After dinner the following evening, Gerald suggested a walk. ‘‘You’re looking peaked, Eleanor. Needn’t stay cooped up with your patient forever, you know.’’
His double meaning was plain. She rose and followed him out the french windows to the terrace.
‘‘Rather an inspiration of yours, that therapy thing.’’
‘‘What do you mean?’’
‘‘Easy enough to overdo a bit. Make the heart attack more plausible, eh?’’
She did not answer. He went on, confident of his power over her.
‘‘You were right about the digitalis, I decided. I’ve thought of something even better. Potassium chloride. I was a hospital laboratory technician once, you know. One of the jobs I batted around in after they turned me down for the army. Rum, when you come to think of it. I mean, if it hadn’t been for my wheezing heart I shouldn’t have drifted into this post, and if it weren’t for Roger’s I shouldn’t be… getting promoted, shall we say? Anyway, getting back to the potassium chloride, it’s reliable stuff. Absolutely undetectable. Do an autopsy and all you find is a damaged heart and an increased potassium rate. Exactly what you’d expect after a fatal coronary attack.’’
‘‘Gerald, must you?’’
‘‘This is no time to turn squeamish, Eleanor. Especially since it’s you who’ll be giving it.’’
‘‘Don’t be a fool. How could I?’’
‘‘Oh, I don’t mean directly. We’ll let Nurse Wilkes do that. She keeps a hypodermic of digitalis on the bedside table, ready to give him a quick jab if he needs it.’’
‘‘How did you know that?’’
‘‘I’m the dear old pal, remember? I’ve been a lot more faithful about visiting Roger than you ever were until your recent excess of wifely devotion. Nurse Wilkes and I are great chums.’’
‘‘I can imagine.’’ Men like Gerald were always irresistibleto servant girls and barmaids and plain, middle-aged nurses. And rich women who thought they had nothing better to do.
‘‘I took careful note of the type of hypodermic syringe she uses,’’ Gerald went on. ‘‘Yesterday when I was in London, I bought one just like it at one of the big medical supply houses, along with some potassium chloride and a few other things so it wouldn’t look too obvious. I’d dropped in beforehand to visit some of my old pals at the hospital and pinched a lab coat with some convincing acid holes in it. Wore it to the shop and they never dreamed of questioning me. I ditched it in a public lavatory and got rid of the rest of the stuff in various trash bins on my way back to the station.’’
‘‘You think of everything, don’t you, Gerald?’’ Eleanor’s throat was dry.
‘‘Have to, my love. So here we are. I give you the doings all ready for use. You watch your chance tomorrow morning and switch the syringes. Then you put old Roger through his paces till he works up a galloping pulse, back off and let Nurse take over, and get ready to play the shattered widow. The stuff works in a couple of minutes. And then this is all ours.’’
‘‘It’s all ours now,’’ Eleanor told him. ‘‘Mine and Roger’s.’’
‘‘I say! You’re not backing out on me, are you?’’
‘‘Yes, I am. I won’t do it, Gerald.’’
No woman had ever refused Gerald anything before. His face puckered like an angry baby’s. ‘‘But why?’’
‘‘Because I’m not quite the idiot I thought I was. You’re not worth Roger’s little finger.’’
It was astonishing how ugly Gerald could look. ‘‘And suppose I go to Roger and let him know the loving-wife act was just a buildup for murder? Suppose you’re caught with the evidence? You will be, Eleanor. I’ll see to that.’’
‘‘Don’t be ridiculous. What would you get out of it?’’
‘‘You forget, my love. I’m the boyhood chum and devoted steward. I’ll be the chap who saved his life. I’ll be in charge here, far more than I am now. And with no wife to pass things on to, Roger just might be persuaded to make me his heir.’’
‘‘How long would he survive the signing of the will?’’
‘‘That won’t be your concern, my sweet. You’ll be where you can’t do a thing about it.’’
Eleanor stared at him, frozen-faced. He began to wheedle.
‘‘Oh, come on, old girl. Think of the times we’ll have on dear old Roger’s money. You don’t plan to spend the rest of your life in that bedroom, do you?’’
‘‘No,’’ said Eleanor, ‘‘I don’t.’’
Her mind was forming pictures, of Roger being carried down to a couch on the terrace to get the sun, of Roger being pushed around the garden in a wheelchair, of Roger taking his first steps on crutches. And someday, of Roger and herself walking together where she and Gerald were walking now. It would happen. She knew it would because this was what she wanted most in all the world, and she always got what she wanted.
‘‘Very well, Gerald,’’ she replied. ‘‘Give me the syringe.’’
‘‘Come down into the shrubbery first so we can’t be seen from the house.’’
She hesitated. ‘‘It’s full of wasps down there.’’
He laughed and steered her toward the dense screen of bushes. Once hidden, he took the hypodermic out of his pocket. ‘‘Here you are. Be sure to handle it with your handkerchief as I’m doing, so you won’t leave any fingerprints. Now have you got it all straight?’’
‘‘Yes, Gerald,’’ she said. ‘‘I know exactly what to do.’’
‘‘Good. Then you’d better go back to the house and tuck Roger in for the night. I’ll stroll around the grounds awhile longer. We mustn’t be seen going back together.’’ He blew her a kiss and turned to leave.
‘‘Wait, Gerald,’’ said Eleanor sharply. ‘‘Don’t move. There’s a wasp on the back of your neck.’’
‘‘Well, swat it, can’t you?’’
Lady Patterly’s hand flashed up. ‘‘Oh, too late. Sorry, that was clumsy of me. Did it sting you badly?’’
She left him rubbing his neck and walked easily across the terrace. The hypodermic barrel felt pleasantly smooth in her hand. She lingered a moment by the garden well, idly dropping pebbles and listening to them plop into the water far below. If one plop was slightly louder than the rest, there was nobody but herself around to hear it. She went in to her husband.
‘‘How are you feeling tonight, Roger?’’
‘‘Like a man again. Eleanor, you don’t know what you’ve done for me.’’
She slipped a hand over his. ‘‘No more than a wife should, my darling. Would you like to read for a while?’’
‘‘No, just stay with me. I want to look at you.’’
They were sitting together in the gathering twilight when the gamekeeper and his son brought Gerald’s body back to the house.
‘‘How strange,’’ Eleanor observed to the doctor a short time later. ‘‘He mentioned his heart again this evening. It kept him out of the army, he told me. But I’m afraid I didn’t take him all that seriously. He always looked so healthy.’’
‘‘That’s always the way,’’ said the doctor. ‘‘It’s these big, hearty chaps that go in a flash. Now, His Lordship will probably live to be ninety.’’
Lady Patterly smoothed back her husband’s hair with a competent hand. ‘‘Yes,’’ she replied. ‘‘I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t.’’
Not Just the Facts by Annette Meyers
They call it the High Line. It’s an elevated meadow that rises some thirty feet above the streets of Chelsea on the far west side of Manhattan. In the spring and summer the High Line is a rich blanket of green, dotted with wildflowers. When Francine Gold goes missing, it is here among the wildflowers on a sunny June afternoon that her body is found.
The High Line used to be a railroad route running from Gansevoort Street in the meatpacking district all the way to 34th Street, and the tracks are still visible cutting through the flora that has grown around them. People climbed the mound and strolled through the meadow, marveling that such a wonderful place existed in the city.