Tenth Commandment (31 page)

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I came back with our drinks, pulled my chair closer, took her free hand in mine.

'Am I forgiven?' I asked.

She was looking uncommonly handsome that night. But each time I saw her I discerned new beauty. The long hair I had once thought of as only gleaming chestnut now seemed to me to have the tossing fascination of flame. The smile I had defined as pleasant but distant now appeared to me mysterious and full of promise. The thin nose was now aristocratic, the high, clear, brow bespoke intelligence, and the wide mouth, instead of being merely curvy, was now sensuous and madly desirable.

As for her figure, I could not believe I once thought her skinny. I saw now that she was elegant, supple as a willow wand, and her long arms and legs, slender hands and feet, were all of a piece, pliant and flowing. There was a fluency to her body, and I no longer thought of her as being a head taller than I. We were equals: that's what I thought.

'Of course I forgive you,' she said in that marvellously low and gentle voice. 'But there is nothing to forgive. The fault was mine. I have no claims on you. You can live as you please. I was just being stupid.'

'No, no,' I said hotly. 'You were not stupid. Are not stupid.'

'It was just t h a t . . . ' she said hesitantly. 'Well, I was — I was hurt. I don't know why, but I was.'

'I would never do anything to hurt you,' I vowed.

'Never! And I haven't forgotten about the kite either. I really am going to buy a red kite for us. With string.'

She laughed. 'I'm glad you haven't forgotten, Josh,' she said, gently taking her hand from mine. 'Now do you want to talk about what I found out? About the arsenic?'

I nodded, even though at that moment I most wanted to talk about us.

She took the envelope from the floor at my feet and opened the flap. I moved the table lamp closer.

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'I'll leave all of this for you to read,' she said. 'Most of it is photocopies, and photostats from medical journals and drug company manuals. Josh, it's awfully technical.

Maybe I better go over the main points, and that will be enough for you, and you won't have to read it all. That man you said was poisoned by arsenic — was he killed? I mean, was he fed a large quantity of arsenic at one time and died? Or small amounts over a period of time?'

'Small amounts,' I said. 'I think. And I don't believe he died. At least not from the arsenic.'

'Well, arsenic comes in a lot of different chemical compounds. Powders, crystals, and liquids. There's even one type that fumes in air. Pope Clement the Seventh and Leopold the First of Austria were supposed to have been assassinated by arsenic mixed in wax candles. The fumes from the candles were poisonous, and whoever breathed them died.'

'That's incredible,' I murmured, and before I could help myself I had flopped to my knees alongside her chair and taken up one of her long, slender hands again. She let me.

'I think what you're looking for, Josh, is arsenic trioxide. It's the common form and the primary material of all the arsenic compounds.'

'Yes,' I said, putting my lips to the tips of her fingers.

'Arsenic trioxide.'

'It is white or transparent glassy lumps or a crystalline powder. It is soluble if mixed slowly and used extremely sparingly. It is odourless and tasteless. A poisonous dose would be only a small pinch. There might be a very slight aftertaste.'

'Aftertaste,' I repeated, kissing her knuckles, the back of her hand, then turning it over to kiss that pearly wrist with the blue veins pulsing faintly.

'Only two- or three-tenths of a gram of arsenic trioxide can kill an adult within forty-eight hours, so you can see how a tiny amount could cause illness.' She obviously 257

intended to finish her lecture despite the distractions.

'Arsenic affects the red blood cells and kidneys, if I read these medical papers correctly. The symptoms vary greatly, but a victim of fatal arsenic poisoning might have headaches, vertigo, muscle spasm, delirium, and stupor.

Death comes from circulatory collapse. In smaller doses, over a period of time, there would probably be a low-grade fever, loss of appetite, pallor, weakness, inflammation of the nose and throat. You notice that those symptoms are quite similar to the flu or a virus, and that's why arsenic poisoning is sometimes misdiagnosed. In tiny doses over a long period of time, there is usually no delirium or stupor.'

'Stupor,' I said, touching the tip of my tongue to the palm of her hand. Her entire arm quivered, but her voice was steady as she continued.

'After repeated poisonings, loss of hair and nails may result, accompanied by hoarseness and a hacking cough.

