The Deadly Drug Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

As Slate climbed out of the water, Radak said, "I told you the fishing here was bad. I did not get a single bite."

  Bite, Slate thought sardonically. Radak was some trout fisherman. Trout fishermen got rises or strikes, not bites.

  Silently he opened his creel and showed the six beauties in it.

  "You must be a luckier fisherman than I am," Radak growled irritably.

  ELEVEN

  STOYLE’S MORTUARY

  When they got back to the boarding house, Ma Rooney accepted the fish gratefully and said she would prepare the fish for dinner that evening.

  "Lunch in ten minutes," she told them. "You just have time to wash up."

  When Slate came back downstairs after washing his hands, he found three strangers in the front room with Anton Radak. The thickset man introduced them as his employees. A thin, brittle looking man of middle-age was introduced as Kurt Shill. A stout blond man of about Slate's age was named Josef Donner. A younger, rather dull-featured redhead was named Rudolph Betz. All three had slight, vaguely foreign accents.

  "Mr. Radak says you are a fine fisherman, Mr. Slate," the thin Kurt Shill said after introductions. "I understand you had good luck."

  "I got my limit," Slate admitted, "'Which leaves me with nothing to do until tomorrow."

  "You will fish no more today?"

  "You're only allowed to take six in any one day," Slate told him. "It's just as well. I drove half the night getting here, and can use an afternoon nap."

  "Where did you start from?” Josef Donner asked.

  "Little Rock."

  "You live there?"

  "Uh-huh. Run an auto agency. I just decided to take a couple of days off."

  Apparently his ready answers satisfied the men that he was only what he claimed, for they asked no more personal questions. After lunch, when Slate announced he was going to spend the afternoon napping, Radak decided he would go to work after all.

  From the window of his room Slate watched the four men climb the steep path to the building on the mountainside and disappear inside.

  Stripping off his fishing clothes, Slate put on a white shirt, necktie and suit. Quietly he descended the stairs. He could hear Ma Rooney doing dishes in the kitchen. He let himself out the front door and eased it shut behind him.

  The funeral parlor was on the opposite side of the street and only a few doors away. It was a two-story white frame building set on about a half acre of ground and surrounded by a six-foot-high hedge.

  Slate glanced up at the building on the mountainside on the opposite side of the street. The front door of the mortuary would be in full view of anyone watching from there, he saw. Slipping through the gap in the hedge which gave entry to a graveled driveway, he rounded to a side entrance.

  He found himself in a small lobby. Directly in front of him, across a hall leading to the front door, was the main chapel. He could see a flower-covered coffin in it. To his right was a smaller chapel. Through the open door he could see a coffin there too.

  He moved out into the hall, spotted a small stand containing two open visitor's registration books and went over to look at the names in their fronts. One of the deceased was a Miss Lydia Hopper, the other a Curtis Long.

  A tall, middle-aged man dressed in black and wearing a solemn expression appeared from a room at the rear of the hall and slowly approached.

  In a hushed voice he said, "Are you a relative of one of the deceased, sir?"

  Slate did some quick thinking.

  Claiming kin to either of the deceased might elicit questions he couldn't answer. The Miss in front of Lydia Hopper's name indicated she had been unmarried. He decided that, without actually saying so, he would give the impression he was an old boy friend of the woman's.

  "Not a relative," he said. "Just a dear, dear friend of Lydia's."

  The man looked vaguely puzzled. "Ah, yes, Miss Hopper. I am Myron Stolye, the funeral director."

  "Mark Slate," Slate said, offering his hand.

  Myron Stoyle grasped it limply, gave it a jerky shake and dropped it. "A pleasure, Mr. Slate. I know you're not local, because I know everyone in Pig Wallow. May I ask where you are from?"

  "Little Rock."

  "You came quite a distance," said the funeral director. "I didn't know Miss Hopper knew anyone in Little Rock."

  "Our relationship goes back a number of years," Slate said vaguely.

