When Dr Basil Willing rents a small shack for a vacation on Long Island he becomes embroiled with his landlady, Claudia Bethune. Claudia wants to learn the secrets of her relatives and friends, so she steals a truth serum and holds a dinner party for her nearest and dearest.
In the early morning hours, as Dr Willing returns to his cottage, he sees what he thinks is a fire and investigates. He finds Claudia near death at the table and hears footsteps fading up the stairs. Someone didn't want Claudia to learn the truth about them, and soon Dr Willing finds himself a suspect in murder.
Release date:
October 14, 2013
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
256
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known as “the fabulous Mrs. Bethune,” is a woman of spectacular beauty, extravagant clothes and unlimited wealth. She has pale turquoise eyes,
almond-shaped and tilted wide apart, golden-bronze hair and creamy skin. She also has a sense of humor that is sometimes vicious.
MICHAEL BETHUNE,
Claudia’s husband, looks like a handsome Irish adventurer. He is tall and slim and put together with the elegance of a thoroughbred horse. Mike has a
profile and knows it. He also has a fondness for money and a great distaste for labor of any sort.
PHYLLIS BETHUNE,
Michael’s first wife, is still good friends with the family. Extraordinarily neat and dainty, with smooth dark-brown hair and pale-brown skin, she is
fond of good clothes, good liquor and her ex-husband Mike.
PEGGY TITUS,
is twenty-one and looks sixteen. Youth in her is serious and graceless. With direct, dark-gray eyes, short, straight hair and terse speech, she seems more
like a comely boy than a pretty girl.
TED CURRIE,
Peggy’s best beau, is a fair young man with blue eyes and a great deal of interest in the world. Although he is very fair, he has the warmth and spirit
usually associated with dark people.
DOCTOR ROGER SLATER,
a rather ordinary young man, works as staff research chemist for the Southerland Foundation. Short and thick-set, he has a sulky face that is so swarthy it
never looks quite clean.
CHARLES RODNEY,
president of a flourishing textile mill, is built on such a massive scale and moves with such stiff, ponderous deliberation, that he looks as if he were a
monument to himself suddenly come to life. His manner at all times is affable, and he has a voice that is curiously hushed and low.
DOCTOR BASIL WILLING,
psychiatric consultant attached to the district attorney’s office, has a thin, intelligent face, disturbingly alert eyes and a slightly ironical manner.
One of the best-known psychologists and criminologists in the country, he is sympathetic and understanding as well as shrewd and careful.
CAPTAIN BLAIKIE,
of the State Police, has a square jaw and a close-clipped gray mustache. He speaks in monosyllables and thinks that pyschological analysis is a parlor trick
like fortune-telling or sleight-of-hand.
A BUTTERFLY in a beehive could not have looked more out of place than Claudia Bethune in the vestibule of the Southerland Foundation. The piratical rake
of her black straw hat and the sly cut of her black crêpe dress came from the world of fashion and frivolity. The brilliants that winked from the rim of her onyx watch would have kept one of
the Foundation’s research chemists in comfort for a year. The staccato click of her three-inch heels wakened echoes unfamiliar in a hall where ears were tuned to the rubber-shod tread of
laboratory assistants, and the delicate spice of Angèle’s Nuit de Mai bemused nostrils that had savored nothing more subtle than carbolic for years.
But more than all else it was her eyes that made her look alien to this world of work and thought. Pale turquoise, almond-shaped, lidless and tilted wide apart under a sloping brow, they were
flat, bright, and uneasy as the eyes of a wolfhound with too much wolf blood.
Claudia allowed a blue ribbon of amber-scented smoke to trail from the cigarette in her ungloved hand as she passed the No Smoking sign. She extinguished the ember by dropping it in a
vase of carnations on the receptionist’s desk.
“Mrs. Bethune to see Dr. Slater.”
The receptionist pursed thin lips innocent of lipstick. Such superb insolence was as foreign to the Foundation as Parisian perfumes and Egyptian cigarettes.
“Dr. Slater is engaged in most important research work.” Miss Squibbs made her voice as starchy as her white apron. “If you would care to see his secretary and make an
appointment with her—”
“I’ll see him—now,” interrupted Claudia, blandly. “Just tell him I’m here, will you?”
Miss Squibbs was becoming aware how richly the turquoise eyes contrasted with the golden-bronze hair and creamy skin. From a purse Claudia took a small box gay with Limoges enamel in sapphire
and emerald. Two hundred years ago it must have carried snuff. Today it was fragrantly dusty with Angèle’s tea-rose powder. Claudia consulted a mirror in the lid and plied a lipstick
of lobster pink. Miss Squibbs looked with disgust at the damp cigarette butt polluting the water around the stems of her carnations. But to her own surprise she made no further protest. She
wasn’t quite certain whether it was the woman’s assurance of her beauty or her diamonds, but something about her made Miss Squibbs reach meekly for the house telephone.
