPTER TWELVE
Monday—A Verdict from Headquarters
So busy had Joyce been since he first heard the tale of
the person who had walked upside down from Van
Zanten Manor at the dead of night, there had been no
time to search for the clues that instantly suggested
themselves to his mind. Of prime importance was the
body of Constance, which almost certainly had been
disposed of within the house or in the grounds nearby.
The crafty murderer had doubtless hidden it well, but
a detective who could not count on locating it would
not be worth his salt. Contributory evidence, such as
the shoes into which the miscreant had forced his
hands, and which should carry finger-prints, also
would be of great value in building up the case.
When he was finished with the group in the parlor,
therefore—after he had observed the effects of the false
message about the return of Constance—Joyce went
upstairs to scrutinize the vanished spinster's room from
a new viewpoint.
On his way, he looked in at the bedroom where
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Poison Case Number 10
Nicholas Van Zanten had died. A uniformed police-
man, horribly bored, was seated there with his arms
folded. Nobody had paid the least attention to him,
except to bring him his meals, for more than twenty-
four hours. Because of the remoteness of the Manor,
he had not even been relieved at the proper time, and
had dozed as well as he could in an armchair.
It is a wise rule of the Police Department to station
a sentry at any spot where a death which may have
been homicide has occurred. The object is to prevent
possibly important evidence from being tampered with.
The duty is one that the average patrolman dreads, on
account of its monotony. Only after the detectives on
the case are satisfied that they have noted all the clues
is the guard removed.
Joyce said: "Tim Cavanagh, isn't it? How are ya,
Tim?"
The oldish policeman sprang to attention. He was
not obliged to do this for a civilian, but such was the
legendary fame Inspector Joyce left behind him in the
Department, that the veterans still thought of him as
their superior officer.
"I'm fine and dandy, Inspector," Cavanagh an-
swered untruthfully. He was so tired, he could have
fallen asleep on his feet.
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A Verdict from Headquarters
"You were here the whole of last night, and real wide
awake, I guess, for the first lap of this punk assign-
ment," continued Joyce shrewdly. "I'm wondering
whether you heard any funny business in a room across
the hall, from twelve o'clock on."
Cavanagh ruminated. "There was footsteps some
time between four and five. Nothing much. A door
opened kinda soft, and a couple of people walked to-
wards the back stairs."
"You're sure it was two persons?"
"I wouldn't swear to it. But it was more than one.
These folks haven't been put under surveillance, and it
wasn't up to me to snoop. So I stuck right here."
"Correct. You didn't hear voices, or anything like
that?"
"N-no! But I tell you what. Some pet dogs in a room
started to yap—you know, squeaky little barks, the way
them silly beasts do. They were choked off quick. I
figured they'd been shoved into another room, but one of
them let outa short howl first, as if it had been kicked."
"Great, Officer, great!" exclaimed Joyce. "That's
more dope than I expected to pick up from you."
As he turned away and headed for Constance's room,
he considered that two or three highly important points
had been established. There had been no struggle in
173


Poison Case Number 10
connection with the killing of the woman. He had al-
ready anticipated that angle. Since poison was the
favored weapon in this house, the supper which she
had taken alone probably had been doctored. The per-
son, or persons, who had come for her had come merely
to remove a corpse. Joyce felt that Cavanagh's impres-
sion that two had walked down the hall was not nec-
essarily accurate; a single individual struggling along
with an inert body would sound like a couple of men.
Still, there might have been a confederate. The deed,
in view of the presence of a policeman in an adjoining
room, had been daring, say what one pleased!
The matter of the dogs struck him as being especially
interesting. That morning, he had noticed two of the
spinster's obnoxious poodles running free in her room.
Neither of them had showed signs of having been
kicked. But there might have been a third one, which
had later been knocked on the head to conceal its in-
juries, or removed to the kennels behind the kitchen.
He must look the beasts over. All the poodles were
in the kennels now. He had seen Fawcett during the
afternoon throw the two abandoned ones in there.
That it had been possible to kick a dog in Con-
stance's room was additional proof, Joyce thought, that
the woman was dead or unconscious at the time.
*74


A Verdict from Headquarters
Otherwise, she would have squawked to Heaven at
seeing her beloved pet hurt.
He proceeded to examine the ground with all but
super-human thoroughness. Constance's bed had been
made up by the maid, which was a pity, for it might
have furnished valuable hints. The nap of the carpet
studied through a magnifying glass gave proof of hav-
ing been trampled by hobnailed boots to which sandy
soil had been clinging. The tracks had been partially
erased, by means of a brush having been passed over
them. For the rest, there was nothing to indicate who the
intruder had been. The valise which had been taken
away to give color to her supposed flight had been
packed with a sure hand, which had been careful not to
touch any toilet articles save those that were to go into it.
The shoes employed for the making of the false
tracks were nowhere to be found. This did not sur-
prise Joyce, because any murderer with the cunning
that this one had displayed would probably hide the
shoes as effectively as he had had to conceal the valise
and the clothes Constance was presumed to have worn.
It became, then, a question of searching for the body
itself. That was a fairly hopeless task at night, in the
great rambling house, with its outbuildings, its garden
and the broad fields where a grave might so easily have
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A Verdict from Headquarters
leave the Manor at your convenience. You will, of course,
send us a bill for services rendered, and it will be paid."
The detective boiled. Three times since old Nicholas
Van Zanten had originally sought him out, he had tried
to side-step the whole affair. Now he'd be damned if
he'd let himself be kicked out of it! He had made too
much progress toward piecing together the scattered
fragments of a truly amazing puzzle. The dossier of
this "Poison Case No. 10" was destined to go into his
files endorsed "Solved," or he'd know the reason why.
"Fired, eh?" he answered with savage sarcasm. "A
contract's a contract, you young shrimp. You were
only asked to countersign, any way, to witness your
guardian's signature. You can't bounce me."
He turned toward Fawcett. But the latter was
frowning, nibbling at his lower lip, and unaccountably
no longer beaming at the world through his bright
hazel eyes.
"I'm afraid I'll have to uphold Jimmy in this and
cancel the paper I gave you on my own account, In-
spector," he declared solemnly.
As quickly as his anger had flared up, Joyce switched
to a Macchiavellian craft. "Well, put it in writing,
too," he said carelessly. "You seem a sensible man,
Fawcett, so I hope you know just what you're doing."
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Poison Case Number 10
"We have come to the conclusion that it's undignified
to have any but the regular police here," stated Fawcett,
brightening.
"Undignified!" repeated Joyce, genuinely amused.
"How come?"
"I think I'd better let Jimmy reply to that."
It did not escape Joyce that this guardian, who had
made firm decisions on other occasions, was now oddly
deferential to the boy.
"Sure, I'll telj you what's in my mind," agreed Jimmy
truculently. "That girl you've been calling your daugh-
ter is a detective working under you. When I heard
last night that she was bringing Aunt Connie back, I
got on to it right away. I phoned your office after
you'd gone upstairs, and asked for 'Kay,' as if she'd
been a friend of mine. They told me 'Miss Carey'
wasn't there. I thought it damned offensive that you'd
fool us on a detail of that sort."
Joyce wondered whether the other really did not
understand the nature of the previous night's subter-
fuge, or whether he was doing some creditable acting.
Aloud, he said:
"So it's your opinion that I shouldn't use undercover
agents when I'm investigating what looks like a series
of the foulest murders ever committed?"
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A Verdict from Headquarters
Jimmy winced. "I object to being surrounded by
spies when I don't have to be. The Police Department
detectives can go as far as they please, and I'll know
who I'm dealing with."
"Is that all ?" asked Joyce. He commented to himself
that by dropping a few words at Centre Street about the
taking off of Constance, he could become as big a factor
in the case as he chose to demand.
"No, it's not all. You've been walking around sus-
pecting me of murdering my father. You've let me see
that you do."
"How so, young feller?"
"The way you talked to me yesterday afternoon,
when you butted in on my argument with the cook. I
was a fool to stand for it."
"The Inspector is not to be blamed for having tried
to get at the truth," interrupted Fawcett, his sugared
tones conveying a spirit of large toleration. "But he
has been free with his suspicions. I'm sure he has sus-
pected me, also."
Joyce was about to say something, but Fawcett turned
to him before he could speak. "Yes, you have, Inspec-
tor. I haven't resented it, because it was so—so inevi-
table. Here I was, the manager of this property, and
179


