“Yes. Apparently she was threatened with a shortage of cocaine.”
“Cocaine was her drug?”
“One of them. She had tried them all, poor, silly girl! You must understand that for a habitual drug-taker suddenly to be deprived of drugs would lead to complete collapse, perhaps death. And during the last few days I had noticed a peculiar nervous symptom in Rita Irvin which had interested me. Finally, the day before yesterday, she confessed that her usual source of supply had been closed to her. Her words were very vague, but I gathered that some form of coercion was being employed.”
“With what object?”
“I have no idea. But she used the words, ‘They will drive me mad,’ and seemed to be in a dangerously nervous condition. She said that she was going to make a final attempt to obtain a supply of the poison which had become indispensable to her. ‘I cannot do without it!’ she said. ‘But if they refuse, will you give me some?’”
“What did you say?”
“I begged of her, as I had done on many previous occasions, to place herself in my hands. But she evaded a direct answer, as is the way of one addicted to this vice. ‘If I cannot get some by tomorrow,’ she said, ‘I shall go mad, or dead. Can I rely on you?’”
“I told her that I would prescribe cocaine for her on the distinct understanding that from the first dose she was to place herself under my care for a cure.”
“She agreed?”
“She agreed. Yesterday afternoon, while I was away at an important case, she came here. Poor Rita!” Margaret’s soft voice trembled. “Look—she left this note.”