Stand Up and Die

by Frances Lockridge

  “I know,” Liz said. “You’re right, of course. I didn’t think about it, I guess.”

  Crowell had turned in his chair to look at Liz as she spoke. His eyes were a little narrowed. But when Liz finished there was a momentary pause, which Crowell, although he turned to look at Heimrich, did not fill.

  “About Virginia,” Heimrich said. “I haven’t forgotten she was killed, Mr. Kirkwood. You didn’t think I had, naturally. Dr. Crowell suggests a possibility. That Virginia somehow found out this overdose had been administered and—”

  “Vee was killed Tuesday night,” Kirkwood said. “Mrs. Saunders died yesterday morning.”

  “Now Mr. Kirkwood,” Heimrich said. “I hadn’t forgotten that, either. But, as I gather it, the doctor thinks the drug might have taken some time to act—to be absorbed from—it’s from the intestinal tract, isn’t it, Doctor?”

  “Yes,” Crowell said. “The effects are sometimes delayed. Mr. Kirkwood has a point, of course. Probably he’s quite right.” He paused. He looked around at the others. “All of this is only a theory,” he said. “I don’t insist it’s the right theory, or even a good theory. Captain Heimrich knows that.”

  “Now, Doctor,” Heimrich said. “I think it’s quite a good theory. As for the time, Virginia may have discovered this was planned. Before the plan was put into execution. You see—she wrote down an address. The address of—”

  He opened his eyes. He looked from one to another.

  “The address of a medical library in New York,” he said. “One of you is surprised we know that.” He continued to look at the two women, the three men, who faced him intently. “For those who aren’t—Virginia Monroe’s papers, the contents of her desk, were stolen yesterday afternoon. Ingeniously enough. But then, one of you is quite ingenious, naturally.”

  They looked at one another then. Looked quickly, looked away quickly. Only Timothy Gates kept his eyes on Heimrich’s face.

  “You believe this theory, don’t you, sir?” Gates said. “This theory of the doctor’s?”

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. “I’ve never thought Mrs. Saunders died of natural causes. I’ve assumed her death was—hastened. It’s always seemed likely that the person who hastened her death, killed Miss Monroe.”

  “How dreadful,” Mrs. Jackson said. “What an awful thing to think!” She had her little, lace-trimmed handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes. “I just can’t bear to think—” she said, and ended with a small gulp.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Well. About the medical library—the New York Academy of Medicine it was, Mr. Gates. You’ve heard of it, of course. Since you are preparing to go into medicine.

  Gates’s eyes narrowed. He nodded.

  “I thought you would have,” Heimrich said. “So had Virginia Monroe. As a former nurse, she would have, naturally. She noted down the address. She noted down quite a few things, as a matter of fact.”

  “Which,” Kirkwood said, “you seem to have let get away from you.”

  “Now Mr. Kirkwood,” Heimrich said. “We did, I’m afraid. A little embarrassing, naturally. Where were you yesterday afternoon, Mr. Kirkwood? From—oh, about three until you finally met Sergeant Forniss after your—conference.”

  “At home,” Kirkwood said. “Driving to the club. Having this conference. There’s evidence of the conference, Captain.”

  “Oh,” Heimrich said, “I’m sure there is. Doctor, where were you?”

  Crowell had been at his home, he said. He had been, as he tried to be every Thursday, reading the current literature of his profession. It wasn’t enough time for that; there wasn’t ever enough time for that. But it was all the time he had.

  Liz had been at home, “going over her clothes.” Mrs. Jackson had also been in the Saunders house. She had been lying down. (Aunt Elizabeth had also lain down of afternoons. She had “rested her eyes.”) Gates had been walking around.

  “You walk a good deal,” Heimrich told him.

  “So?” Gates said.

  “But,” Kirkwood said, and leaned forward and commanded, again, with his index finger, “one of us is lying? You have to think that, don’t you?”

  “Now Mr. Kirkwood,” Heimrich said. “Naturally.”

  “You don’t know which.”

  “Now Mr. Kirkwood,” Heimrich said. “I didn’t say that, did I? Sergeant Forniss jotted down the address of the library. He noted down one or two other things. There was a column of figures.” He looked around at them. “We have a copy of that,” he said. “It looks like a calculation of payments. What did you find out about hexamethonium, Mr. Gates?”