Poison Case Number 10
my employers dying one after the other. Yet I had
nothing to gain by their deaths."
-"I'm doing the resenting," declared Jimmy. "The
matter is settled. Joyce goes. Then we'll fetch the
body of my father home, and give it decent burial no
later than tomorrow."
The idea of overruling the officials at the morgue
was a bit pathetic, but Joyce refrained from saying so.
He merely asked:
"Got any other plans?"
"Bet your life I have. I'm going to have that black
witch doctress arrested today, charged with murdering
Dad and trying to wipe out my whole family."
This was awkward, Joyce reflected. It would gum
up his plans for a logical solution if Aunt Ellen were
accused now. Under pressure, she would make dam-
aging admissions about herself. The newspapers would
call her a voodooist, and she might easily be railroaded
to the electric chair without the real truth ever becom-
ing known. But there was no way to halt her arrest,
if Jimmy carried out his threat of asking for it
promptly. Joyce's anger began to rise again. He thrust
his clenched fists into his trousers pockets and strode
over to the nearest window to get a breath of fresh air.
He found himself looking down the driveway to the
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A Verdict from Headquarters
gate. A taxi was speeding toward the house. He
wondered whom it was bringing. Kay, perhaps? Or
a man from the District Attorney's office? An official
from Headquarters would have been likely to come in
a P.D. car.
A few minutes later, a young man got out and ran
up the steps. Joyce saw that it was his son Tom. Pretty
quick action, he thought, for Tom to be here already.
He must have something significant to report. The de-
tective waited impassively until he was shown in, and
then introduced him to Fawcett and Jimmy.
"These are the chief interested parties, Tom," he
remarked. The harmless words constituted a code, and
meant that reserve instead of frankness was desirable in
their presence. With no preliminary explanation, there-
fore, Tom took two letters from his pocket and handed
them to his father.
Joyce's face registered no emotions as he read first
one letter and then the other. The curious eyes of his
unwilling hosts were fastened upon him, but he ignored
them until he had finished both missives. Finally, he
looked up.
"I have here a confidential memo from Dr. Allison
Swift, the police surgeon who did the first autopsy on
Mr. Van Zanten," he announced. "You'll remember
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Poison Case Number 10
he said yesterday that death might have been caused
by 'some unknown poison.' Well, Doc Swift is one of
the finest analysts in the business, as well as a surgeon.
He's worked twelve solid hours on the contents of the
stomach and intestines, and it isn't guesswork any
longer. He now knows why the old gentleman died."
Despite his recent bold front, Jimmy began to trem-
ble. He wet his lips with his tongue, and said nothing.
Fawcett spoke up, with a touch of irritation:
"Aren't you being melodramatic, Inspector? Why
don't you let us have the verdict?"
"Nicholas Van Zanten was poisoned, according to
Dr. Swift's findings. And I want to add that there isn't
the slightest reason for believing that he committed
suicide."
"What was the poison?"
"Aconitine. Swift's explanation is very technical, but
I'll give you the gist of it." Joyce selected phrases from
the memorandum, in preference to offering a simplified
version. He glanced frequently from the page to the
distressed countenances of Fawcett and Jimmy. Both
of them, he observed, seemed horror-stricken at what
they heard, but only Jimmy was frightened.
"Pure aconitine is the most violent poison known.
One-fiftieth of a grain can be fatal, but the average
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Poison Case Number 10
Nicholas Van Zanten's body. I guess you realize what
that proves."
"It proves so little that I'm surprised at you for getting
excited about it, Inspector," said Fawcett calmly. “No
jury is going to be convinced by such a round-about ar-
gument, unless it can be shown that the poison you men-
tion had been brought into this house, and by whom.”
“It could have been fed to him by Aunt Ellen," cried
Jimmy shrilly.
“Nonsense,” countered Fawcett. “Where would that
ignorant old woman get hold of such a rare chemical
preparation as aconitine?”
"If the police advance this theory of poisoning, let
them furnish the evidence,” Jimmy shouted hysterically.
“Anyway, it's not Inspector Joyce's worry. He's out.”
"Just a minute. I'd like to read you the second letter
my son brought me,” Joyce challenged.
They stared at him. Both were on the verge of in-
solence, the one bored and the other exasperated.
"It's from Police Commissioner Edmund D. Gilhoo-
ley, and it's quite a short letter. It says: Michael Joyce,
of 209-22 Broadway, New York, N. Y., is hereby ap-
pointed a special deputy in full charge of investigating
the alleged homicide, or homicides, at Van Zanten
Manor, Borough of Richmond, City of New York.'”
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Secrets of Van Zanten Manor
you brought help a lot. Suppose you give me a report
on what's been stirring at your end."
"As soon as Kay reached the office yesterday after-
noon with your instructions, I went right to work
checking up the sales of poisons, Dad. I was at it most
of the night. I telephoned to every drug store in Staten
Island. Then I came over here and had personal inter-
views with the druggists in St. George, Tompkinsville,
Stapleton and Port Richmond. I kept after them until
the last pharmacy closed at three o'clock this morning."
"What did you learn, son?"
"The records were in good order, and not one of the
drug stores had sold poisons, on prescription or other-
wise, to anybody living in this house."
Joyce's face fell. But he commented: "If we'd lined
up the evidence that way, it would have been too easy.
The murderer is a cunning divil, and he likely bought
his stuff in the city, or in another State."
"I've set operatives to work all over, including Jersey
and Connecticut."
"That's fine. Now, give me the dope on Doc Swift's
analysis and the letter from the Commissioner. How
did you get 'em?"
"After I was through with the Staten Island drug-
gists this morning, I figured that Swift would have
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Secrets o£ Van Zanten Manor
out!" he roared. "If I catch any of you snooping around
the grounds, I'll have you jailed. I'm not answering
questions, d'ye hear ?—not till I pass the word for you
to come back. That's final!"
The discomfited sensation hounds of the press took
their departure silently. But as a desperate gesture of
devotion to duty, a tab photographer raised his camera
and snapped a picture of the special deputy. Joyce
grinned faintly, and let him get away with it.
Inside the house, he spoke to the men from the homi-
cide squad: "I'll have assignments for you soon. Mean-
while, keep an eye on the people living here, including
the servants. See that nobody leaves. You can get in
touch with the patrolman on guard upstairs, and if you
can pick up any clues in the room where Nicholas Van
Zanten died, why so much the better."
Alone with Tom, he gave the youngster a swift re-
capitulation of the developments in the case since Kay
had left for town the preceding afternoon. He stressed
mainly the virtual certainty that Constance, supposed
to be in hiding, was the latest victim of a wholesale
murder plot, and the bearing that Aunt Ellen's lurid
story had upon this.
"You see, Tom, the authorities know of only one
death," he explained, "the death of the old man, which
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Poison Case Number 10
happened in such a way that it got on to the police
blotter. Until I tell 'em, they won't be searching for
the woman. And unless I ask it, the notion of ex-
huming the bodies of George and Mary Van Zanten, as
possible poison victims, isn't likely to hit them.
"Now, these flatfeet they've sent me—I'm not going
to turn 'em loose on any hunt for Constance. I'll let
'em mark time, because I think we can solve the puzzle
ourselves. I'm working up a plan, which maybe we
can put across tonight. You can be of help. I want
you here by eight o'clock, but put in the rest of the day
checking up the Staten Island druggists you haven't
yet visited."
"No matter how many persons we prove have been
poisoned, we can't go into court unless we show where
the poisons came from. That's certain," said Tom,
without originality.
"Yeah."
"But something else strikes me. If two have been
killed since you were brought out here, the murderer
is the kind who'll stop at nothing. I'd say you were in
danger of being poisoned yourself, Dad."
"Now you're talking. I'd thought of that, and I'm
watching my step. But there isn't a whole lot I can do
to protect myself, when I'm forced to eat the food they
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Secrets of Van Zanten Manor
give me. Detective work is like war, Tom. You've got
to take chances."
"Of course, the point I'm most curious about is, who
do you think's guilty?"
Joyce sketched the characters of the chief figures in
the mystery, as well as the arguments for and against
their importance as suspects. He concluded with the
statement:
"That young Jimmy, Fawcett and Dr. Henkle are
the likeliest, in the order named, but nothing much to
choose among them. The Negress is a strong pos-
sibility, too."
"Without having met him, I'd pick the doctor."
"Why?"
"He seems phoney. He signed the first two death
certificates on flimsy grounds. As a physician, he could
write his own prescriptions for poisons, or buy them by
mail from a wholesale chemical firm."
"When you reach my age, you won't do such honor
to simple circumstantial evidence. It has fooled many
a detective. I was talking wild in going as far as I did
in naming names. Hell, anybody may be guilty! It's
always so with murder, up to the moment when you
nick your man. In this case, I'd be willing to bet
money on the innocence of only one person—the girl
193