Arsenic collects in the hair, nails, and skin. There is some evidence that Napoleon may have been poisoned with arsenic on St Helena. It was found in a lock of his hair years later.'

'Poor Napoleon,' I whispered. I craned upwards to sniff the perfume of her hair, to bury my face in the sweet juncture where neck met shoulder, to breathe her in. She, who would not brook diversion.

'An alert physician may sometimes spot a garlicky odour of breath and faeces.' She showed no evidence of slowing down. 'Also, urine analysis and gastric washings usually reveal the presence of arsenic. But the symptoms are sometimes so similar to stomach flu that a lot of doctors don't suspect arsenic poisoning until it's too late.'

'Too late,' I groaned, pushing her hair aside gently to kiss her divine ear tenderly. She trembled, a bit, but continued to read from her notes.

'Arsenic is no longer generally used in medicine, having 258

been replaced by more efficient compounds. It was formerly used in the treatment of infections, joint disease, skin lesions, including syphilis, chronic bronchitis, anaemia, psoriasis, and so forth. It's still used by veterinarians, but much less frequently than it once was.

Most uses of arsenic today are in manufacturing. It is used for hardening copper, lead, and alloys, to make paint and glass, in tanning hides, in printing and dyeing fabrics. It's also used as a pigment in painting, in weed control, for killing rodents and insects, and in fireworks.'

'Fireworks,' I breathed, touching the fine silkiness of her hair. It was as soft and evanescent as cobwebs.

'Now, as to the availability . . . It's prohibited in food and drugs, and is being phased out as a weed killer. You might find it in rat poison and wood preservatives, but they'd be poisonous for their ingredients, too. Arsenic is available commercially in large wholesale quantities. It is used in manufacturing parts of car batteries, for instance.

But for uses like that, it's bought by the ton, and the government requires disclosure of the end-use. So what is a poor poisoner to do? It would be difficult to purchase an arsenic-containing product in a garden nursery or hardware store or pharmacy. It would probably be impossible.'

'Impossible,' I moaned. I was kneeling, an arm about her shoulders. The fingers of that hand touched her neck, ear, the loose strands of hair cascading down her back. My other hand stroked the arm closest to me, touched her timorously. I felt her shiver, but too soon she recovered her self-control.

'Still, arsenic trioxide is frequently used in medical and chemical laboratories for research. It is obtained from chemical supply houses by written order, and they must know with whom they are dealing. I mean, a stranger can't just write in and order a pound of arsenic. The usual order from a lab will be for 100 to 500 grammes at a time. In its crudest form, it costs about ten dollars for 250 grammes.

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High-purity arsenic trioxide costs about a dollar a gramme. It seems to me that the easiest thing for a poisoner to do would be to steal a small amount of arsenic trioxide from the stock room of a research laboratory or a chemical lab at a university. Such a tiny bit is needed to kill someone that the amount stolen would probably never be noticed and — Oh, Josh!' she cried.

She dropped her research papers to the floor, slipped from the chair, fell on to her knees, twisted and flung herself into my arms. In that position, both of us kneeling, we were nearly of a height, and embraced eagerly. We kissed. Our teeth clinked. We kissed. We murmured such things as 'I never -' and 'I didn't -' and 'I can't -' and 'I wouldn't -' All of which soon became 'I wanted -' and 'I hoped -' and 'I wished -' and, finally, 'I love -'

Not a sentence was finished, nor was there need for it.

After a while, weak with our osculatory explorations, we simply toppled over, fell to the floor with a thump, and lay close together, nose to nose in fact, staring into each other's eyes and smiling, smiling, smiling.

'I don't care,' Cleo Hufnagel said in her low, hesitant voice. 'I just don't care.'

'I don't either,' I said. 'About anything but us.'

'Us,' she said, wonder in her voice.

'Us,' I repeated. I smoothed the hair away from her temples, touched the smooth skin of her brow. When I pressed her yielding back, she moved closer to me, and we clove. I began to scratch her spine gently through the flannel of her jumper. She closed her eyes and purred with contentment.

'Don't stop,' she said. 'Please.'

'I do not intend to,' I said, and scratched away assiduously, widening the base of my operations to include shoulder blades and ribs.

'Oh,' she sighed. 'Oh, oh, oh. Are you a virgin, Josh?'

