Free The Glass Slipper by Mignon G. Eberhart Page A

Rue?”
    “Yes. There’s nothing we can do.”
    “What happened?”
    “Nothing. She — just drank her tea and — and died.”
    “Her tea,” said Gross from the doorway in a strangled way. Alicia looked at him and back at Rue.
    “Steven,” she said, “thank God you are here. Look, Steven. There’s the tea tray. There’s the cup the poor girl drank from — half emptied. Look carefully, so you’ll remember.”
    “What do you mean, Alicia? Surely you aren’t trying to say that —”
    Alicia’s eyes flashed impatiently.
    “Have you forgotten how Crystal died?”
    There was a gurgle from the doorway where Gross stood as if transfixed.
    Steven got up.
    “Look here, Alicia. You can’t go around saying things like that. Crystal wasn’t murdered. What do you mean?”
    “Can’t you see for yourself, Steven? Have you never questioned Crystal’s death? Or the circumstances of it? Because if you haven’t, you may as well know right now that the police have. They think she was murdered.”
    “Alicia, what are you saying! You are mad. Nobody thinks Crystal was murdered. Who would have murdered her?”
    Alicia’s clear voice went on; she was still altogether collected and, obscurely, triumphant. Her cheeks were not flushed; she stood in a quiet and graceful pose. Not a hair was out of place, and her white fingers were gentle and detached-looking against the huge black bag she carried.
    “Ask yourself questions, Steven. Who was with Crystal when she died? Who knew how to give her poison so you wouldn’t think of it being poison? So Crystal would die like that — in a coma without active symptoms of having been poisoned. Who profited by Crystal’s death? Who — Good God, Steven, are you as blind as Brule?”
    “Do you mean — Rue?” said Steven slowly.
    Alicia smiled, a little scornfully as a teacher might with a backward pupil.
    “The nurse, Julie Garder, must have asked those questions too,” she said with a curious effect of lightness. “Now she’s dead. As Crystal died.”
    There was a slight, muffled motion from the doorway, and some surface sense of Rue’s discovered that Gross had forsaken all training and dissolved dazedly into a sitting position on the edge of a chair as if his hitherto rigid knees had failed him. This, said Gross’s attitude, was catastrophe.
    “Rue, you hear what Alicia said. Of course it isn’t true.” Steven’s deep-set eyes, though, questioned her, begged for reassurance.
    “No, Steven. It isn’t true. I don’t know why she accuses me.”
    Alicia caught it up neatly and replied with an adroit touch of wistfulness. “I was Crystal’s best friend. And I’m engaged to marry you, Steven; I love you. How can I remain quiet and see you taken in by —” She checked herself too obviously. “I make no accusation at all.”
    Steven rubbed his hands through his hair, already disheveled. He wore a brown sweater instead of a coat and his tie and collar were loosened, and he had on soft wooden slippers.
    “I don’t know what to do.” He turned. “Gross.”
    The butler jerked himself upward but could not resume his usual rigid exterior. He looked slack and old and said waveringly: “Yes sir.”
    “Did you let in this — Miss Garder?” His hand indicated Julie, and Gross said, understanding him:
    “No sir. If you mean to say did I let the young lady into the house, I didn’t.”
    “But you announced her,” said Rue. “You told me she had come to see me.”
    “And so she said, madam. But she was — already in the house. It — I — I hope it wasn’t wrong. I hope the police… I didn’t mean any harm. It was unusual, but I saw no reason to tell Madam —”
    “What do you mean?” asked Steven.
    “I mean, sir, the nurse was already in the house. I came into the drawing room to turn on lights and she was there. Sitting in the dark. She — she seemed to be waiting. She said she’d come to see Mrs Hatterick and would I please let Madam know. So I — I