Poison Case Number 10
Celestine Curtis. She's not the type, if I know any-
thing about poisoners."
Tom nodded his head sagely, and prepared to leave.
Joyce took from his pockets a strange diversity of ob-
jects, comprising the samples of dried herbs he had
obtained from Aunt Ellen, the phials filled with her
brews and a small tissue paper package with a rubber
band around it.
"There's a good chemical laboratory in Stapleton,"
he said. "Look it up. Have these leaves and the con-
tents of the bottles analyzed for poisons. In the pack-
age you'll find paraffin molds of two keys. Get the
keys made on a rush job, and be sure to bring them
with you tonight."
After his son had gone, Joyce fell to wondering why
Kay hadn't arrived yet. He'd have liked to talk the
new stuff over with her. He found himself more and
more relying upon Kay for a certain psychic lift, which
helped him to clear up knotty problems in his own
mind.
But there was plenty for him to right then. He
walked through the garden, where Fawcett and Andy
Burns were working with a sulky concentration to
mark their resentment of the fact that they were under
police surveillance. Joyce did not speak to them, but
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Secrets of Van Zanten Manor
unceremoniously looked the ground over for an en-
trance to a subterranean chamber, or any recent dis-
turbance of the soil on a large scale. As had been the
case the afternoon before, he was unable to discover
anything out of the way.
He then went over to the dog kennels and examined
the two poodles, the three spaniels and the single old
black pomeranian which had formed Constance Van
Zanten's menagerie. None of the beasts showed in-
juries resulting from a kick, but that did not prove a
whole lot. Catching sight of the maid Sally, Joyce
called her over.
"How many dogs does Miss Constance have?" he
asked.
"Seven, sir."
"How many poodles?"
"Three."
"There are only two here."
"I guess she took the third one with her, sir."
"I see," remarked Joyce, keeping his opinion to him-
self. Perhaps the third poodle had been killed and its
body done away with, at the same time that its mis-
tress had met her end. But why?
The sound of a car's wheels crunching the gravel
of the driveway took him back to the front of the
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Poison Case Number 10
house. He found Kay just about to ring the doorbell,
and he chuckled with pleasure at the sight of her.
"Good morning, Inspector. Here I am empty-
handed," she greeted him.
"How did you lose the prisoner that Dinny Sullivan
phoned me last night you were bringing in handcuffs?"
he demanded, with mock severity.
"Sure, she gave me the slip and jumped, handcuffs
and all, from the Staten Island ferryboat coming over.
It's drowned she was," answered Kay, who often talked
Irish to her boss when they were kidding.
Joyce laughed, and shoved her lightly away from
him with one of his great fists. But there were serious
matters to be discussed, and his tone sobered as he
went on:
"I'm sorry I sent you off on a wild-goose chase, all
the same. Things have been breaking here. I guess
old Constance was murdered, too."
"Really, Inspector?"
"Yes, and"
He did not complete the sentence, for at that moment
there materialized, apparently from nowhere, the
colorless figure of the Sheriff, G. Borden Symes. He
was dressed in a gray tweed suit, which although of
fairly good material resulted, somehow, in making him
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Secrets of Van Zanten Manor
look a very unimportant person at whom nobody
would glance twice. He wore a cap of the same color,
which subtly placed him in a low rank of the social
order. He appeared to be a minor salesman, or per-
haps a worthy mechanic out of a job. His face was
expressionless, yet not cryptic. He looked just plain
ordinary. Under his arm, he carried an unwrapped
box of cigars.
His unobtrusive arrival was incomprehensible, but
it was typical of Symes. Joyce did not trouble to ask
him whether he had sneaked through the shrubbery,
or how he had come.
"I have a report for you, Inspector. Lucky I found
you here, instead of having to give the servants a story,"
the Sheriff murmured.
"You don't need to gum-shoe any longer to see me,
Mr. Symes. Commissioner Gilhooley has appointed
me a special deputy in charge of this case."
"Oh!" he replied, as if an event of the kind were
quite common.
"Well, let's go indoors and hear what you have to
tell."
Joyce led the other two to the parlor and closed the
door behind him. Symes placed his box of cigars care-
fully on a table.
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Poison Case Number 10
"What's the idea of the smokes?" the chief asked.
“I bought them in town last night before coming
over to the Island. They're five-centers. A good
cover, in talking to storekeepers. I pretended I was
taking orders for cigars, and every so often I'd give one
away.”
Joyce smiled. “Did you get any real dirt on the Van
Zantens?”
“So-so.”
“Spill it.”
"The tradespeople in St. George and Stapleton-
grocers, butchers, laundrymen, icemen and so forth-
think that the whole family is sort of crazy,” declared
the Sheriff, who was quite capable of making a long
and clear speech when the occasion called for it.
"They are stingy with their money, and they've never
encouraged the neighbors to be friends. The old man
Nicholas and his late brother George hated the sister
Constance; they'd burst out quarreling with her some-
times in the Ferry Building, when they were all on the
way to New York. If she had been the first to die,
every one would have believed she'd been murdered.
Around St. George they say, too, that these Van Zan-
tens were nuts to have a half-wild Negress as a cook
for twenty-five years. They say the old darky has
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Secrets of Van Zanten Manor
been known to walk up and down the lawn the entire
night, singing."
"That isn't very hot. Your only important point is
that Nicholas and George made a public scandal of
their grudge against the sister," observed Joyce, whose
mind played for a moment with the notion that Con-
stance had killed for vengeance, and then had en-
gineered her own disappearance cleverly.
"Well, I may dig up more later. I was out for dope
on the Fawcetts, Dr. Henkle and Miss Curtis, too."
"What did you learn about them?"
"The Fawcetts are well liked. It appears that Van
Zanten met them when he was traveling through Texas
more than twenty years ago and brought them North
with him. Their original home town was Hillsboro,
near Dallas."
"Swell. We'll set the machinery to work, to get a
report on them from my Dallas agents."
"Dr. Henkle is a flop in his profession," continued the
Sheriff imperturbably. "The Van Zantens are his best
patients, and they've been given to hanging him up—
slow pay. Five years ago, he invested a thousand dol-
lars in stocks on George Van Zanten's advice, and
lost it."
"The hell you say!" exclaimed Joyce. He glanced
*99


CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Monday—Ghoulish Business
A t ten o'clock that Monday night, the fourth day of
his service on the Van Zanten poison case, Inspector
Joyce summoned the members of his staff and the three
detectives assigned to him from the Homicide Squad,
to receive orders. They met in the parlor behind
closed doors. He addressed himself first—and briefly
—to the city dicks.
"Hennesey, Heinholtz, Boyle," he said, "I'm going
to follow up a hot lead. My own men will be all I'll
need, but I've got special work for you. Until we come
back, I want you to stand close guard over the persons
living in this house. I prefer not to place any of them
under arrest just yet. They've got to be prevented,
though, from snooping after me to see what I'm doing.
Hennesey, you'll watch the chicken coop in the yard,
where the old Negro woman sleeps. Heinholtz can
take the general servants' quarters, and Boyle the cor-
ridor upstairs where young Mr. Van Zanten and Faw-
cett have their bedrooms. If a single one of 'em tries
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Poison Case Number 10
to go out of doors, warn him back to bed without an
explanation. In case of an argument, take the neces-
sary measures. Savvy?"
"Yes, Inspector," replied the well-trained detectives
in chorus.
"Okay! Hop to it. But Hennesey, before you go to
your post, dig me up some screw drivers of assorted
sizes, a small crowbar and a lantern. You should be
able to find them in the tool room in the basement.
Bring them to me here."
The men went out, their impassive faces a mask for
their secret curiosity.
Joyce turned to his son, the Sheriff and Kay. "You
had those keys made ail right, didn't you, Tom?"
"You bet, Dad." The young fellow handed over a
couple of old-fashioned keys, each about four inches
long, which the Inspector slipped into his trousers
pocket.
"You'll be wondering what dirty work I've got for
you," remarked Joyce.
"I know," said Kay in a low voice. The blood re-
ceded from her face and left her pale.
"I guess you do, girl. But I'll not be asking you to
take part in it. Tom and Mr. Symes were not with us
when we visited the Van Zanten vault." He cleared his
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Ghoulish Business
throat, and glanced at the men. "The bodies of the
uncle and the niece—you remember—were laid away
in a private vault on this estate. I feel pretty sure now
that they were both poisoned, and I'm going to take a
look at them."
Neither of his assistants flinched. They simply
nodded. Propositions like this were in the line of
business.
"Of course, such a move is extra-legal," he con-
tinued. "I ought by rights to get a permit from the
Board of Health, and since Fawcett as guardian and
executor of the will is still a free man, he should be
asked to sign the request. You can figure how long
all the red tape would hold us up. I want some live
evidence quick. If we flop on finding it, I'll keep mum
about what we've done and demand a real post mortem
later on."
"I did something like that myself once, when I was
Sheriff of Algonquin County," observed Symes. "I
had two of my deputies exhume the corpse of a motion
picture actor who had been buried in a Potter's Field.
Nasty work, but it brought about a conviction for
murder."
"Yeah. On a big-time investigation, one can't al-
ways keep strictly within the law."
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Poison Case Number 10
Kay had bent her head over a table, and was tracing
patterns with her finger-tip on its surface. "I want to
go along with you," she announced.
"What?" Joyce started. "I'll say not. You don't
know what it means to open coffins, Kay girl."
"If I'm to learn to be a good detective, I can't balk
at anything," she argued. "You could trust me to see
this through, Inspector, without disgracing you."
"Better not. Some other time," he answered a bit
sharply.
She hesitated, then said: "You'll need a lookout, and
you haven't arranged for one. Why not let me stay
just outside the vault?"
"Well, by all the saints, you're a persistent little
divil! Hanged if I don't love you for it. We'll call it
a bargain, Kay. You can come as the lookout, and it's
a good idea at that."
Tom's lips were set in a thin line of disapproval, but
he did not venture to criticize at a moment when they
were about to start on a ticklish job.
A silence fell, while they waited for the return of
Hennesey with the tools. Kay broke it, by comment-
ing:
"I can't reconcile myself to Celestine Curtis as a sus-
pect. No matter how bad her ancestry was, she's no
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Ghoulish Business
criminal moron. How can we say a healthy, athletic
girl like her is not chiefly a product of the mother's
side of the family?"
"We don't say it," retorted Joyce, "but we've got to
be shown. I'm not altogether sold on the heredity stuff
in accounting for crime. Lombroso and some other
big guys have believed in it, and it's not to be laughed
off. That Celestine needs money so badly makes it
look twice as black for her. I'll admit, though, that this
whole angle on the case is a big shock."
"I'm astonished that Nicholas Van Zanten didn't tell
you that her father had died in the chair."
"It's damned funny. Maybe the fact didn't cut any
ice with him, any more than it does with Jimmy who's
set on marrying her. All the old man could think
about was her social errors and her cigarette smoking.
Morbid eccentrics, that's what the Van Zantens are.
You can't figure them. I'm going to worry here-
after only about cold evidence that can be proved."
They exchanged a few additional remarks on the
subject of Celestine, and then Hennesey came with the
screw drivers, the crowbar and the lantern. He now
looked faintly disgusted at being consigned to the role
of sentry over a Negress in a chicken coop, while ex-
citing doings were evidently under way.
205


Poison Case Number 10
Joyce led his small procession through the garden,
which was redolent with the perfumes of roses, jas-
mines and honeysuckle. An almost full moon was
shining. The lighter hued flowers, especially the
massed banks of white chrysanthemums, made a
ghostly showing. But the minds of none of them were
set upon the charm of blossoms seen by moonlight. It
was impossible to forget that they were bound upon
the ghoulish business of breaking into a tomb.
They came at last to the path that led across the fields
and over the low ridge separating them from the
family mausoleum. Joyce had made the journey twice
before, and Kay once. The others followed glumly
in their wake, unable to tell whether they would have
to trudge a hundred yards or a mile.
When the pointed Gothic roof of the chapel loomed
up, it at once imparted a dismal air to the night land-
scape. Isolated though it was—a lone tomb in a
meadow—the funereal, churchyard impression was in-
escapable, because of the grilled door of the chantry
and the cross above it.
The group paused on the very threshold, and for a
moment nothing was either said or done. Finally,
Joyce took out the keys he had had made, and tried
them one after the other in the huge lock. They made
206