  Gates looked at Heimrich for some seconds. His fingers still pressed Liz’s arm.

  “Quite a little, Captain,” Gates said then. “Quite a little. It wasn’t difficult. All we had to do was look.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I don’t suppose it was. Why did you look, Mr. Gates?”

  “Now there,” Howard Kirkwood said, “you’ve got a point, Captain.”

  Gates looked at Kirkwood. There was something in his expression that made Sergeant Forniss stir in the shadows. But Timothy Gates turned away from Kirkwood and spoke to Heimrich.

  “I’d heard the drag talked about,” he said. “Once when I was home on a pass, I guess it was. Before I was shipped out. There were some people to dinner—a couple of doctors. They talked shop afterward and I listened. One of them was a heart man and he mentioned hexamethonium. Said something about its being unreliable. Spoke of a report he’d read recently. The word stuck in my mind. When it came up again, I remembered. Not right away but when—” He stopped.

  “Go on, Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said.

  Gates paused for several seconds. The muscle twitched under his eye.

  “I’ve got involved in this,” he said then, and spoke slowly. “By accident, at first, anyway. I thought it would be an idea to find out what I was involved in. Find out where we—where I, stood.” He stopped, as if only after he had spoken had he realized what he said. “All right,” he said. “Where Liz and I stood.” He turned to look at Liz Monroe. “That’s all right with you?” he asked.

  She nodded, first. Then she said, “That’s all right, Tim.”

  “We hadn’t done anything,” Gates said. “I knew I hadn’t. Liz told me she hadn’t. So anything we could find out would get us out of whatever hole we were in. Do you see what I mean, sir?”

  Heimrich had closed his eyes. He opened them. “Why yes, Mr. Gates,” he said, mildly. “You thought I needed help.”

  “Look, sir,” Gates said, “I’m sorry if—”

  “Now Mr. Gates. I’m always glad to get help, naturally. I often need it. Go on.”

  “Liz and I talked it over. She wanted to find out what had happened too, of course. So we drove into New York and looked the stuff up.” He paused again. “Dr. Crowell’s right,” he said, slowly. “It’s been known to kill. I don’t mean it’s been used to kill. There’s nothing to show that. But it has killed—once, anyway. At least, the doctors involved were pretty sure it had.” He turned in his chair. “It happened in England, Doctor,” he said. “Probably that’s why you never heard about it.” He waited.

  “Probably,” Dr. Crowell said. “As I said, I don’t get the time I’d like to keep up with things.”

  “A letter in The Lancet,”* Gates said. “By a couple of doctors who’d lost a patient—a woman—at the West Herts Hospital. The patient developed—” He stopped, and felt in his jacket pocket. He brought out a slip of paper and held it to the light. “Entered, it says, ‘entered an irreversible, progressive and fatal hypotensive state after an oral dose of hexamethonium bromide smaller than those which she had previously taken without alarming or consistent reduction in the B. P.’” Gates turned back to Crowell. “You never heard of that case, Doctor?”

  “No,” Crowell said. Patience under stress was evident in his voice. “I never heard of it, young man. But it’s very interesting. Probably the men who wrote the article indicated what d
osage they had been using?”

  Gates looked at his notes again.

  “They got up to two and a half grams a day, apparently,” Gates said. “The patient developed blurred vision and nausea and vomited. They took her off the drug and the pressure jumped.”

  “It was a larger dose than I ordered for Mrs. Saunders,” Crowell said. He spoke to Heimrich, now. “And, apparently, the system did reject it, or tried to. It more or less confirms what I thought though, doesn’t it? As to the chance of a fatality, anyway.” He turned back to Gates. “You’re an enterprising young man,” he said. “Unless—you don’t happen to have found this out some time ago, did you? From this friend of your father? I suppose this was the article you said he mentioned?”

  Heimrich waited. They all waited.

  “No,” Gates said. The muscle jumped. “He didn’t go into details, Doctor. We found out the details this afternoon. Liz can tell you that.” He returned to Heimrich. “Ask her, Captain,” he said.

  But Kirkwood was leaning forward again in his chair.

  “How can she know what you found out?” he asked. “Know whether you knew it before? It was new to her. I don’t doubt that. I don’t doubt you made it appear it was new to you. But Paul’s got a point—was it?”

