Stand Up and Die

by Frances Lockridge

  Heimrich’s eyes were closed.

  “Now Doctor,” he said, “of course there may be. It’s—very interesting, Doctor. Do you go further?”

  Crowell repeated the word.

  “Two people died,” Heimrich said. “Virginia Monroe first. Then her grandmother. Have you a theory to cover that?”

  Crowell looked down at the carpet. Finally, he shook his head. But then he said, “Unless—”

  Heimrich waited. Then he said, “Go on, Doctor.”

  “I suppose Virginia might have found out somehow,” Crowell said. He spoke slowly, as if he thought it out as he spoke. “Gone to—whoever had given the overdose. Threatened exposure or—” He looked up. “I’m just guessing,” he said. “It’s all guess work, isn’t it? Guess work based on nothing more than a possibility. Because we’ll never really know—never be able to prove, anyway—that the drug did cause Penina’s death. You realize that, Captain? Doctor Kramer’s done all he can do. All anybody can do.”

  Heimrich agreed, his eyes still closed, that it would be difficult. Naturally.

  “Impossible,” Dr. Crowell said. “On physical evidence, anyway. You can detect poisons—all I ever heard of. Physical injury is obvious. But—this. If Penina was murdered, you’ll never be able to prove it.”

  “Now Doctor,” Heimrich said. “Perhaps not. But neither of us is a lawyer, Doctor. You know the routine at the Saunders house, Doctor. Who could have administered this overdose?”

  “If there was one—almost anybody,” Crowell said. “Mrs. Jackson, obviously. I suppose Mrs. Swanson, or the maid. Obviously, Liz could have.” He considered. “Howard was in and out a good deal. Penina liked to talk about her investments, poor old thing.” He paused again. “Of course,” he said, and now spoke very slowly, “I suppose it could be suggested that I had the opportunity, too.”

  Heimrich opened his eyes. He waited.

  “Everything else aside,” Crowell said. “And I realize that, from your point of view, everything else is aside. I’d have been a fool to try it and I’d have known I’d be a fool. You see, I’d think, as a layman probably wouldn’t, that there’s a check on these things. The druggist keeps a record of the prescription. Any doctor could give you the probable dosage. It would be easy enough to prove if I were giving too much. Also, I know enough to know I don’t know what would happen. A layman probably wouldn’t. A layman would just figure—so much of the stuff reduces blood pressure. Three times as much would reduce it three times as much. Whereas, I’d think it quite likely the patient would merely vomit. See what I mean?”

  “Now Doctor,” Heimrich said. “I do, naturally. Liz Monroe, Mr. Kirkwood, Mrs. Jackson, possibly Mrs. Swanson or the maid. Yes, I suppose you’re right. Did you ever hear Mrs. Saunders mention Mr. Gates, Doctor?”

  “Gates? She didn’t know him, did she?”

  “So far as I know, she didn’t,” Heimrich said. “But Gates does seem to have wandered up to the second floor the morning she died. Looking for a place to wash his hands, Mrs. Jackson says.”

  Crowell shook his head. He pointed out that Gates had no motive. “He doesn’t inherit anything,” Crowell said. “The rest of us do, except Howard. I don’t know that Howard gains anything, except the executor’s fees. Unless, of course—” He stopped. “I’ve told you all I know. More than I know.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I appreciate that, Doctor.” He stood up. “By the way,” he said, “you haven’t seen Miss Monroe this afternoon, have you? She seems to have gone off somewhere. With Mr. Gates.”

  “Liz?” Crowell said. He stood up, too. “Why, yes. She dropped in a little after noon. Before my regular hours, but I’d finished my rounds. Wanted me to look at her elbow—touch of bursitis. Tennis elbow, they call it. She wanted to know if it would be all right for her to enter the club tournament. I told her to try it, that I thought it would be all right.”

  “Was Gates with her?”

  “I didn’t see him. He could have waited in the car, I suppose.”

  “Naturally,” Heimrich said. “By the way, do you belong to the country club, Doctor?”

  “The club?” Crowell said. “What on earth’s that— No. I resigned this spring. Found I seldom got around to using it and—well, to be frank, the dues are pretty high for what I was getting out of it.” He paused. “It’s not an inexpensive club,” he said. “This isn’t an inexpensive community, actually.” He paused again. “Why, Captain?”

