Free The Simple Way of Poison by Leslie Ford Page B

her with sharp steady appraisal.
    “It’s entirely up to you, my dear.—I hadn’t, somehow, expected you to take that attitude.”
    Their eyes met evenly.
    “I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”
    He sat down, leaning back in the cherry damask fireside chair without taking his eyes off hers.
    “Possibly I’m not quite clear. I’d assumed that if, by any change, Randall’s death should turn out not to be natural, you’d be the first person who’d want it properly settled.”
    He hesitated an instant and went coolly on.
    “I know, of course, it’s the fashion to assume the police are not only fools, but scoundrels who try to hang the first person they lay eyes on.”
    Iris moved abruptly, her face suddenly hard.
    “That’s quite false,” Colonel Primrose went on placidly. “When they do happen to hang the first person they lay eyes on, it’s because that person is guilty. However.”
    He got up.
    “I want to tell you—for your own information—what the situation appears to be, on the face of it. You’d better count on the fact that Randall was poisoned. They’ll know definitely in the morning.”
    He hesitated a moment, looking steadily at her, and went calmly on.
    “You were presumably the last person in the house this evening. When we came back you went into the library, and destroyed what was probably direct evidence as to the means of Randall’s death. Those are two very serious points that you’ll be called on to answer when the District Attorney’s office gets around to it.”
    He moved toward the door.
    “If there’s anything I can do to help you at all, I hope you’ll call on me.”
    He glanced at me. “I assume you’re staying here until morning, Mrs. Latham.”
    I nodded furiously. I had never heard anything so brutal in my life… or seen anything so marvelous as the way Iris Nash took it squarely on the chin without a quiver.
    We heard him go out and close the door behind him.
    “Well,” I said, “that’s that.”
    She sat down as suddenly as if someone had knocked her feet out from under her. I went over beside her. She gripped my hand. Her own was ice-cold. Her whole body was trembling like a blade of grass.
    She closed her eyes.
    “I’m afraid, Grace,” she whispered suddenly, trembling uncontrollably. “Horribly, horribly afraid!”
    I sat there stupidly, saying nothing. I couldn’t think of anything at all to say. Then quite suddenly she opened her eyes and looked around at me. “Will you do something for me, Grace?”
    “Surely,” I said. “What is it?”
    “Call up the Emergency Hospital and find out how Angie’s mother is. I’ve got to know.”
    I looked at the clock on the mantel. It was twenty minutes past five.
    “Hospitals carry on all night, I suppose,” I said, and got up. Then I came to a dead stop.
    “There’s a phone in the pantry,” she said quickly.
    The pantry light was still on. There was a tray of ice cubes in the sink, half melted where they’d been left and forgotten. Iris’s handkerchief was on the shelf above it. It was quite dry. I put it in the pocket of my lace jacket to give her, picked up the phone book and dialed the hospital number.
    “Can you tell me how Mrs. Marie Lowell Nash is this morning?” I asked, trying to sound as casual about calling it morning as if I was just getting out the mop to start the day’s work instead of still being in a lace evening gown and silver sandals.
    A crisp efficient voice answered me, with just a hint of surprise.
    “Who is calling, please?”
    “Mrs. Nash’s former husband’s home,” I said, hoping that way to get something more definite than the usual “She’s doing very nicely, thank you.”
    And I did. The voice hesitated, and spoke quietly.
    “I’m sorry—Mrs. Nash died this morning at twenty-five minutes past one. Her son has been notified.”

6
    I stared stupidly into the wall, the telephone still in my hand, the dial tone zinging in my ear. Marie Nash dead… It wasn’t