Free Wolf in Man's Clothing by Mignon G. Eberhart

come with it.
    Twelve o’clock and twelve-ten, and still she was not there.
    At twelve-fifteen two things happened. Delphine opened his eyes, opened them all at once without blinking, sat up and stared fixedly at the blank panels of the door to the hall. Just stared at it, for a long time. Then something bumped, hard and sharp, against the door.
    A long silence followed. I must have got up, for I remember standing very still, listening. There was no other sound, no retreating footsteps, no movement, no voice.
    Because of this, or because of something less easily accountable, a moment (perhaps two or three) elapsed before I went to the door and opened it. No one was in the hall; it stretched emptily away on either hand with the chairs here and there making heavy shadows. But no one was there.
    I believe—indeed I know—that several moments passed, while I stood there. Long enough, at least, for me to discover the rather queer thing I did discover and that was a kind of dent, small and not deep but still a dent, in the waxed gleaming surface of one of the panels of the door I still held open.
    It was as if someone had been carrying something (a ladder, fireplace tongs, perhaps a hammer) along the hall and had accidentally bumped it against the door. But people don’t carry hammers, or ladders, through sleeping houses after midnight.
    But I was looking at that little dent, touching it with my finger, when a woman somewhere screamed. It was a short, breathless little scream, cut off before it was more than begun. But I knew somehow that it was Drue.
    I knew too that it came from downstairs. But I don’t remember moving, although I do have a dim memory of clutching at the bannister on the stairs and of the slipperiness of the marble floor in the hall.
    The door to Conrad Brent’s library was open and there was a light. Drue was there, her face as white as her cap. She had something in her hand and she was bending over Conrad Brent, who lay half on the floor, half on the red leather couch.
    He was dead; I saw that. Drue said in a strange, faraway voice, “ Sarah—Sarah, I’ve killed him !”
    Then there were footsteps running heavily across the marble floor, toward us and toward the dead man. Drue heard them, too, and turned and the bright thing in her hand caught the light and glittered.

6
    I N A TIME OF shattering emergency and haste one’s action is altogether instinctive. It’s only afterward that you question that action and then it’s too late because it is already accomplished—for good or bad but certainly forever. I reached out and took the shining thing from Drue’s hand. It was a hypodermic syringe; the barrel was empty and a needle was in place.
    Drue was staring down at Conrad Brent, her eyes wide and dark in her white face. She said, in that queer, faraway voice, “I didn’t mean to kill him. I was trying to help him. But he—he died. …”
    I couldn’t put my hand over her mouth, for it would have been seen; the sound of the footsteps had abruptly stopped at the door. I thrust the hypodermic syringe into my pocket and said loudly, to cover whatever Drue was trying to say, “Don’t be frightened; we’ll get the doctor …” and turned around. It was Peter Huber who stood there; at least, it wasn’t Alexia who might have heard what Drue said, or Nicky which would be the same thing.
    Drue shrank into silence; I hoped it was prudence but was afraid it was not. Peter Huber uttered an exclamation and came quickly into the room.
    â€œSick?” he cried. “Good heavens! He looks horrible. …” He stopped beside me, clutching his red dressing gown over vividly striped pajamas. “He’s dead—isn’t he?”
    Well, I’ve been a nurse for a long time; I know death when I see it. But I made sure while he watched me.
    â€œYes, he’s dead,” I said at last.
    â€œWhat was it?