'No.'

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'I am.'

'Ah?'

'But I don't want to be,' she said. Then her eyes flicked open and she looked at me with alarm. 'But not tonight,'

she added hastily.

'I understand,' I assured her gravely. 'This is grand. Just being with you.'

'And having you scratch my back is grand,' she sighed.

'That's beautiful. Thank you.'

'Thank you,' I said. 'Another brandy?'

'I don't think so,' she said thoughtfully. 'I feel just right. How old are you, Josh?'

'Thirty-two.'

'I'm thirty-four,' she said sadly.

'So?'

'I'm older than you are.'

'But I'm shorter than you are.'

She wriggled around so she could hold my face between her palms. She stared intently into my eyes.

'But that doesn't make any difference,' she said. 'Does it? My being older or your being shorter? That's not important, is it?'

'No,' I said, astonished, 'it's not.'

'I've got to tell you something awful,' she said.

'What?'

'I must get up and use your bathroom.'

When we kissed goodnight I had to lift on to my toes as she bent down. But I didn't mind that, and neither of us laughed.

'Thank you for a lovely evening,' I said.

She didn't answer, but drew her fingertips gently down my cheek. Then she was gone.

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6

I remember the next day very well, since it had such an impression on what was to follow. It was the first Saturday of March, a gruff, blustery day with steely light coming from a phlegmy sky. The air had the sharp smell of snow, and I hurried through my round of weekend chores, laying in enough food so that I could enjoy a quiet, relaxed couple of days at home even if the city was snowed in.

I took care of laundry, drycleaning, and shopping. I bought wine and liquor. I cleaned the apartment. Then I showered and shaved, dressed in slacks, sweater, sports jacket, and carpet slippers. A little after noon, I settled down with the morning Times and my third cup of coffee of the day.

I think I was annoyed when the phone rang. I was enjoying my warm solitude, and the jangle of the bell was an unwelcome reminder of the raw world outside my windows.

'Hello?' I said cautiously.

'Josh!' Detective Percy Stilton cried. 'My main man!

I'm sitting here in my drawers, my old lady's in the kitchen doing something to a chicken, and I'm puffing away on a joint big as a see-gar and meanwhile investigating this fine jug of Almaden Mountain White Chablis, vintage of last Tuesday, and God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world, and what can I do for you, m'man? I got a message you called.'

'You sound in fine fettle, Perce,' I said.

'Fine fettle?' he said. 'I got a fettle on me you wouldn't believe — a tough fettle, a boss fettle. I got me a sweet forty-eighter, and nothing and nobody is going to pry me 262

loose from hearth and home until Monday morning. You want to know about that crazy elevator — right? Okay, it was on the sixth floor when the first blues got to the Kipper townhouse. They both swear to it. So? What does that prove? Sol could have taken it up to his big jump.'

'Could have,' I said. 'Yes. It's hard to believe an emotionally disturbed man intent on suicide would wait for an elevator to take him up one floor when he could have walked it in less than a minute. But I agree, yes, he could have done it.'

'Let's figure he did,' Stilton said. 'Let's not try jamming facts into a theory. I've known a lot of good men who messed themselves up doing that. The trick is to fit the theory to the facts. How you doing? Any great detecting to report?'

'Two things,' I said.

I told him about those bills from Martin Reape I had found at Kipmar Textiles. The bills that had been approved for payment by Sol Kipper. And the cancelled cheques endorsed by Reape.

I awaited his reaction. But there was only silence.

'Perce?' I said. 'You there?'

He started speaking again, and suddenly he was sober . . .

'Josh,' he said, 'do you realize what you've got?'

'Well, yes, certainly. I've established a definite connection between Sol Kipper and Marty Reape.'

'You goddamned Boy Scout!' he screamed at me.

'You've got hard evidence. You've got paper. Something we can take to court. Up to now it's all been smoke. But now we've got paper. God, that's wonderful!'

It didn't seem so wonderful to me, but I supposed police officers had legal priorities of which I was not aware. I went ahead and told Detective Stilton what I had learned about Tippi Kipper and the Reverend Godfrey Knurr, that they were having an affair and it had existed prior 263

to Sol Kipper's death.

'Where did you get that?' he asked curiously.