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

Heart?”
    â€œI don’t know. Yes, I suppose so.” All three of us stood there for an indecisive moment, staring down at Conrad Brent’s body—sprawled there awkwardly, with his face sunk over one shoulder and his mouth a little open. I remember feeling that I ought to get a towel and tie that square, but no longer formidable, jaw before rigor mortis set in. And then instantly I thought the police wouldn’t like it; I must touch nothing. Police ? But Drue’s wild words hadn’t meant that she had murdered him. I’d thought of murder and police only because Craig had said, there’ll be murder done.
    Craig ! I’d forgotten him.
    â€œI’ve got to go back to my patient! I believe Mr. Brent is dead, but call Dr. Chivery!” I reached the door and thought of Drue. I couldn’t leave her there in that room beside Conrad Brent, to be questioned by this young Huber or by anyone else. Not just then. I went quickly back to her. “You go up to Craig,” I said. “Stay there with him.”
    â€œBut I …” she began. I interrupted, “ Hurry !”
    I hoped Peter Huber would not notice how urgent it sounded. However, Drue gave the sagging thing on the couch another long look, blank with shock, and went. I made sure she was on the way upstairs then said again, sharply, to Peter Huber, “Get the doctor. I’ll stay here.”
    â€œWouldn’t you rather I would stay with him? I don’t mind. You can call the doctor.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I don’t know the number. …”
    â€œBut the telephone operator …”
    I said again, “ Hurry ,” and must have sounded as if I meant it, for he gave me a startled look and went away. I closed the door behind him and went to Conrad Brent.
    â€œI’ve killed him,” Drue had said, clutching a hypodermic syringe. Presently I found the mark. It was a tiny red spot on his left arm—so very small—yet, if they found it, what would they say? Everyone in that house knew that the man who lay there, dead, had come between Drue and her young husband, and now that she had come back he was still determined to give her no quarter. “I’ve only tonight,” she’d said.
    Well, perhaps Claud Chivery wouldn’t see that tiny red mark. I rolled down the cuff, fastened it and adjusted the brown velvet sleeve of his lounge coat; then I looked around the room.
    Nothing much was changed since my interview in that room during the late afternoon. The desk lamp was still lighted; the fire had burned down to gray ashes with crimson undertones; the decanter of brandy still stood on the desk—not, however, on the tray but on the edge of the desk. The room was warm and so still that everything in it seemed to have a quiet, intensely observant life of its own, as if the chairs and books, the coat of arms over the mantel, the objects on the desk, things intimately associated with the life of Conrad Brent, were all watching me—me and that forever silent figure, gray-faced and inert on the couch.
    Craig had said murder and now Conrad Brent was dead.
    It was not a comfortable thought. Even so, I was a little taken aback to find my hand had gone out toward the brandy decanter. I was, indeed, in the very act of lifting it and reaching for a glass when I stopped. Having been a practicing teetotaler all my life, I withdrew my hand quickly, although, as to that, there was not enough brandy in the decanter to make a very black mark on my record. I had, however, already touched the decanter—but I thought nothing of it, then, and looked again about the room. I don’t say I was looking for clues; still, there weren’t any. Not even a cigarette or cigar ashes. A cuff link would have come in handy just then, I thought, or burned papers in the fireplace. But there was nothing.
    Nothing but Conrad Brent, and the only thing I could be fairly sure of was that