  Myron Stoyle looked even more puzzled. Then, suddenly, he winced and touched his forehead. The man seemed in full possession of his faculties and Slate was quite sure he wasn't under the influence of the drug. But the gesture made him ask, "What's the matter? Are you ill?"

  "Just migraine," Stoyle said.

  "I've suffered from it for years. I practically live on aspirin. Would you like to view the departed?"

  Slate didn't particularly care to, but he knew it would seem strange to refuse.

  "All right," he agreed.

  Myron Stoyle led him into the main chapel. The deceased was an old, wrinkled woman who must have been in her mid-eighties.

  So much for his clever pose as an old boy friend, Slate thought. No wonder the funeral director had looked puzzled.

  "What did she die of?" Slate asked.

  Stoyle looked slightly uncomfortable. "From heat exhaustion, they think."

  "Heat exhaustion?" Slate said, "It isn't all that hot. It can't be over eighty, and it's only the middle of June."

  "It isn't bad now," Stoyle agreed.

  "But we had a severe heat wave for the past month. I dread to think what it will be like during July and August. There have been a number of deaths."

  His tone didn't match his foreboding words about July and August. Slate got the impression he was looking forward to a boom with some relish.

  Slate said. "How many deaths”

  "Fourteen in the past month."

  Slate hiked his eyebrows. “All from heat exhaustion?"

  Again Stolye looked uncomfortable. "Actually there was only one autopsy. One of the early cases happened to be in Barth when he became ill, and died in the hospital there. Cause of death wasn't definitely established, but the pathologist said it might have been heat exhaustion. Isn't it logical to assume they may all have been from that?"

  He looked anxiously at Slate. He was afraid of what was going on in town, Slate realized.

  "Sounds logical to me," Slate assured him. "You don't subscribe to the epidemic theory, then?"

  The funeral director blinked. “Oh, you've heard that rumor. No, I don't subscribe to it at all, and don't know anyone else who does, except Mrs. Rooney at the boarding house. She started it."

  Slate decided to press farther. He said, "Haven't you noticed anything strange about the villagers in general recently, Mr. Stoyle?"

  Stoyle touched his forehead and momentarily closed his eyes as though in pain. When he opened them again, he said, "Excuse me. My migraine is acting up. There has been a recent general lethargy. I'm sure it's the heat. Then too, there has been so much people are naturally subdued good portion of them have lost dear ones and relatives."

  He was backing away from the evidence of anything being wrong with the town, Slate saw.

  Since the subject was upsetting Stolye, Slate changed it. He said, "This may sound like a strange question, but does your wife do her own baking?"

  "I'm a bachelor. Mr. Slate,"

  "Oh. Do you eat bread?"

  The funeral director looked puzzled. "Of course I eat bread. Every day."

  "From the local store?" Slate persisted.

  "Yes. The product of the new bakery up on the mountainside."

  "Hmm. Are you on any kind of special diet?"

  Myron Stoyle shook his head. "I eat quite normally. What are you getting at, Mr. Slate?"

  "Just a hobby of mine, Mr. Stoyle. I'm interested in dietetics. Do you eat much cheese?"

  Stoyle seemed to decide he had run into some kind of nut, and had better humor him. He said patiently, "Occasionally. It is hardly a staple of my diet
."

  Slate gave a resigned shrug. He moved back into the hall and the mortician trailed after him.

  "Miss Hopper's funeral is at ten Thursday morning," he said. "Usually protestant services are in the afternoon, but we can't fit it in because the other one is that afternoon. Will you attend?"

  "Afraid I won't be in town that long," Slate said. "I just dropped in to pay my respects."

  He moved on out the side door.

  The funeral director stood staring after him puzzledly until he pulled the door closed behind him.

  Slate managed to get back to his room without encountering the landlady. He changed back to his old clothes, then took out his pen-communicator and twisted the barrel. The antenna failed to rise.

  Examining it, he found a small dent in the barrel. Where he had fallen on the rock, he realized. The pen had been in his shirt pocket and he had fallen right on it.