  “Well,” Heimrich said, “from something Miss Monroe said I gathered the tournament had already started. That she was in it. But I may have misunderstood her, naturally.”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at,” Crowell said.

  “Now Doctor,” Heimrich said. “Probably at nothing. Probably she meant, would it be all right for her to go on playing in the tournament. Or I may have misunderstood. It dosn’t seem to matter anyway. I wonder—”

  He stopped, because Dr. Crowell seemed momentarily to have got himself lost in something else. His brows were drawn together, so that his eyes were narrowed.

  “What?” he said then. “Oh, sorry, Captain.”

  “I wonder if you’d come along with us while we check up on those tablets, Doctor?” Heimrich said. “We might need your help.” He paused. He smiled faintly. “Again,” he added.

  Dr. Crowell was very glad to help, again. The three men walked along Main Street, through the soft night.

  “I hope,” Crowell said, amusement in his voice, “that everybody doesn’t think you’ve arrested me.”

  “Now Doctor,” Heimrich said. “Now Doctor.”

  They turned up the drive to the Saunders house. The house was lighted. A light illuminated the turnaround outside the garage. An elderly, a dignified, Packard stood under the light, headed toward the street.

  Liz Monroe opened the door. She wore a black dress, sleeveless, fitting her slender body closely. She looked at the three and her eyes widened.

  “Oh!” she said. “I didn’t—”

  “Dr. Crowell has a theory,” Heimrich said. “A very interesting theory, Miss Monroe. About your grandmother’s murder.”

  By then Timothy Gates was behind her, very tall, his young face hard. Although he did not touch the girl, it seemed as if he drew her back, protectingly, against him.

  “Yes,” Gates said. “We thought he might have. Didn’t we, Liz?” She continued to look at the three men. “You’d better have them come in, hadn’t you, Liz?” Gates said.

  “Oh,” the girl said. “Of course. You’d better come in.”

  “A theory,” Heimrich began, when they were in the hall, “about—” He stopped. Howard Kirkwood had appeared in the door to the library.

  “Go on, Captain,” Kirkwood said. “You were talking about murder? Saying that Mrs. Saunders was murdered? In spite of what Dr. Kramer found, Captain?”

  “Now Mr. Kirkwood,” Heimrich said. “We’ll come to that. Sergeant, you’ll find the tablets on a table—or in a drawer, perhaps. A drawer that sticks. Will you bring them down, Sergeant?”

  Forniss went.

  “Dr. Crowell thinks there may not be enough of the tablets left,” Heimrich said. “He may be right. I think he will be right.” He looked around at the four. “But we’ll soon know, won’t we?” he said. “Then we can see where we stand, naturally.”

  It did not take Forniss long. He came back with the bottle.

  “It would be easier if we could spread them out, I think,” Heimrich said, taking the bottle. “On a sheet of paper, or something?”

  Liz Monroe did not speak. She led them into the library, to a table, where a lamp, opaquely shaded, threw a hard, half-cone of light. She found a sheet of white paper in the table drawer, and put it on the table.

  Carefully, Heimrich poured the tablets onto the paper. They were small, they were innocent. Bound in them was a chemical meant to save lives.

  “Suppose you count them, Mr. Kirkwood,” Heimrich said.

  Kirkwood hesitated a mo
ment. Then he said, “Why not?” and moved to the table. The light was harsh on his hands—his rather pudgy hands—as, two by two, he drew the tablets toward him. His lips moved soundlessly at first; then he began to count aloud. “Forty-eight,” he counted. “Fifty. Fifty-two. Fifty-four.” And one tablet remained, then. “Fifty-five,” he said, and stepped back.

  “Sixty-eight, you said, didn’t you, Doctor?” Heimrich asked. “We do seem a little short, don’t we? We—”

  He turned, because there was the sound of movement in the hall. He turned toward the door leading to it, and the others turned. Mrs. Jackson came into the doorway.

  “Whatever are you all doing?” Mrs. Jackson asked. “Whatever in the world?”

  The hat still perched. She began to remove her fabric gloves.

  “I was dreadfully worried, Liz,” she said. “It was so thoughtless of you. I thought that strange young—” She stopped. “Oh,” she said, “you’re here too?”