Ghoulish Business
a grating and rattling noise, and he fumbled with them
considerably until he lost his temper and swore. Then
he took the lantern from Tom, and turned its light
upon his operations.
"Great grief!" he exclaimed. "The lock has been
changed. Today probably. The screws are brand
new."
Everybody uttered deep sighs, as if to relieve the
tension.
"This is tough," Joyce went on. "We don't have
the equipment to bore through an iron gate."
The Sheriff pushed silently forward. He produced
from his breast pocket a neat little "jimmy," with which
he prodded for several minutes at the lock. Then he
shook his head.
"I can't do a thing with it from this side. It's a queer
old-time lock," he muttered.
"We're stumped," growled Joyce.
"Oh, no, Inspector! I'm not so sure. From the far
side, I think I could pick it. The lock is not enclosed
in the usual metal case."
"But how the devil are you to get to the far side?"
"I'm a thin man, and my joints are like rubber.
These bars now—I believe I could squeeze between
them. You'll notice the grill work only extends down
207


Ghoulish Business
iron door of the vault itself, and examined the lock
there.
"This one is different," he said. "I can pick it di-
rectly through the key hole."
As he set to work, Joyce waved a forefinger at Kay.
"You're the lookout," he reminded her. "You
mustn't stay in here."
The girl stepped outside and walked down the path
for about ten yards. Her slender and alert figure could
be seen taking its post in the moonlight, without a trace
of nervousness. Joyce sighed.
The Sheriff had a delicate job, which he performed
wordlessly and with an incredible absence of mechan-
ical sound, while the father and son looked on. The
mortuary chapel seemed to grow more eerie and de-
pressing, the longer the men stayed there. But its
atmosphere of gloom was innocuous compared with the
effect when Symes swung back the vault door, and up
from the gaping cavern there flowed a stream of the
musty air which is inseparable from charnel houses.
Joyce and Tom moved forward, Tom carrying the
lantern, while the Sheriff straightened and flattened
his body against the wall to let them pass. They were
well inside the vault, when Joyce noticed that Symes
had not followed them. He had remounted the steps
209


Poison Case Number 10
most silently, and was standing in the doorway of the
chapel with his arms folded.
"Hey, there—Sheriff!" Joyce called softly. He got no
reply, and because shouting appeared to be inappro-
priate, somehow, he hurried back alone and tapped his
assistant on the shoulder. "Hey, there! We've got to
get busy."
The little man stared at him, and hissed with an
extraordinary intensity:
"S'help me God, Inspector, I can't bust into caskets!
You'll have to excuse me."
"What's this?" gasped Joyce, astounded. "You
helped us with the doors."
"That's different. It's the rotten corpses I can't face.
I'd be sick at the stomach."
"But you said you were at the opening of a grave
up-State."
"Not I. I meant that I sent two of my deputies to
do it. The principle of the thing's all right. But the
last scene is just too much for me, that's all."
"Well, I'll be damned!" muttered Joyce. "I suppose
you think it's a picnic for me!" He knew that it was
useless to command or argue against a panic of this
sort. The crisis had revealed a hidden weakness in the
man. Symes, who thought nothing of risking his life
210


Ghoulish Business
against living gangsters, could go so far and no farther
in coping with the dead. He turned sharply on his
heel, and rejoined Tom.
"We'll have to do this alone," he said curtly. "The
Sheriff's sick—he hasn't been well for the past two
days."
They proceeded down the right hand side of the
vault, to the spot where the coffins of George and Mary
Van Zanten lay end to end on the middle ledge. Joyce
hesitated between the two, then selected the casket of
the young girl. It was a little below the level of his
chest, and as easy to work upon as though it had been
on a trestle in a parlor.
"Hold the lantern so that the light falls downward,
Tom, and hold it steadily," he ordered.
Selecting a medium-sized screw driver, he inserted
it and twirled with a steady motion of his wrist. The
screw turned readily, but that was normal in view of
the fact that the coffin had been underground for less
than three weeks. Raising the entire number of
screws, however, was a tedious task and occupied him
for nearly fifteen minutes.
"We can lift the lid off now," he muttered. He
stepped back, took a handkerchief from his pocket
and tied it around his face, so that it covered his nose
211


Poison Case Number 10
and mouth. He signed to Tom to do the same thing.
When they were both ready, Tom put the lantern
on the floor at a safe distance. He moved to the foot
of the box, while his father took the head. They
hoisted the lid without much effort and disposed of it
against the wall. Then Tom stood by, the lantern
again in his hand, and Joyce bent over to take his first
look at the mortal frame of Mary Van Zanten.
The detective noted instantly that the body had been
tampered with. The mysterious visitor who had left
footprints in the tomb three days before had, as Joyce
had anticipated, been bent on nullifying in advance any
post mortem analysis of the viscera. The visible scars
of the mutilation, however, were slight and had been
covered carefully over with clothing. The dead girl's
appearance was not in the least repellent. Her features
had been molded by an expert undertaker; the con-
tortion which had shown on the death-bed photograph
of her, made by Nicholas Van Zanten, had been erased.
She looked peaceful, even beautiful, in the flickering
lantern light.
Under these conditions, it seemed impossible for
Joyce to determine whether Mary had died of poison.
The tampering with the corpse implied as much, but
it was not absolute evidence. A scientific autopsy
212


Ghoulish Business
might still prove a great deal. He was on the point
of ending his scrutiny when it occurred to him to touch
the arms and legs. The result caused him to emit a
brusque cry of satisfaction.
The muscles of all four limbs felt literally as rigid
as wood under his finger-tips. They were taut and
twisted at many points into knots, which had subse-
quently hardened. Barring the possibility that a rare
form of paralysis had been the cause, the symptom was
acceptable evidence that the girl had been killed by
strychnine poisoning. The crafty murderer who had
thought to eradicate the proof of his guilt had over-
looked this physical after-effect of the essence of nux
vomica.
Joyce did not take the time to explain his conclusions
to Tom. "Let's cover her up," he said. "This corpse
is going to be a mighty damning witness against some-
body."
They set the lid in place, and screwed it down as
tightly as it had been before. Then they passed on to
the coffin where George Van Zanten lay.
After a full year in the tomb, the remains of the old
man had disintegrated to a point which made it hope-
less for a lay observer to form any opinion of the cause
of death. Joyce's object in looking at it was simply to
213


Ghoulish Business
ing up to the chapel. They could see the back of the
Sheriff, who still stood in the outer doorway, his shoul-
der against the jamb and his arms crossed upon his
chest. At that moment, a sudden and stupefying di-
version occurred.
A revolver shot rang out, and Symes started back-
wards as if he had been hit.
215


CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Monday—The Last Corpse Speaks
In a lightning-fast reaction to the mysterious revolver
shot, Joyce and Tom rushed up the steps. They shouted
to the Sheriff, to ask whether he was hurt. He an-
swered that he thought not, and already he had his
gun in his hand and was slinking close to the wall, ad-
vancing cautiously to defend the doorway from assault.
But Joyce was not so much worried about him. He
was thinking of Kay, who had no weapon and was
ten yards off in the open, alone. He cursed himself
for having allowed her to act as a lookout unarmed,
but with the residents of Van Zanten Manor under
guard, a murderous interference was the last thing he
had contemplated seriously.
Without pausing, he dashed out of the chapel, and
was met by a second shot which went wild. He
dropped behind a bush, and looked about him for Kay.
She could be distinguished clearly in the moonlight,
on her hands and knees, crawling in his direction. He
called to her to be careful. But the attacker was not in-
216


Poison Case Number 10
may have had only one round of shells. If so, the
party's over."
He decided a little later that there was a good chance
of his surmise being correct.
"We'll crawl back to the chapel," he muttered. "I'll
go first, but keep close to me."
They covered the short distance without mishap, and
were soon standing beside Tom and the Sheriff. The
latter closed the grilled gate as a precaution, with one
of his customary soundless movements.
"This is a damned funny to-do," declared Joyce, rub-
bing his chin. "The way the attack was made was
crazy. No regular thug would pull a thing like that.
Half a dozen shots, and he's gone. But who can he be?
If we don't find that one of the people who live here
sneaked past the dicks, I'll be surprised."
"I think it's useless to try and hunt him down now,"
Tom argued.
"Sure it is. He's got all the woods around here to
hide in," the Inspector answered. "We'll wait ten or
fifteen minutes, and then return to the house. Of
course, he may start shooting again when we leave
cover, but I don't expect it."
The jangling of their nerves calmed gradually. Kay
218


The Last Corpse Speaks
changed the subject by asking what the results of the
investigation in the vault had been.
"I'm satisfied that Mary Van Zanten was poisoned
with strychnine," Joyce told her briefly.
His mind went back to the events in the subterra-
nean chamber, and for some reason that glint of copper
that he had seen on one of the old coffins prodded at
his memory. Caskets were sometimes made of copper,
or trimmed with it, he mused. The handles and screws
often were of that metal. But it was peculiar that an
ancient box should have a spot on it that reflected the
lantern light. Copper quickly became tarnished and
coated with verdigris. He felt that it would be an act
of carelessness on his part to leave without checking up
this small detail.
"There's something I forgot to do down below," he
announced crisply. "Lend a hand, Tom. The Sheriff
will stay right here with Kay."
Father and son retraced their steps. They passed
between the dismal files of Van Zantens, laid end to
end with pitiful economy of space. It reminded Joyce
of the crypts of churches he had seen in Rome, where
bishops and archbishops had been stacked through the
centuries in serried ranks.
He advanced directly to the pile of old coffins, and
219


Poison Case Number 10
The bones lay at the bottom of the casket. On top of
them, and filling the space with not much margin to
spare, were the stark remains of his descendant, the
spinster Constance.
Her face was congested with blood, and her wide-
open eyes had a dreadful fixed look, with the pupils
even more dilated than those of old Nicholas had been.
A faint odor of oil of bitter almonds floated up from
her. Crammed between her left arm and the side of
the coffin was the body of a poodle, undoubtedly the
same beast which had been killed to stop its yelping
in her bedroom.
222


CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Monday—Bullets Wild
J\ gruesome, but logical, process of thought had led
the murderer of Constance Van Zanten to hide mistress
and pet dog together in a spot where nobody would
conceive of looking for them. Joyce was forced to ad-
mit that the device was diabolical in its cleverness.
"What an idea," he reflected, with a kind of admira-
tion, "to inter the newly dead in one of the oldest coffins
in a vault!"
But it was odd how criminals nearly always com-
mitted some minor blunder which gave them away.
It would have been easy to stuff the gouge under the
lid with putty and then smear the latter with a little
moistened dust to conceal all traces of tampering. Yet
that had not been done, and the trivial clue of the
glinting copper had been sufficient to guide the detec-
tive and his son to a sensational climax.
He glanced from the corpse to Tom and back again
several times, without speaking. Then he said inade-
223


Poison Case Number 10
quately: "There she is, boy! There she is! I always
knew she'd been murdered."
"This is some triumph for you, Dad," his son an-
swered.
"I haven't beaten the case yet. I don't know who did
it. But I'm sure this woman is another poison victim."
"How can you tell that?"
"Have you noticed the smell of bitter almonds?"
"Sure. I've been wondering what caused it."
"It's characteristic of prussic acid. You can't elimi-
nate that odor. It comes up on the moisture that runs
from the mouth. I see other symptoms that confirm
it—the fixed eyes, for instance. Prussic acid is one of
the deadliest, and one of the fastest-working, of poisons.
But it isn't used much by killers, because any doctor
knows the signs. Even Henkle couldn't have made
a mistake here."
"I guess that's why the body was stowed away in
such a hurry."
"Right you are, Tom. Risking a post mortem on
Nicholas Van Zanten was one thing. This is quite an-
other kettle of fish."
"What do we do next?"
"Help me close the coffin. Then you're going to see
plenty."
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Poison Case Number 10
the vault for the shooting party. The crime had not
necessarily been perpetrated by one of the servants.
Then his eye was caught by a detail, which it was
amazing he had not observed before. In Andy's thick
and tousled hair, above the ear and toward the back of
his head, a small twig was sticking. It was not a piece
of any garden plant, but a twig from a coarse shrub,
with one leaf still adhering to it. Furthermore, the leaf
had not yet begun to wilt in the heat of the bedroom.
The implication was clear. Andy Burns had been
roaming abroad, had been crouching behind bushes as
the man with the six-shooter, down by the tomb, had
done. On returning to bed, he had been in such a
hurry that it had not occurred to him to comb his hair.
Joyce smiled cryptically, went to the head of the
service stairway and called to his son Tom, who was
assisting the Sheriff to give first aid to Heinholtz. He
knew that Tom had in his pocket the only pair of
handcuffs they had brought from New York.
When the young fellow arrived, Joyce returned with
him to the bedroom and at once announced:
"Andrew Burns, I arrest you for assault with fire-
arms, with intent to kill. It is my duty to warn you
that anything you say now may be used against you."
"You're crazy, you big stiff!" Andy blustered.
230


Bullets Wild
Joyce shook his head. "Clap the handcuffs on him,
Tom," was all he said. His hand was in his pocket,
touching the but of his automatic. He was ready, in
case the gardener tried to pull a fast one. But Andy's
courage had already oozed away, and he held out his
wrists for the irons.
231


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tuesday—The Doctor on the Grill
I n making his first arrest on the case, Joyce was under
no delusion that he had placed in custody the un-
doubted, or even the probable, poisoner of four mem-
bers of the Van Zanten family. He had charged An-
drew Burns with trying to shoot up the party that had
visited the vault, and he believed him to be guilty of
that. The action implied that he was a confederate
of the chief criminal, or that at least he had an injudi-
cious mania for protecting the latter. Brains enough
to plot and carry through the entire tragedy, the gar-
dener did not seem to have. Yet in a murder case, as
Joyce had often told his assistants, anything was pos-
sible.
He preferred to have Burns behind the bars, because
he was a crudely dangerous fellow who had furnished
a specific and separate cause for his arrest. It was by
no means the Inspector's intention to jail Fawcett and
Jimmy Van Zanten on general charges. He preferred
to leave them free to make some misstep which might
232


The Doctor on the Grill
enable him to pin crime upon the right person. And
the same thing applied to Dr. Henkle and Celestine
Curtis.
Immediately after Burns had been placed in hand-
cuffs, Joyce had telephoned to Number 78 Richmond
Terrace, St. George, the Borough Headquarters of the
metropolitan police, and had given arbitrary instruc-
tions. His role as Commissioner Gilhooley's special
deputy entitled him to do so. A medical examiner and
men from the Homicide Squad, with an ambulance,
were to come to the Manor at once. They were to re-
move the body of Constance from the vault to the
Morgue for an autopsy, and the investigation of her
death was to be handled upon the presumption of
murder. The remains of George and Mary also were
to be transferred for post mortems. If red tape classi-
fied their cases as exhumations, then red tape was to
be cut and the act regularized afterwards.
Joyce had mentioned his arrest of Burns. He had
asked that two uniformed policemen be sent to take
the man to the county jail. He had sat up to see that
all his instructions were carried out, and had got to bed
at half-past four in the morning.
Nevertheless, he was up at nine, dressed and ready
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Poison Case Number 10
for action. He got together his own folks and gave
them their orders for the day:
"Tom you'll buzz around Staten Island, keeping after
the druggists and seeing whether you can find out if
any of our suspects bought poisons, personally or
through a dummy. You'll perhaps have time to visit
Perth Amboy and Elizabeth, too, in Jersey. Mr. Symes,
I want you to run over to the office in New York. Col-
lect any answers which may have come to our wires of
yesterday to Texas, concerning Fawcett. If our agent
in Dallas has been slow, get him on the long distance
phone. Shoot some telegrams to likely people down
there, police chief, newspaper editors and so forth. Do
your best to bring me some dope by six o'clock."
The male assistants left promptly on their errands,
and Joyce turned to Kay.
"You and I, me darlin'," he said, his voice uncon-
sciously softening, "are going to pay a visit to a doctor,
but he'll not be treating us for sickness—not if I know
it!"
"Henkle?" she queried, her eyes laughing back into
his, jesting with him over trivial quips, as she did often
to relieve the tension of detective problems. "The best
use to make of a prescription written by that guy would
be to light a cigarette with it."
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Poison Case Number 10
the most hideous murder cases of this century. You're
smart enough to realize that much, I guess."
"Murder!" the physician mumbled, patently terri-
fied. "My dear friend Nicholas seems to have died of
poisoning, but I don't believe you have proved he was
the victim of a crime."
"We'll pass him up, for the moment. I'm going to
tell you some things you don't know. Constance Van
Zanten is dead, too. I've found her body—I won't say
where—and as sure as God she was killed with a dose
of prussic acid. She's in the autopsy room of the
morgue right now. Furthermore, George and Mary
are out of their coffins, and with her. They were dis-
covered to have been mutilated, to destroy evidence of
the cause of death. But the medical analysts of the
Police Department aren't blocked that easily. Poison,
with a capital P, in every instance. That's the verdict
I'm expecting."
Henkle covered his face with his hands.
"Take your hands down, you silly actor," cried Joyce
savagely.
The other jerked them away, and said in a distracted
manner: "As family physician, I'll—I'll be summoned
to coroners' inquests. And if there are murder trials—
on the stand—as a witness. Horrible, horrible!"
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The Doctor on the Grill
"Tougher than that, Doc! You signed death certi-
ficates in the first two cases which were either phoney
or proved you didn't know your business. You at-
tended Fawcett last Friday for what you diagnosed as
ptomaine poisoning, but which may have been the
effects of an attempt on his life. You were supposed
to be watching over the health of Nicholas and Con-
stance Van Zanten. It's all going to sound pretty bad
to the District Attorney."
Henkle suddenly became calm. "I have harmed none
of those people. I am not a murderer," he pronounced,
in a flat, dreary tone.
"And I don't have any reason to accuse you—not
yet, Dr. Henkle. Perhaps I'll never have. From now
on, you're to be considered a material witness, and I'll
have to slap a cop on your tail. Police surveillance;
savvy? But if you're innocent, that needn't worry you.
I'm here today to give you a chance to help me."
"Help you? How can I do that?"
"Just by being frank. Just by telling me all you
know about these deaths."
"Inspector Joyce, I swear to you that I am hiding
nothing. If there was foul play in the taking off of any
of the Van Zantens, I did not suspect it at the time,"
averred Henkle solemnly.
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Poison Case Number 10
"Well, let's put it on a broad basis. I say they were
poisoned. Accept that for Gospel truth, and some
ideas are bound to come into your head. How? Why?
Wherefore? You've known the family for years.
What's the dirt on them? Who might have had an
object in bumping the ones that have gone? Who's
clever enough to have covered up the traces so far?"
Henkle's reaction to the detective's volley of ques-
tions was startling, but typical of the man in its prompt
concentration upon the personal element. His body
slumped across the desk, and every muscle in his face
relaxed in a pitiful abandonment of the mask it wore.
His pompous professionalism was gone in a moment.
His flaccid cheeks and dull eyes looked as if never again
could they assume the histrionic joviality which had
been his stock in trade with creditors and patients.
"When you talk about covering up traces, you mean
me, of course," he said heavily. "You're wrong, Inspec-
tor. I'm not clever. I'm the biggest fool who ever tried
to practice medicine. I'm a bluff and a faker."
"No kidding?" sneered Joyce.
"It's only too true. I barely scraped through college.
The sort of examiners we have today would not have
given me my license. I have never had the least apti-
tude for making diagnoses. I can only keep the sim-
240