  He worked on it for some time and finally got the antenna elevated, but the communicator was dead. Ruefully he dropped it into his suitcase.

  TWELVE

  THE TRAP

  Tuesday evening, when Boris Rank took April to dinner, she insisted on getting back to the hotel early on the excuse of wanting to be fresh and alert for her first day of work. He gave in rather reluctantly and she managed to get to bed by ten.

  When she reported for work the next morning, Dorcus examined her critically, noted that her hair was pinned up into a bun and nodded approval.

  "Today I just want you to observe John and Shelia," Dorcus said. "They will run all the routine tests this morning. Tomorrow you can take over that chore completely.

  "All right," April said.

  "I won't be able to give you any personal supervision today," Dorcus went on. "I have a special research job which will keep me busy. But John and Shelia can answer any questions you have."

  "All right," April said again.

  "Get April a lab smock, Shelia," Dorcus told the young lab technician. Then she unlocked the door of the special research lab and disappeared through it.

  "What she working on in there?" April asked.

  Shelia Jennings shrugged. "She doesn't say, and John and I aren't allowed in there. I think she's just doing research on her doctorate on company time, but John thinks it's some kind of top secret government project. John's a little nuts, you know."

  Shelia brought April a white laboratory smock and April slipped into it. The rest of the morning she merely watched the two young technicians run routine lab tests, asking questions when she felt they were pertinent. Her crash course in bio-chemistry had given her just enough background to bluff her way through the morning.

  The last of the tests had been finished by ten of twelve. John and Shelia slipped out of their smocks, and April followed suit.

  "You want to lunch with us, or do you have other plans?" John Quade asked.

  The door from the hall opened at that moment. Boris Rank said, "She has other plans."

  Shelia and Quade looked at each other and shrugged. By that evening it probably would be all over the plant that the big boss had a crush on the new lab girl, April thought. The two young technicians went on through the door Rank had just entered.

  The door to the private lab opened and Dorcus looked out. When she saw Rank, she said with a suppressed air of excitement, "Come in here a minute please, Boris."

  He went into the room with Dorcus and dosed the door behind him.

  April lifted her purse from where it lay on a counter and lifted her small transistor radio from it. Making an adjustment of the dial, she silently tiptoed across the room and pressed its back against the door of Dorcus' private lab.

  Dorcus' voice came from the speaker clearly. "I've solved it, Boris," she said in a voice of triumph. "It was so simple, I can hardly believe it. I merely mixed the two substances half-and-half."

  "And?" Boris Rank's voice said. "I've administered what should have been fatal overdoses to five rats. Not one has died."

  "Excellent," Rank said with enthusiasm.

  Dorcus' voice said, "We'll need a substantial supply of Tehedrin zero fifty-five, of course. I have run analyses on it, however, and it won't be difficult to manufacture. The lab facilities at the other plant are more adequate for that than this small lab, though, so I'm going to fly down there for a few days."

  "Today?"

  "As soon as I have some lunch and can get to the airport."

  There was momentary silence. Just in time April sensed that the conversation was over and the two were on the verge of stepping into the main lab. She took two fast steps away from the door, simultaneously making an adjustment of the radio.

  Dorcus emerged from the lab first. She paused and her eyes momentarily narrowed when she saw April standing near a work counter only a few feet from the door. Then her suspicion died when she realized the girl was listening intently to the noon weather report coming over the radio.

  "Heavy rain predicted for southern Missouri," April said casually. "It's supposed to miss St. Louis, though."

  She clicked off the radio, crossed to where she had left her purse and dropped it into the purse.

  Dorcus said, "I'm going to be out of town for a few days, April. With you here to help Shelia and John now, the three of you should be able to manage. Are you learning the ropes?"

  "We'll get along all right," April said. "It's very similar to my work at Gruenwald. Where are you going?"

  "To visit one of our other plants."

  She took off her lab smock, hung it from a wall hook and hurried out into the hall.

  "Are you all ready?" Rank asked April.

  "All ready," she said.

  Rank took April to lunch at a restaurant only a few blocks from the plant. During lunch she casually asked where the other plant was that Dorcus had gone to.

