Free Puzzle of the Red Stallion by Stuart Palmer Page A

prescription blanks with them. Her idea of a doctor was a large, untidy man with a worn black satchel in his hand and a stethoscope peeping out of his coat pocket.
    But when finally equipped Dr. Peterson rolled up his sleeves, displaying capable if rather hairy arms. “Outside, all of you,” he ordered.
    Thomas and his wife backed unwillingly through the broken door. Miss Withers hesitated and the inspector stood his ground. “New York City Police,” he said, displaying his badge. The shield of gold had gone in and out of his pocket so many times that morning that he was half inclined to pin it on his vest. “I’m staying,” he went on. “There’s something funny about this business.”
    The doctor shrugged and looked toward Miss Withers. “Is she the law too? Because—”
    The inspector was about to spring to her defense, but Miss Hildegarde Withers had had enough of the sickroom. “I’ll wait for you outside, Oscar,” she said, and went quietly out of the room.
    As he worked the young doctor kept up a running commentary. “Simple enough case—cerebral accident or apoplexy,” he said. “Probably bulbar—a rupture of blood vessels in the medulla oblongata. I was afraid this might happen….”
    “You’ve treated him before, then?”
    Dr. Peterson nodded. “Two weeks ago—for a heart attack. His blood pressure’s away up in the clouds, due to high living and taking such things as horse races too seriously. I warned him—told him to stay away from the races.”
    The inspector moved closer, leaning over the bed. “This other attack—how did it happen?”
    Dr. Peterson washed out his hypodermic needle with alcohol. “I was called in and found him unconscious on this bed. Had a bit of bad news, I guess. Anyway he collapsed on the stair and somehow Thomas got him into bed and had sense enough to give him ammonia to sniff. That was all that kept him from going off then and there.”
    He bent his ear against the old man’s chest and then shook his head. “If he comes out of this coma, he’ll probably be paralyzed on one side. I give him a hundred to one….”
    Both doctor and policeman jerked back as the sick man’s mouth twitched open. “A hundred to one,” he whispered faintly. Pat Gregg opened his eyes and stared up at them. “I’ll—I’ll take fifty dollars worth of that bet….”
    Then his eyes closed wearily.
    “He’s reacting to the injection!” cried the doctor. He pulled again at his mustache. “Funny that he isn’t paralyzed—must have missed getting it by the skin of his teeth….”
    “Won—by a whisker,” whispered Pat Gregg. “I was left at the post, pocketed badly on the backstretch, but I—I broke through and came to the front….”
    He tried to sit up in bed. The blue-purple tinge was receding from his face, remaining only in a spot beneath his ear.
    “I had a funny dream, Doctor,” he said, his voice coming more clearly now. “A regular nightmare it was. Bet you three to five you never had a dream like that. I dreamed I was the pendulum in that big clock out in the hall. And then I was a big red Barbary ape swinging in a tree, only the branch broke….”
    He stopped and looked up at the inspector. “Who’re you?”
    “Never mind,” said Piper. “Remember anything before the attack—before you were sick? Who was with you and what happened?”
    Pat Gregg shook his bald head. “Nobody was with me. My head’s buzzing like a beehive, but I can remember. Thomas helped me up the stairs, and then I locked myself in and went to bed….”
    “You felt it was coming on before then, and sent for your daughter-in-law?” The doctor was making motions, but Piper kept on doggedly.
    The old man’s eyes filmed. “Sent for—Violet? Why should I send for that—that—”
    “You told Thomas to bring her here first thing in the morning.”
    “Did I? And she came?” The old man was almost smiling.
    “She didn’t come—because she couldn’t,” Piper went on.