  Gates made a movement as if to stand. But this time it was Liz’s fingers which cautioned, which quieted.

  “I’ve been ganged up on before now, Captain,” Timothy Gates said. “I didn’t know any details until today.”

  “But,” Heimrich said, “you can’t prove it, can you, Mr. Gates?”

  “Why should he have to?” Liz Monroe demanded, and now she ignored the fingers which went, cautioningly, to her arm. “Why should he have to, Captain? Perhaps somebody did give grandmother an overdose of this—this drug. Perhaps it killed her. But there’d have to be a reason, wouldn’t there? You ought to see that. Tim hadn’t any. He—he never even heard of her until after—after my sister died.”

  Kirkwood leaned forward again and Heimrich waited. They were beginning to set the pace among themselves. Heimrich was pleased by that. It was so often helpful.

  “You don’t know that, Liz,” Kirkwood said. “He did know Vee, remember. Perhaps he knew her better than he says. All we’ve got is his story.”

  “Perhaps,” Mrs. Jackson said, “he isn’t really the son of this doctor after all. Perhaps he’s—somebody from the underworld.”

  Timothy Gates looked at her.

  “My God,” Gates said. He looked at Heimrich. “What is this, Captain?”

  “Mr. Gates is unquestionably the son of a very well-known Baltimore physician,” Heimrich said. “Mr. Gates is who he says he is. And Miss Monroe seems to have a point, naturally. What did Mr. Gates have to gain by Mrs. Saunders’s death?” He looked around at them. “As the rest of you did,” he said. Kirkwood started to speak. “Or may have had,” Heimrich added. “You can’t deny that, Mr. Kirkwood.”

  There was a pause. Paul Crowell broke it.

  “I don’t deny Penina left me money,” Crowell said. “Or, that I can use it. But—aren’t you a little quick in ruling this young man out, Captain?” He hesitated, turned toward Kirkwood. “I don’t like to say this, even suggest it,” he said. “Knowing how you felt about Virginia, Howard. But, isn’t it possible she and Gates here were better acquainted than he admits? That together they had some sort of plan about—well, Virginia would have profited from her grandmother’s death, wouldn’t she? And Gates may, whatever he says, have known of this—method. Perhaps they got together. And then—”

  “Then,” Gates said, his voice very harsh, “I killed Miss Monroe before she could inherit? Before I killed Mrs. Saunders? Where’s my profit coming from, Crowell?”

  “Perhaps Virginia tried to get out of the—agreement,” Crowell said. “And—Mrs. Saunders died after you met Liz, didn’t she, Gates? And—Liz inherits now, doesn’t she?”

  Gates was on his feet, before Crowell finished. His face was contorted, furious. He was moving.

  But Forniss moved more quickly. Forniss’s hands gripped Gates’s arms. For a moment the two big men stood, facing each other. Then, as if they had reached an agreement without needing words, Forniss released the younger man. Gates said, to everybody, to Heimrich, “Sorry.” He sat down again by Liz Monroe, and both her slender hands went out to hold his arm.

  “You have a good many theories, don’t you, Doctor?” Heimrich said. “Very ingenious theories. I wonder, Doctor, whether you can help us with—”

  But Liz Monroe interrupted. She leaned forward, her slim body tense. She faced Crowell.

  “You did have a file of The Lancet,” she said. “I know you did. I know I saw—” She turned to Heimrich. “He did have a file,” she said. “He must have read about this—this case in England. What he’d done with—” She stopped.

  “Yes,” Crowell said. “You were there today to see, weren’t you, Liz? Gates suggested it, didn’t he?”

  “He—” she began, and stopped.

  “Of course he did,” Crowell said. “He must have been disappointed by what you told him. That there isn’t any file of The Lancet in my office. There never has been.” He turned to Heimrich. “I saw it now and then,” he said. “A friend of mine in town sends me copies sometimes, when he’s through with them. When he remembers them. You may have noticed a copy in my office yourself. But this particular issue—no, I never saw that. If Miss Monroe thinks she ever saw a stack of Lancets—anything she could call a file—she’s mistaken.”

  He looked at Liz Monroe, who started to speak, who ended by shaking her head, slowly.