  "In a small town south of here," he said vaguely.

  April didn't pump him further, but she was reasonably certain the plant was the one at Pig Wallow. After lunch she excused herself to go to the powder room.

  Making sure that the room was deserted, she took out her radio-communicator and called U.N.C.L.E. headquarters.

  When Alexander Waverly answered, she said, "There's been a development, sir. First, the Elias woman has solved the dosage problem. By mixing THRUSH'S drug half-and-half with Tehedrin zero fifty-five, she's discovered that what should have been a fatal overdose doesn't kill rats."

  "Hmm," Waverly said. "You said first. Is there more?"

  "Yes, sir. Apparently there is a lab at the plant in Pig Wallow. She plans to manufacture a supply of Tehedrin zero fifty-five there. She's on her way there now."

  "Oh?" Waverly said. "In that case we had better get Mr. Slate out of Pig Wallow. It wouldn't do to have Miss Elias find him there."

  "What I thought," April said. "You'll contact him to warn him?"

  "As soon as I'm finished with you, Miss Dancer. Anything else?"

  "Only that with the Elias woman away, I should have a chance to look at her private lab this afternoon. I'll report back on what I find."

  "Good," Waverly said. "I'll expect to hear from you then."

  When April got back from lunch, John Quade announced that he and Shelia were undertaking a new project in the experimental kitchen and asked April to watch. She remained with them about fifteen minutes, then, when they became involved in a discussion of ingredients for a new sweet roll they were trying to invent, unobtrusively drifted out into the main lab.

  Crossing the room, she tried the door to the special research lab. As she had expected, it was locked. She plucked from her hair the spring steel hairpin and went to work on the lock with the picklock side of it. Within moments she had the door open. Slipping inside, she closed and locked the door behind her.

  It was a small room, but completely equipped for both chemistry and biological research. In one corner was a tier of cages full of white rats. The rodents set up a chittering sound when they saw her.

  She went over to examine the cage
s. The top one was labeled: Control Group for ½ Z-17, ½Tehedrin 055 5 mg. ea.

  There were five rats in the cage. They weren't chittering like the ones in the other cages. They merely sat and regarded her solemnly, in much the same attitude of patient waiting as the filling station attendant, the tavern-restaurant proprietor and the two old people in the drugstore-general-store in Pig Wallow. They all looked healthy enough, however.

  She looked at the label on the cage again. Z-17 was Dorcus' code name for THRUSH's obedience drug, she decided. She examined the labels of all the bottles and boxes of chemicals on the shelves over the work table, but found none which read Z-17. She found no Tehedrin zero fifty-five either. Dorcus must have taken her whole supply of both drugs with her.

  Her disappointment was somewhat allayed by finding a ruled legal pad filled with notes in one of the drawers. April couldn't completely understand the notes, because they were studded with complicated chemical symbols, but her crash course in bio-chemistry at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters had given her enough knowledge to make out what they were about.

  The girl from U.N.C.L.E. realized the notes contained a complete description of both Z-17 and Tehedrin zero fifty-five, plus the results of Dorcus' experiments with both.

  April slipped off the rhinestone ring she was wearing. Laying the notepad flat on the counter, she held the ring about a foot and a half above the first page, stone down, and pressed a secret catch. There was a small but audible click.

  She repeated the process for each page of the notes, then replaced the pad where she had found it.

  Slipping the ring back on her finger, she unlocked the door and cracked it open.

  She peeked out just in time to see Boris Rank enter the lab. He glanced around, then went over to the door of the experimental kitchen.

  "Where's Miss Dancer?" he asked.

  Shelia Jennings' voice said, "She was here a minute ago, Mr. Rank. I didn't notice her leave."

  Boris Rank started to turn around. Intuitively April knew he was going to look toward the door of the private lab. She eased it shut before he could complete the motion and let the spring bolt click home. The noise sounded loud to her, but she hoped the closed door had muffled it enough so that Boris Rank hadn't heard it.