The Doctor on the Grill
the manager of the estate is a shrewd fellow. He al-
ways remembered he was an employe, and did not try
to force points that Nicholas disliked."
"Would you claim that Fawcett had a private motive
for blocking the post mortem on Mary's body?"
"Far from it, Inspector. It seemed clear to me that
he advanced the argument chiefly because he saw that
Nicholas would be glad to find an excuse for avoiding
the harrowing details of an autopsy."
"Jim! You figure him as playing the same game
you did. Anything to please Mr. Van Zanten, eh?"
"Mr. Van Zanten was a very rich man," replied
Henkle simply. "But I submitted to him out of weak-
ness, while Fawcett catered whenever he didn't con-
sider the question important."
"The son Jimmy is in this picture, too," commented
Joyce. "Who had the most influence over him, his
father or Fawcett?"
"Neither of them—and both," proclaimed the doctor
portentously. "Jimmy is easily led, yet on the surface
he resists all authority. A typical case of thyroid hys-
teria. He should be taken to a gland specialist, and
probably have an operation."
"You're a fine one to talk about thyroid symptoms,"
said Joyce curiously. "You've acknowledged you're
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Poison Case Number 10
no good as a physician. The modern theories about
glands are pretty deep stuff."
Henkle waved his arm, to indicate the books that
lined two walls of the office. "I had to have some
hobby to save me from dying of boredom. All the
works that have any bearing on glands are on those
shelves. I've collected them and read them all in the
past fifteen years."
"Ever sit in on a consultation with specialists?"
"No, Inspector."
"Ever witness a gland operation?"
"No."
Joyce shrugged his shoulders. It was queer the
eccentric characters one ran up against in criminal in-
vestigations, he thought. Yet Henkle, with his book
knowledge about glands, might have a slant on Jimmy
at least as sound as his own—so far. He returned
abruptly to the subject of Mary Van Zanten:
"Is Fawcett such a fool that he didn't suspect foul
play in the girl's death?"
"Fawcett doesn't know anything about diseases. He
isn't to be blamed for assuming that Mary had died of
natural causes, no matter how awful she looked at the
last. He likely thought that the more quickly she was
244


The Doctor on the Grill
buried and forgotten, the better it would be for Nicho-
las."
"You're making this case seem damn jumbled to me.
The old man came to my office and talked poison, and
blamed himself for listening to Fawcett and allowing
the funeral to be hurried through. Now you try to say
that he actually wanted things handled that way."
"At the time of the funeral, that was exactly what he
wanted, Inspector. Later, to be sure, he may have lost
his nerve."
"What do you mean by losing his nerve?"
"He certainly did not have the intention of calling
in a detective. He told me so. Yet he ended by going
to you."
"I still don't follow you."
"It is my painful duty to suggest that Nicholas Van
Zanten was half demented. If deliberate poisonings
have been committed in that house, he was the only
person who could have been guilty."
"Now I know that you are crazy. Nicholas was
poisoned himself—with aconitine, in case you haven't
heard. His sister died after he did. Yet you accuse
him. It's a bughouse notion."
"Inspector Joyce," said Henkle with prodigious
solemnity, "our late friend was the dupe of the Negro
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Poison Case Number 10
cook, the evil voodooist, about whom you questioned
us all that evening. Suppose some of her potions were
harmless. Others may have contained deadly vegeta-
ble poisons. Mr. Van Zanten was as eager as she was
to have people drink them. He was perhaps a de-
stroyer, without realizing what he was doing. He fell
a victim to his own folly. I expect Jimmy to be the
next to go. I have read that some of the voodoo poisons
work fast, and others slowly. If mysterious deaths
occur in this neighborhood for weeks and months to
come, it will not surprise me."
"What do you figure Aunt Ellen's motive to be?"
asked Joyce contemptuously.
"Just heathen mania, and cussedness. Voodoo is a
kind of religion, a worship of the Devil. It isn't neces-
sary to seek farther for a motive."
The detective did not take the trouble to explain the
difference between voodoo and the Jamaican obeah
practiced by the cook. He remarked: "She was mixing
a draft for Jimmy when I interfered and took samples
of her herbs. They're in a Stapleton laboratory
for analysis. We'll phone right now, and get the re-
sult."
He reached for the telephone, and in a few minutes
was talking to the chief chemist of the laboratory.
246


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tuesday—The Evidence Piles Up
As soon as Joyce had fulfilled his threat and sum-
moned, by telephone, a detective to keep a close watch
over the doings of Dr. Alphonse Henkle, he rejoined
Kay in the front parlor. His keen deductive mind had
been at work on the new and startling developments in
the case, and he felt ready to make a positive pro-
nouncement. He said nothing, however, until they
were seated in the car. Dispassionately, then, he told
the girl that Jimmy had been stricken.
"It's a safe bet that he's been poisoned, too. With
a real doctor on the job, we'll soon know, of course."
"And if he has been, Jimmy's name goes off the list
of suspects?"
"Sure—unless the boy's trying to commit suicide,
which isn't likely."
"That leaves it a toss-up between Fawcett and
Henkle, doesn't it, Inspector?"
"You're forgetting Celestine Curtis. She's with
Jimmy now. She phoned for Henkle to come and
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The Evidence Piles Up
doses. It's just as deadly that way, though the symp-
toms are different.”
"I see," answered Kay thoughtfully.
“We'll maybe do something with that later. The
doc's verdict on Jimmy's illness is the big point today.”
They had been driving slowly out of St. George,
while Joyce talked over his shoulder to the girl. Now,
as they reached Victory Boulevard, he bent over the
wheel, put on speed and dashed back to the Van Zan-
ten estate as though to make up for lost time.
Standing in the hallway, with his physician's bag and
his hat in his hand, was a stranger, whom the detective
Hennesey at once introduced as Dr. Arthur Wagen-
halls, of Stapleton.
"I held him for ye, Inspector," he said. “I knew
you'd be wanting to question him about the sick boy."
“Quite right, Hennesey.” Joyce swung around to the
doctor. “Well?”
“The patient's condition is alarming, but so far not
critical,” stated Wagenhalls formally. “It appears that
he was suddenly overcome by giddiness and loss of
muscular power. When I arrived, his skin was cold
and his pulse feeble. The most peculiar symptom is a
numbness and tingling in the mouth and throat, which
makes it difficult for him to speak."
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Poison Case Number 10
"What's wrong with him?"
"I am unable to make a diagnosis at the present
stage. I shall pay my next visit at four o'clock, but if
he changes radically for the worse in the meantime, you
will of course summon me by telephone."
"God damn it, Doc, you're talking to the law, and
not to a relative!" said Joyce bluntly. "I want your
best opinion, even if you have to change it afterwards.
Do you think the young man has been poisoned?"
"I perceive what you have in mind. I—I naturally
have heard rumors about recent events in this house.
Upon my word as a professional man, sir, I assure you
that I do not recognize this as a case of poisoning.
There has been no vomiting, which is the usual in-
dication of the presence of toxicants in the stomach. I
may be able to tell you more about it this evening."
"Fair enough. Does he need a trained nurse?"
"Certainly. I have taken the liberty of sending for a
trustworthy woman on my call list. A Miss Curtis, his
fiancee, is with him now."
Joyce dismissed the pedantic medico with a nod, and
went upstairs. He knocked lightly at Jimmy's door.
A strangled voice asked him to come in, and he found
Celestine Curtis weeping by the bedside. The spec-
tacle of the strong-minded girl in tears was so novel
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The Evidence Piles Up
that Joyce stared, without questioning her. Her grief
appeared to be perfectly genuine.
He then gave the recumbent figure of the boy a long
scrutiny. Jimmy was breathing softly with his eyes
closed and his limbs unstirring. He looked more like
a paralytic than a poison victim. And suddenly Joyce
noticed a slight swelling in his neck, to the left of the
Adam's apple. It was the thyroid gland brought into
abnormal relief by the way the head was held.
Perhaps Henkle was right, he mused. Perhaps
Jimmy did need a thyroid operation. Chronic nerves,
leading to hysteria and ending in this state of semi-
coma, might well be the result of gland trouble.
He walked out again, dropped down the corridor a
few doors and entered Fawcett's room. The estate
manager was sitting by the window, with his hands
folded upon his stomach. He wore a patient and
slightly woebegone air. When he saw Joyce, he arose
politely and greeted him without a trace of animosity.
He hastened to set a comfortable chair in place for the
detective.
"Sad about Jimmy," he remarked, his voice shaking
and his bright hazel eyes dimmed.
"Ill say it is. Looks like a clean sweep of the Van
Zanten family," answered Joyce, ironically naive.
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Poison Case Number 10
"And you are proving it's murder? I hear you found
Constance dead, and that you've sent all the bodies to
the Morgue for autopsies. A wise move. When I
opposed it, I didn't know about Constance."
Joyce reflected that if this man were the culprit, he
was also a cool and courageous bluffer.
"But in arresting Andy Burns, I think you made a
mistake, Inspector," Fawcett went on. "That poor oaf
is no poisoner."
"I haven't charged him with murder."
"No?" Fawcett shot a swift glance at Joyce. "I
wonder how soon you'll be arresting me. The prospect
does not frighten me, because I know I am innocent.
But being a half-prisoner in the house is very irksome.
I hate to neglect my garden."
"Sorry I have to hold you. The more help you give
me, the sooner I may be able to set you free. I'm here
to ask you to show me Nicholas Van Zanten's will."
"Really, until it is probated"
"That makes no difference," Joyce interrupted
sharply. "I'm claiming a police right in a murder in-
vestigation. The District Attorney can demand it, too,
for the information of the Grand Jury."
"Just as you say," replied Fawcett, with the utmost
calmness. "The will is unimportant to me. You will
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The Evidence Piles Up
find its terms to be precisely what Mr. Van Zanten
told you they were."
He reached into his trousers pocket and handed
Joyce a bunch of keys. "The safe is in the library
downstairs," he added gently.
The detective felt momentarily baffled by this will-
ingness to give him the run of the safe. Then he re-
flected that if Fawcett had anything to hide, he would
be crafty enough to put it in some other place. He
could not resist tapping two new and shiny keys on
the ring, however.
"These are to the vault, I suppose."
"Yes, Inspector. I changed the lock early Monday
morning, because there seemed to have been some tam-
pering with it. You needed only to ask me for the
keys, and you could have had them. You would have
been spared the trouble of picking the lock."
Joyce left without further comment. He spent a
fruitless hour upon the contents of the Van Zanten safe.
The will, which was dated within the past year, left
the estate jointly to Constance and Jimmy, with the
proviso that the survivor should inherit the whole. A
legacy of twenty thousand dollars to Alexander Faw-
cett was relatively too small to encourage the suspicion
that the estate manager, with his job assured for life,
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Poison Case Number 10
pursed lips relaxed, and his cloak of professional form-
ality fell away from him.
"Damnation, Inspector!" he muttered. "Aconitine,
strychnine and prussic acid—the three deadliest vege-
table poisons known! Especially aconitine! Why,
that's so rare that it's almost unheard of, except in a pre-
scription. I did have an inkling that my patient might
have taken a modicum amount of aconitine into his sys-
tem, but it seemed fantastic."
"Then his symptoms do point to aconitine?"
"Broadly—yes."
"Can you save him?"
"It is very doubtful. That poison is fatal in a quan-
tity of one-fifteenth of a grain. The boy could scarcely
have been given less. If it had been as much as one-
seventh of a grain, he would have died in half an
hour."
"I know, I know! Well, do your best for him."
"Naturally. It will be essential that no one but the
trained nurse prepares his nourishment and medicines."
"Is the nurse here yet?"
"Yes. She came while you were out of the house, she
tells me. But that fiancee is with the patient, too."
"We'll fix that," Joyce promised him.
They went to the sick room, and the ultimatum was
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Poison Case Number 10
dian, gave Jimmy his written approval, and the license
was issued to us all right."
"So old Mr. Van Zanten's death was important to
your wedding plans, was it?" Joyce drawled meaning-
fully. "We'll talk about that some time. Your hus-
band may be dying, and it's doctor's orders that only
the nurse can be with him until further notice. So,
mosey along. You're under police surveillance your-
self, by the way. Have one of the maids fix you up a
guest room here. You can't go home tonight."
He shooed Celestine into the corridor, and went to
look for Kay. The latter was waiting for him in the
parlor—and not alone. Sheriff Symes had made a
quick round trip to New York.
"Reports from Texas on Fawcett, Chief," the Sheriff
said, and handed him two telegrams.
The first message was from a detective agency in
Dallas. It stated briefly that Alexander Fawcett had
been known in the city and in the suburb of Hillsboro,
until twenty-two years previously, when the man had
gone North. He had been a jack-of-all trades, and con-
sidered a shiftless fellow. Subsequent to his departure,
a woman named Ann Scott had asked the police to
locate him, so that she might sue for the support of an
260


CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tuesday—What the Garden Told
At eleven o'clock that night, the condition of Jimmy
Van Zanten was unchanged and a static gloom en-
veloped the house. An observer from the outside world
would have said that dynamic events were not destined
to occur there within the next few hours. The atmos-
phere was one of complete lethargy and exhaustion.
Even the city detectives assigned to the duty of await-
ing orders, which failed to materialize, seemed stupe-
fied by their inaction.
Tom had returned earlier in the evening, shaking
his head over his failure to learn that Staten Island or
New Jersey druggists had sold poisons to residents of
the Manor. But Joyce had slapped him on the shoul-
der and told him not to worry any further about the
matter. If information should be telephoned in as a
result of his efforts, well and good. If not, the follow-
ing day would be time enough to decide whether the
old line of inquiry was worth pursuing. More than
that, Joyce would not say. His assistants had a hunch
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Poison Case Number 10
that—despite the deceptive calm of the house—they
would witness some excitement before the morning.
They were not surprised, therefore, to be summoned
to the hallway on the ground floor at eleven o'clock.
The waning moon had risen, but its beams were inter-
cepted by the tall trees to the east, and the light out-
doors was dim. Joyce plainly held this to be an
important point. From time to time, he glanced
impatiently through a window, and when at last the
moon thrust itself above the tops of the trees, he grunted
with satisfaction.
"We're now going to pay a visit to the garden," he
said. "Sheriff, are you ready with those rabbits?"
Shortly after dark, Symes had slipped into the house
in the most unobtrusive fashion. He had been carry-
ing a small wicker basket, which he had concealed be-
hind a desk in the library. Not even Joyce had seen
him do it, for it was the Sheriff's habit to perform all
errands with a ghostlike evasiveness. He had reported
his own physical presence, however, and the Chief had
ramarked that it was a pity he had not been able to get
back while there was still daylight. That had been all.
The next best thing had been to wait for the light of
the moon to make use of the creatures he had brought.
The little man vanished and reappeared with his
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Poison Case Number 10
specializes on noxious plants—to use them in science,
of course. An employe would learn a lot about
poisons."
"Everything could have been grown here?" Kay
questioned blankly, as if thunderstruck.
"Yes. And vegetable toxicants can be extracted in an
amateur's laboratory. They're not like the mineral
poisons—arsenic and so forth—which are unobtainable
except from a chemist."
"Then Fawcett is the guilty person."
"He or Andy Burns. I figure Fawcett as being at
least a confederate, but he may have been working
with Doc Henkle. Don't forget that."
"It would be too wonderful if this theory is correct."
"We'll soon know for sure," said Joyce briskly.
"Tom and the Sheriff—you watch the rabbits. Drive
them away from ordinary flowers, but take samples of
anything else they eat."
He produced his pocket torch, and sent the beam
traveling in a slow arc across the nearer beds. When it
reached a cluster of handsome flowers on a low shrub,
he paused.
"There you are, Kay. That plant is wolfsbane—
aconitum napellus the Latin name is. You'll notice that
the blossoms are hooded, which is why it's sometimes
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Poison Case Number 10
He uncovered a narrow doorway, secured by a pad-
lock. But the planks were flimsy, and a few stiff drives
with his shoulder broke through them. The triangular
space beyond contained a stove, resting on a sheet of
tin, and with a pipe to carry off the smoke. Pots and
pans of various sizes stood on shelves. The utensils
were spotlessly clean, and there were no bottles or other
receptacles containing the product of the work done on
the premises.
Two objects, nevertheless, promptly caught Joyce's
eye and caused him to growl delightedly. These were
a pair of women's shoes with mud still clinging to the
heels and the edges of the soles, and an ordinary drink-
ing glass. The latter was marked by a flaw about the
size of a grain of wheat, close to its upper rim. The
bottom of the glass was stained by a whitish sediment.
"Constance's shoes!" gasped Kay.
"I hope so. But the glass maybe is going to prove
every bit as valuable. The last stuff it had in it was not
plain water—not by a long shot."
Joyce tied his own and Kay's handkerchiefs loosely
about his prizes and carried them in a gingerly manner
on the palms of his hands, in order not to erase any
finger-prints which might have been left upon them.
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Poison Case Number 10
"I think you're crazy, old lady. He's got a doctor
and a nurse attending him. They'd not allow you to
dose him."
"You mus' allow me," the Negress persisted. "You
been in my country. You know we black folk can
cheat de Debbil. De white doctor is one big fool."
"Have you seen your Marse Jimmy?"
"Yes, sah. De nurse let me look 'pon him."
"Perhaps you're not talking such nonsense, after all."
"My young Massa's face is red, his skin is cold and
his throat closing," Aunt Ellen cried, in a queer sing-
song. "In one hour he dead, if you no give me chance
to save him."
"Damned if she doesn't describe the final symptoms
of aconitine poisoning!" Joyce muttered to Kay.
He addressed the West Indian sybil:
"We'll all go now and pay him a visit. I'll say Yes
or No to you then."
274


CHAPTER TWENTY
Tuesday—Rabbits and Obeah
u pon reaching the garden, Joyce found Tom and the
Sheriff standing disconsolately over the forms of two
very sick-looking rabbits. The beasts were flattened
out in a curious manner on their stomachs, their heads
extended and their legs spread wide. It needed no
veterinary surgeon to proclaim that they were at the
point of death from poisoning.
"They wouldn't eat the nightshade," elucidated
Symes, who as a former country dweller was himself
a fair authority on plants. "It's too bitter, I guess. But
when they came to the wolfsbane here, they nibbled at
the leaves, didn't seem to like 'em, and then began to
gnaw the stalks and the roots that were exposed. They
toppled over in a few minutes."
"Great!" said Joyce. "We'll get an analyst's report
on what killed them. It sounds foolish, but a couple
of rabbits that died this way under our eyes will im-
press a grand jury three times as much as the straight
facts about the plants being grown here."
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Rabbits and Obeah
That forces us back to the criminal mania theory, and
Fawcett doesn't strike me as being a nut. Andy Burns
might be one, though. He's ignorant and brutish
enough to be a thrill killer. This mystery is a long
ways from being solved."
They had been talking in low tones, to prevent Aunt
Ellen from overhearing them. Now, as they came to
the back door of the house, they waited silently for the
old Negress to catch up. All three went in together,
and mounted the stairs to Jimmy's bedroom.
Celestine Curtis was leaning against the wall just
outside the door, her face buried in her folded arms.
She looked up sharply as the others approached, and
her grief-stricken expression changed to one of anger.
"I've been allowed in to see him just twice since
dinner, and then only for a minute. That cook has no <
claims above mine. If she goes in again, I shall."
"Miss Celestine, I'll be asking you to have a little
patience with us," answered Joyce gently, his voice
warmed by an extreme courtesy the like of which he
had not shown to any one else during the course of the
investigation. "Aunt Ellen knows something about
this kind of illness. I want her opinion. In a while,
I'll tell the nurse to let you visit with Jimmy."
It was fairly evident to Kay tnat he had mentally
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Rabbits and Obeah
Aunt Ellen put her arm under Jimmy's head. She
poured a few drops of her medicine between his parted
teeth. It trickled into his throat, and unable to swal-
low it at first he coughed and panted. She gave him
another does, which went down more easily. At short
intervals, for five minutes, she continued the treatment
until four-fifths of the contents of the bottle had been
administered. She then fell to mumbling her cabalistic
runes.
Joyce signed to her to give him the almost empty
bottle. She obeyed willingly, and he dropped it into
his pocket. The nurse stood by with a scandalized air.
Nobody paid any attention to her, and the leaden
minutes ticked themselves away.
Celestine was the first to notice a change for the
better in Jimmy's condition. "He's not so flushed," she
whispered excitedly.
Aunt Ellen nodded. "Quick, quick now, young
Massa get well," she broke her crooning and gibbering
to announce.
Thereafter, the sick boy's improvement progressed
with a rapidity that seemed little short of miracle-
working. The weird anomaly of a flushed face, but
cold skin, corrected itself by a return to normal of the
circulation of the blood. The limbs relaxed, and the
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Poison Case Number 10
mouth closed. The constriction of the throat ob-
viously was lessened. The breathing became easy.
After she had taken Jimmy's temperature three times
within half an hour, the trained nurse was forced to
admit that the crisis had been successfully passed. The
patient was no longer in immediate peril of death, she
declared with conservatism. The other persons in that
room knew intuitively that his life had been saved.
Joyce looked at Kay. "The obeah was nothing but
an antidote," he commented. "We'll likely never know
now what poison Jimmy swallowed. Aconitine, I
think. But if Aunt Ellen knows an antidote for aconi-
tine, she's certainly a whiz."
Dr. Arthur Wagenhalls came, and went away again.
He exhibited marked scepticism when told about the
draught. Simples or no simples, the patient's con-
stitution had been sufficiently strong to re-establish
its balance, he averted pedantically.
At four o'clock, Jimmy opened his eyes. He was
weak, but fully conscious.
"Celestine," he mouthed, exerting a great effort.
"Celestine, darling."
His wife knelt by his pillow, and Joyce moved closer
without compunction. He had been waiting up for
this, waiting to hear what Jimmy would have to say
282


