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

the medicine anybody could have put it there. Who was in the house — But it doesn’t matter. There’s no use in our asking questions, inquiring, trying to run the thing down now. The thing is to admit nothing. Tell them nothing — and hope that nothing will show up in the autopsy. After a year —”
    “It’s been a year,” she said slowly. “If she was poisoned, would it be traced? Could it be traced? Oh, I know arsenic would remain, but it wasn’t arsenic, Andy. There were no symptoms of that.”
    “Any organic poison can be traced — or almost any organic poison. The symptoms — coma and all that — suggest morphine, opium, possibly luminal in sufficient quantity. If I’d thought of murder… But Brule —”
    Brule had been there when she died. Brule had bent over the bed, had had his wise and expert fingers on her faint pulse; had lifted her eyelids and looked, there at the last. Rue wrenched herself back to that night, she tried to recall details of that scene; Andy, too, was trying to remember. He said, low so Gross if he were in the hall could not hear:
    “Do you remember her eyes, Rue? Were the pupils either enlarged or small? Was there anything —”
    Rue shook her head slowly.
    “There was nothing, Andy. Nothing I can remember. Brule was there, and you know how it is with him. Nobody ever questions him. He is so strong, so sure of himself; so certain; he said she was dead. He — I think you came just then. And I remember Brule sent me to see to Madge. Madge was hysterical; Steven and I tried to quiet her, but Steven was almost as bad as Madge. Someone sent for the undertaker — I think Brule told Gross to telephone. There was nothing. Andy, where are you going?”
    He was buttoning the overcoat he had not removed.
    “I’m going to find Brule. If anyone telephones, if anyone comes, don’t say anything.”
    He had gone before it occurred to her that he must know where Brule was.
    The house was silent. The narrow, five-storied brownstone house where Crystal had lived and married and died at last.
    It was cold in the French drawing room; the gilded mirrors looked indescribably vacant and cold and shallow, yet they had seen so much. She shivered under the furs she still wore, rose and went through the narrow hall, which ran along the length of the house, to the library. There was a sullen cannel-coal fire there in the small marble grate.
    She took off her furs and knelt to poke the coals to a brighter blaze. She would wait for Brule.
    She had never waited for him in their brief married life. Instinctively she knew he would not like her waiting; would not like her to assume any air of possession.
    She pushed a deep, leather-cushioned chair closer to the fire and sat down, stretching out her silver sandals.
    From a modern light wood frame above the mantel Crystal stared enigmatically down at her, a half smile on her thin, painted lips, her eyes secret, cool, uncannily observant, and the pearls she wore glowing. Madge was to have those pearls.
    It was half-past one when Brule came.
    The heavy jar of the front door roused her. She was chilled and too much aware of the house and its silence. The fire had gone out long before. She had curled up in the great chair and put her head upon her arms and pulled her furs over her bare, slim shoulders as the house grew colder. But she had not slept. Once she wondered, in the waiting, night silence, if ever again anyone could sleep in that house where Crystal’s sleep had been too deep.
    Brule saw the light in the library and came in, and Rue stirred and moved cramped muscles.
    “Rue!” he said. He was in evening dress and carried gloves and a hat in one hand. He put them down on a table. She saw at once that he was angry. His usually ruddy face was pale, and there were lines in it which only showed under extreme fatigue. His bright, black eyes had points of light, and his straight black eyebrows were frowning. His black, short mustache made a straight,