  “Yes,” Gates said. “I’m here too, Mrs. Jackson.” His voice was low, almost gentle. But the muscle jumped under his left eye. “We were in New York. Looking something up, weren’t we, Liz? In a library.”

  “In New York!” Mrs. Jackson said, and removed the other glove with marked emphasis. “What’s the matter with the East Belford Library, young man? It’s one of the best. And there’s no reason Liz shouldn’t have told me.” She took off her hat. “And what’s Mr. Kirkwood doing. Playing a game?”

  “Please, dear,” Liz Monroe said. “It isn’t at all a game. Is it, Captain?” Her eyes were still a little dilated. Although her words were unhurried, her voice quiet, it was as if she made each so by force. “Is it, Doctor?”

  Kirkwood still stood by the table, his hands touching it. He was half turned toward Mrs. Jackson, who had become, unaccountably, a center. Timothy Gates stood, very straight, by Liz Monroe’s side, and there was something which seemed to detach them from the others. Dr. Crowell had moved away from Forniss and Heimrich, and stood beyond the table, facing the others, Liz turned toward him as she spoke, and spoke again. “Is it, Doctor.”

  “Now Miss Monroe,” Heimrich said, and she turned back from Crowell, and waited. “Mr. Kirkwood was counting the tablets, Mrs. Jackson,” Heimrich said. “There don’t seem to be as many as there should be. As Dr. Crowell thinks there should be.”

  “The tablets?” Mrs. Jackson said. “Oh, you mean poor Penina’s medicine? But—” She stopped, and her pink face flushed pinker. “I did just what you told me, Doctor,” she said. “Exactly what you told me. Six tablets a day. Nobody can say anything else.”

  “Now Mrs. Jackson,” Heimrich said. “Wait. Nobody has said anything else. Dr. Crowell has a theory. A rather interesting theory as to how Mrs. Saunders came to—die.”

  “He came to it late, then,” Gates said, and his voice rasped. “For her attending physician—”

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. “We’ll go into that. We’ll go into everything, naturally. It may take a little while.” He looked around, at Crowell beyond the table, Kirkwood beside it, his hands still in the white light. Kirkwood was massaging the fingertips of his right hand with his thumb. He stopped when Heimrich looked at him. Heimrich looked at Liz Monroe who looked back, as if she challenged him. He looked at Gates, and the muscle under Gates’s eye jumped. “Long enough so that we might all sit down,” Heimrich said, very mildly.

  “I,” Mrs. Jackson said, “must wash my hands. At the down-stairs lavatory.” She looked up at Timothy Gates. “The down-stairs one,” she said again, with even more emphasis.

  “By all means,” Heimrich said. She went, plump and quick, on hurrying small feet.

  “What did she mean by that?” Gates said. “I gather she meant something?”

  “That you went to an upstairs bathroom yesterday morning, Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. “Don’t you remember? You met Mrs. Jackson there—in the corridor, that is. Near Mrs. Saunders’s—”

  “Oh,” Gates said, and turned to face Paul Crowell. “Is that your theory, Doctor? That I—what? Put a pillow over her head?”

  “Captain,” Crowell said, “this young man—”

  Crowell’s voice was no longer suave. It was almost harsh.

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. “You know Mrs. Saunders didn’t die that way. Don’t you?” He waited and Gates looked at him. “Well, don’t you?” Heimrich said. “But why were you on the second floor?”

  “Looking for a bathroom,” Gates said. “Liz was in the kitchen and I don’t know the house. Where would I look?”

  “Tim hasn’t anything to do with this,” Liz said. “Can’t you let anybody alone?”

  “Now Miss Monroe,” Heimrich said. “No, I can’t, naturally. I—”

  Mrs. Jackson came back, her hands washed. She looked around at all of them. “Everybody’s worked up,” she said. “Why don’t you have them sit down, Liz dear?”

  “Sit down,” Liz said. “Everybody sit down. What’ll everybody have to drink? We could all have—” Her voice was up almost an octave.

  “Be quiet,” Timothy Gates said. “You tear yourself apart. You’re a fool girl.” He put both hands on Liz’s shoulders.

  “Everybody sit down and we’ll have a nice—” Liz began, but the big hands on her shoulders tightened a little. “All right,” she said. “I’m sorry.” Her right hand went up and touched Timothy’s. It fell at once. “I’m all right,” she said. “Sit down, everybody.”