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Wednesday—Joyce Clinches the Case
A ccompan1ed by his son Tom, the Sheriff and Kay
Carey, Joyce appeared at Number 78 Richmond Ter-
race a few minutes before the hour he had set. He
went first to the detective bureau, where he obtained
the help of technical experts in establishing some
simple points. He desired to know if the shoes and
the drinking glass found in the laboratory above the
cowshed bore finger-prints, and what the nature of the
stain inside the glass might be. The bodies of the
rabbits he sent out for analysis, but the result was of
no immediate interest; it would be offered as support-
ing evidence for the indictment and subsequent trial
of the person he believed guilty.
When he had the reports he had asked for, he took
the shoes and the glass to a large, bare room on the
second floor of the precinct jail. He placed the objects
on a table behind a screen, and presently had added
to them certain pieces of evidence which had been re-
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Joyce Clinches the Case
against the wall. He did not ask Fawcett to sit down,
but measured him with a cold appraising glance.
"What do you know about the murdering by poison
of four members of the Van Zanten family?" he asked
finally.
"Nothing, Inspector. If I'd been able to answer that
question, I'd have volunteered the information long
ago."
Joyce shrugged. "I thought I'd give you a last
chance to help the ends of justice. But you don't have
to commit yourself. Your lawyer, when you get one,
will likely advise against it."
"That means that you regard me as the murderer.
How you misjudge me!"
"I'm only looking for the truth. We'll pass up the
four deaths I mentioned. We'll not go into the illness
of young James Van Zanten, who was poisoned, too,
as sure as hell, but who's luckily recovering. We'll
stick to a few side issues, and take it from me, you've
got to answer my questions about those."
Fawcett shifted nervously, bit on his cigar end and
then spat it out. He reached for a fresh smoke, but
withdrew his fumbling hand from his waistcoat pocket,
as if he had changed his mind. "Well?"
"You are the manager of the Van Zanten estate. But
289


Joyce Clinches the Case ,
the place," he managed to say, with the greatest
aplomb. "It has all others in its field beat hollow."
"But it's not exactly a commercial nursery. Funny
you should have worked there for close on three years
and taken a shine to nux vomica trees and such like."
Thunderstruck at this turning of a page from his
past, the other was unable to muster a reply. He stared,
and his eyes grew dull.
"It looks sort of ugly for you, Fawcett," Joyce went
on. "And yet you've got me all wrong. I'm not trying
to railroad you to the electric chair. Why should I? I
haven't proved a thing against you. Your testimony is
going to be important, and I'm out to get it. It was
your garden, when everything's said and done, and if
somebody else used the plants in it for murder, the
law will hold you partly to blame. The questions I'm
asking are mild compared with what the District At-
torney is sure to fire at you on the witness stand. But
if you're honest with him and with me, you may be
able to get off easy."
This speech, which had been phrased in deliberately
obscure terms, stirred Fawcett to new hopefulness.
"You're going to accuse another man?" he queried.
"Sure, if I can get a confession out of him by means
of the third degree."
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Poison Case Number 10
“Third degree?" repeated Fawcett, horrified.
“It's about to start.” Joyce looked at Tom, and
closed his left hand. “But there's no reason why you
and I shouldn't keep on talking until I'm ready to get
busy on the guy."
“Who is it? Who is it?” The estate manager's
voice broke in a falsetto.
“Can't you guess?”
"God, no!"
“There was one other person who had access to the
poison plants right along. And I do have something
on that bird. He tried to shoot me. He's a natural
criminal."
"You mean Burns?” screamed Fawcett. “You
mustn't harm him, Inspector Joyce. He's not guilty.”
“Seems to me you're worrying a lot about that gar-
dener. What are you scared he'll confess? What has
he got on you?”
“It's nothing like that. But I can't bear to think of
an innocent man being tortured.”
"Soft-hearted, aren't you?”
Joyce turned his head, as the door behind him
opened and Tom entered with Andy Burns. The bu-
colic lout was manacled. He whimpered, as the young
292


Poison Case Number 10
“The officer will see to it that you don't repeat that
monkey business.”
Then he signed to the Sheriff to follow him into the
cell to which Tom had taken Andy Burns. It was a
narrow room with a few chairs and a table in it. At
the far end was a second door.
"Chuck him in there. He'll be safe. There's no
exit,” Joyce whispered to his son.
When Burns had been disposed of in the second and
more remote cell, the Inspector glanced from one of his
assistants to the other and smiled grimly.
“You know what this set-up means. Cut loose.
Make it sound convincing. Make Fawcett think we're
beating the hide off of Andy.”
Tom and the Sheriff each seized a chair and banged
with it against the wall and upon the table. They pur-
posely collided with the door. At intervals, the Sheriff
uttered shrill and blood-curdling yelps, or groaned dis-
mally. The Chief cut in every once in a while with a
throaty bellow: “Come clean! You can't bluff me!
Confess, you swine!"
Among them, they created a terrific racket. But over
and above the noise, they were soon aware of the
anguished shrieking of Alexander Fawcett:
"Don't, don't, don't! I'll talk! I'll tell all!”
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Poison Case Number 10
"Why don't you join me? Tobacco calms the
nerves."
But he held himself to replying curtly: "I may in a
minute."
A look of grotesque and almost candid disappoint-
ment passed over Fawcett's face. He lit his cigar from
a match thrust under his nose by the policeman, and
puffed upon it avidly, drawing the acrid smoke into his
lungs and chewing nervously at the butt. In a second
or two, he began to talk:
"I'll tell you first about the poisonings. Strychnine
was good enough for George Van Zanten and his
daughter, because I banked on clean death certificates
from that jackass Dr. Henkle, and I didn't fear an in-
quiry. But when Nicholas got to worrying, I had to
think up something more subtle. I used aconitine on
him and Jimmy, believing that even a thorough autopsy
wouldn't turn that up. It wouldn't either, if you
hadn't been snooping around with your infernal expert
knowledge. In Constance's case, I had to get rid of her
in a hurry, because she really did intend to run away
from the house. I fell back on prussic acid, which ad-
vertises itself almost as definitely as a pistol shot. But
you know how I schemed to dispose of the corpse.
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Joyce Clinches the Case
Only an uncanny pest like you would have found it."
"Did you have any confederates?" asked Joyce.
"No. I swear it. I used to drop the poisons in food,
or in drinking water, at the last minute. The night I
killed Constance, I stopped Bucklestrope on his way up
with the tray, asked him a question that made him look
over his shoulder and put the acid in the old dame's
milk. I never confided in a soul."
"But Burns knew enough to want to kill us.
He"
"He was sore because you suspected me, because you
set a dick to guard me. Poor Andy! He's too simple-
minded to be useful in a plot like mine. It was I—
alone—who tampered with the corpses in the vault, by
the way."
Fawcett had started to speak very rapidly. His words
tumbled over each other. He fidgetted in his chair,
and sucked furiously at his cigar.
"You asked something about my motives," he al-
most babbled. Til give you the truth. I—I always
wanted to be a millionaire—a millionaire and a country
gentleman. Not just a salaried employe. You under-
stand? Plenty of ambition, but not much ability. . . .
Married badly, and that held me back, too. Married
a dumb servant woman . . . Sarah—good soul, but
3°*


Poison Case Number 10
affairs in the mind of Inspector Michael Joyce. He
sometimes discusses it with his friends and confidants.
To complete the record, he identified the poison with
which Fawcett had soaked the ends of the two cigars.
It was the drug known to science as physostigmine, a
product of the Calabar bean. On the West African
coast, it is held in high honor for use at trials by ordeal,
particularly the trials of witches and congenital liars.
A Calabar bean plant was found growing in the
greenhouse of Fawcett's garden. Its longer tendrils
were supported by a branch of the equally lethal nux
vomica tree.
3°4






UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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OCT 10 1934
UNIV. OF CH.
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