  “You don’t seem to be proving anything, do you, Captain?” Kirkwood said then. “You don’t seem to be proving anything at all.”

  * * *

  *“Methonium Compounds in Hypertension,” C. Hirson, A. R. Kelsall. The Lancet, March 10, 1951.

  Chapter XIII

  “Proof is a curious thing, Mr. Kirkwood,” Heimrich said. He leaned back against the table; he closed his eyes. “It isn’t often as simple, say, as adding up a column of figures, as weighing out a drug in a laboratory. Sometimes it is a collection of little things—almost intangible things. Certain circumstances might prove one thing to me, Mr. Kirkwood. Nothing to someone else. The subjective element, of course. And the element of character. You see, Mr. Kirkwood, I always try to make the character fit the crime.”

  He looked around at them, then. It was very much as if he were conducting a seminar—a seminar in murder.

  “One needs tangibles too, of course,” he said. “In the end, one has to have them, naturally But sometimes the tangibles are really very intangible—a word out of place, even. Or even something—an object, perhaps—too precisely in place. By the way, Doctor, there was a stack of magazines in your office. You put The Lancet on it, I remember. The one the maid had put in the waiting room.”

  “Of course,” Crowell said. “There it is now. Miss Monroe can tell you that. A stack of publications—medical publications—things I’m always hoping to find time to read. There’s a copy of The Lancet on top, probably, unless I’ve put something on top of it since. But it certainly isn’t what Miss Monroe called a ‘file.’ Certainly not a file of The Lancet.”

  Heimrich looked at Liz Monroe.

  “That’s the way it was today,” she said.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I don’t question that, naturally. So there’s no proof of anything there, is there? As Mr. Kirkwood says. Now—will you look at this, Mr. Kirkwood? It’s a column of figures. Show it to Mr. Kirkwood, will you, Sergeant?”

  Sergeant Forniss moved out of the shadows, taking a sheet of paper from his pocket as he moved. He gave the paper to Kirkwood, who looked at it. He studied it. He shook his head.

  “It looks as if she’d planned to add it up,” he said. “She hadn’t?”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “It was just as you see it, Mr. Kirkwood.”

  “I’d suppose the figures represent sums of money,” Kirkwood sai
d. “But how can I tell? How can anybody tell? Didn’t she have a check book? Didn’t she copy a list of deposits—or withdrawals—on a separate sheet for some reason? Say they were payments from one source and—”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “We thought of that, naturally. There’s nothing in the check book to correspond. Let Miss Monroe see it, will you, Mr. Kirkwood?”

  Kirkwood reached the slip of paper toward Liz Monroe. His plump hands was not entirely steady; her slender one did not tremble. She examined the figures, and Gates leaned toward her, examined them with her. She shook her head.

  “It means nothing to me,” she said. “Perhaps payments for modeling?”

  “Perhaps,” Heimrich said. “Let Doctor Crowell see it.”

  The paper passed to Crowell. He, too, shook his head over it.

  “It means nothing to you, Doctor?” Heimrich said. “Suggests nothing to you.”

  “No,” Crowell said, and reached the paper out. But Heimrich did not move to take it. “I suppose you added the column?” Crowell said. “Did that help? Did it add up to something?”

  “Oh yes,” Heimrich said. “We did add it up, of course. And—yes, I think it adds to something, Doctor.” He paused. “Add it yourself, Doctor,” he suggested.

  “I don’t—” Paul Crowell began, but when the pause was not filled, he shrugged and got a pencil from a pocket. He leaned over, the paper on the arm of his chair. His lips moved just perceptibly as he added.

  “I make it twenty-one ninety,” he said. “If you add in this other figure—the one which doesn’t seem to be part of the sequence—you get thirty-five twenty.” He looked up, and the light fell on his handsome face. “Does the figure mean something?”

  “Well,” Heimrich said, “I think you added wrong, Doctor. Check it, will you?”

  “I don’t—” Crowell said, but he shrugged, and checked. “You’re right,” he said. “I did add wrong. It’s twenty-one eighty, isn’t it? But—does that make a difference?”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “Merely that you added wrong, Doctor. You see—you still haven’t quite got the right answer, Doctor. Oh—the figures add to twenty-one eighty. But—they add to something else, don’t they?”