The Glass Slipper by Mignon G. Eberhart Read Free Book Online Page A

to Crystal at eight. Crystal had taken it and…
    The marquetry floor with its soft rugs wavered and rocked under Rue’s silver slippers; the lights trembled and blurred; the whole world as she knew it spun around and changed its order. For they were right. Crystal had been murdered.
    And she, Rue, had murdered her.
    Not intentionally; but actually, physically it had been Rue’s hand that finally accomplished Crystal’s death.
    She’d given Crystal the little glass, prepared, waiting on the table. And now suddenly she remembered; Crystal had taken it and had complained of its taste; had said, “It’s bitter. Andy must have changed the medicine today,” and then she drank it. Drank it while Rue stood beside her, crisp, efficient in her white uniform. A travesty of her own ideals, for her own hand, trained and dedicated to mercy, had given Crystal poison.
    Andy’s voice was speaking, sharply, with a warning note in it. He was saying: “Certainly she gave her medicine, and I prescribed it. Why not? Anything else would be most unusual.”
    Somehow Andy was getting Miller into the hall. She heard them talking; she made some motion of recognition when Miller appeared, a shabby felt hat in his hand, and said good night and thanked her. His eyes said, I’ll question you again, my fine lady; this is not our last meeting. So you gave her medicine, did you? And she took it and died. And you married her husband. Andy came back into the room.
    “They’ve gone. You weathered that. Rue, what was it you remembered? I knew by your look there was something.”
    “The medicine. I gave it to her; Julie had prepared it and left it in a glass on the table where we kept her medicines and water. I gave it to Crystal, and I remember that she tasted it and looked at me and said it tasted bitter; she laughed a little and said, ‘Andy must have changed my medicine today,’ and then she drank it, while I stood there watching her.”
    Up to that time, up to the very moment when that small, clear memory arose so sharply and unexpectedly from the faraway night of Crystal’s death and presented itself to her, the whole thing had seemed unreal. Every word Andy said to her might have been said through veils, on a stage, in a curious and fantastic dream. Everything else was poignantly real — the coldness of the wind, the swish of her skirt around her ankles, the heat of the coffee he had made her drink. It was as if all material things had taken on an extra and peculiar clarity. But not the thing they talked of.
    And then all at once, while Miller questioned phlegmatically and the little Funk examined the satinwood table, memory had supplied that clear, small picture.
    She could see the glass in Crystal’s hand, the way Crystal had looked up at her, her face pink and her lips crimson and her blonde hair carefully dressed. She had made a little face as she tasted it. And then, her eyes shut tight, had gulped it down. Because it was Andy’s medicine. Because she did not dream that there was poison in that little glass.
    As there must have been.
    Up to the onslaught of that memory the thing had been unreal. Rue had been shocked — and she’d been frightened and she’d had a paralyzing sense of catastrophe. But there hadn’t been cold, certain conviction. There hadn’t been, in the wake of knowledge, terror.
    And some extra sense, some natural, primitive sense that went below all surface laws of comprehension, convinced her of the presence of truth. Crystal had really, actually, been murdered.
    And in her heart, horribly, instantly convinced, she was sure that she herself, schooled and trained to save life, had literally taken it.
    And Andy knew it. Andy had known it.
    He stood now watching her, his face drawn and gray-looking, older suddenly and stern, his eyes blazing with knowledge.
    “You say Julie had prepared it? Before she went off duty?”
    “Yes.”
    He rubbed his hands through his hair.
    “Oh, God,” he said. “If it was in