  They did, except Heimrich, except Forniss. Forniss was a big man. He did not disappear into shadows. He was in plain sight for anyone who wanted to look. But one had, nevertheless, to look to see him. Heimrich stood by the table, his heavy body shielding the spread out tablets, the light behind him. He cast a shadow toward five who faced him. Liz and Timothy Gates sat on a sofa, the others in low chairs. There were two shaded lamps on a long table behind the sofa. It was a little as if Heimrich were beginning a classroom lecture, or a seminar.

  “Dr. Crowell thinks Mrs. Saunders may have died because her blood pressure dropped, and dropped too far,” Heimrich said. He closed his eyes. “That the pressure was so low that when she stood up suddenly her heart stopped. Do I phrase it properly, Doctor?”

  “I think it may have been that,” Crowell said. “As I told you, it’s only a possibility. I don’t believe it could be proved.”

  “Now Doctor,” Heimrich said. “I understand that, naturally. Dr. Crowell also thinks that this failure of the blood pressure may have been induced by an overdose of the medicine she was getting—of hexamethonium. He thinks someone—and it probably would be one of you, naturally—gave her the overdose to bring about that result. He says there should be sixty-eight tablets remaining out of the hundred he prescribed about a week ago. As we know, there were only fifty-five. Thirteen tablets would contain a little over three grams of the drug. You think such a dosage, given, say, over a few hours, might have fatal results, Doctor?”

  “I don’t know,” Crowell said. “I told you that. The system might merely reject it. I don’t know that anybody knows. But it would be more than twice the therapeutic dosage she was getting. Presumably, it would have been added to that dose. Perhaps the tablets could be dissolved—”

  “You say you don’t know,” Gates said. “You do say that?”

  “I don’t know,” Crowell said. “I’ve never heard of a fatal result from the drug. I’ve never heard of such a dosage being given. I told Captain Heimrich that, young man.”

  “All right,” Gates said. “You don’t know. You’re just guessing.”

  Crowell did not answer. He looked at Gates; then he looked at Heimrich. Paul Crowell raised his eyebrows.

  “I agree with Gates, Paul,” Howard Kirkwood said. “You’re just guessing. You and the Captain both. Aren’t you, Captain?”

  “Now Mr. Kirkwood,” Heimrich said. “We have to guess, from time to time.”

  “What it comes to,” Kirkwood said, and he leaned forward. Unexpectedly, he wagged an index finger
at Heimrich. “What it seems to come to. You’re accusing somebody here—I suppose you mean Liz, actually—of a murder you don’t even know was committed. In fact, all the evidence shows it wasn’t committed. But Vee was killed. Why don’t you find out who killed Vee?” He had started as if to make a logical point; he ended with his voice shaking. “A girl was killed,” he said. “A lovely girl. She—she rode away and waved and—”

  “Now Mr. Kirkwood,” Heimrich said. “I said, probably one of you. Not specifically Miss Monroe. And—it may not all be guess work, naturally.” He turned quickly toward Timothy Gates. “You know that, don’t you, Mr. Gates?” Heimrich said. He threw the question quickly.

  (It occurred to Forniss, in the shadows, that at times the captain was like a cat—a cat playing. Not a cat playing with a mouse, but with a snake—with a thing of danger. The idea had not been his own, at first; a man who had once been part of such a meeting as this had first used the simile. Forniss remembered it now, as he had often remembered it before.)

  “Don’t you?” Heimrich asked Gates again.

  “We—” Liz, sitting beside Timothy Gates began, but Gates reached out a hand to stop her.

  “Why would I know?” Gates asked.

  “Perhaps I’m wrong, naturally,” Heimrich said. “You went to see Dr. Crowell today, Miss Monroe. Why?”

  Gates’s fingers tightened, only a little, on Liz Monroe’s arm.

  “I—” the girl said, and took a breath. She spoke quietly, then. “I don’t know what it has to do with this,” she said. “I’ve been having a little trouble with my elbow. I wanted to know whether tennis would hurt it.”

  “The tournament,” Heimrich said. “I remember you spoke of that.” He closed his eyes and leaned back a little against the edge of the table. “I thought that was already going on.”

  “What difference does it make?” Liz asked, but did not wait for an answer. “It is. It’s almost over. I—”

  “My dear,” Mrs. Jackson said. “You can’t go on playing now. What would people think?”