"In time—" Rich closed up the book with a bang— "to hear that I'm supposed to be in trouble again. But I tell you frankly, I don't propose to be — what is the word? — framed for the second time. I don't believe it! Fourteen hours! No, sixteen hours; but it's the same. Those symptoms came on too quickly."
"I know, son," agreed H.M., expelling his breath. "That's what worries me too."
Rich's eyes narrowed.
"I wasn't aware you were a medical man, sir." "Uh-huh. Yes. In a small way.' "What have they done?" "Tetanus antitoxin…" "How much?"
"A thousand units. Injected intrathecally by lumbar puncture. Morphia for the pain. Quiet and dark. What else can they do? And yet, d'ye know—!"
H.M. wandered across the room. He lowered his big bulk of fifteen stone into a carved chair, where he sat glowering.
"When you get to thinkin' about it," he went on, "you can see the symptoms, the real bad symptoms, came on too quick. Unless, of course—" he spoke slowly—"that pin had been dipped into tetanus bacilli to begin with."
The library was so quiet that they could all hear the creaking footsteps which tiptoed in Vicky Fane's bedroom just overhead. It was a physical quality of stillness; it took listeners by the throat. Rich took a step away from the desk. Rich struck his right hand on the globe-map, setting the globe spinning like their wits.
"Are you suggesting," he said, "deliberate murder?"
"I dunno, son. Hardly seems probable, does it? But that'd seem the only explanation. Unless—"