“Yes?” Dr. Slater’s tone made one word sound like six: What the hell do you want? Of all biochemists in the Foundation he was the most impatient of interruptions.
“Mrs. Bethune to see you.” Miss Squibbs kept her own voice impersonal.
For once Dr. Slater seemed at a loss. Then he said curtly, “Send her up.”
“To the visitors’ room?”
“No, to my lab.”
This was unprecedented but it was none of Miss Squibbs’s business. “Certainly, Dr. Slater.” She turned back to Claudia. “He’ll see you in his laboratory.
That’s on the eighth floor—Room 806. You take the first elevator.”
Claudia sauntered toward the elevator as if Dr. Slater’s time were of no more value to humanity than a popcorn peddler’s. Miss Squibbs stared after her, wondering what such a woman
could want with such a man. Miss Squibbs saw Dr. Slater every day and she was not impressed by his growing reputation as a scientist. She thought him a very ordinary, very disagreeable young man.
He was short and thick-set, with a sulky face so swarthy that it never looked quite clean. He had no money but the frail salary of a staff research chemist. In Miss Squibbs’s opinion he was a
person of no importance. What had he to offer the “fabulous Mrs. Bethune”?
The phrase came to Miss Squibbs’s mind unbidden. She had seen it a few days ago in one of the newspaper gossip columns. Gradually the whole paragraph came back:
Latest gift to New York is the fabulous Mrs. Bethune, who was as much a part of Paris in the old days as petits suisses or petits bleus. Some of her experiments in the art
of party-giving were original to say the least. The recipient of a card to one of her more intimate evenings was fortunate indeed if he awoke the next morning with nothing more serious than an
ordinary hangover. Claudia Bethune’s sense of humor verged upon the eccentric but everyone always enjoyed the joke—except the victim. It remains to be seen if she will find New York as
tolerant as Paris, where eccentricity was always permitted—at a price.
Roger Slater did not rise from his workbench when Claudia entered the laboratory. He spoke to her with the not unfriendly rudeness of a brother to a sister. “I thought I told you I was
pretty busy just now.”
“Did you?” Claudia drifted toward the workbench and looked down at his quick, rubber-gloved hands without apparent interest or even curiosity. “I’m awfully busy too.
Philippe is designing a new coiffure for me at two, I have a fitting at three, and I promised Mike to get back to Blessingbourne in time for dinner. I just dropped in to ask if you could come
along. I need an extra man.”
“I shouldn’t imagine you’d ever run short.”
Claudia opened her pale, bright eyes very wide. “Why, Roger! Is that a compliment or an insult?”
“What do you think?” Roger’s hands were still busy. “Who else is going to be there?”
“Nobody particular. Charles Rodney, Peggy Titus and, of course, Phyllis.”
“Of course. No party of yours would be complete without Phyllis, would it?”
“I think it’s terribly noble and broad-minded of me to have Phyllis!” Claudia’s pout was wasted, for Roger did not look up.
“What does Phyllis think?”
“She must like to come or she wouldn’t accept, would she? She’s still terribly fond of Mike and she lives in such a poky little apartment it’s marvelous for her to have a
few days at a big place like Blessingbourne now and then.”
“And Mike? Is he terribly noble and broad-minded, too?”
“Mike doesn’t care a hoot what Phyllis does now.”
“How nice for Phyllis.”
“Don’t be stuffy, Roger. Are you coming? Or do I get somebody else?”
“You get somebody else. I don’t like these ex-wife and ex-husband parties.”
“But it isn’t a party really. Charles is only coming to talk business with me. Phyllis and the Titus girl will just loaf and invite their souls.”
“Who has the Hut this year?”
“A Dr. Willing.”
“Why not ask him? A tenant can hardly refuse his landlady.”
“This one can. I’ve asked him a dozen times but he won’t come—he doesn’t approve me. . . . What on earth is that?” One long, coral-pink nail touched a little
mound of grayish powder in a porcelain dish Roger was holding.
“I haven’t named it yet. How would you like to have it named after you?” At last Roger looked up at her. His dark eyes were hard and challenging.
“You mean the way gardeners name a new rose after you? Like Dorothy Perkins and Mrs. John Lang?”
“More the way physiologists name a newly discovered part of the body after you. Like the Islands of Langerhans. I decided long ago that if I ever discovered a new curlicue in the small
intestine I’d call it ‘Mrs. Michael Bethune.’ ”
“I suppose that’s your idea of humor.” Claudia’s glance went back to the grayish powder. “What is it? Something you’ve just discovered?”
“In a way, yes.” Roger eyed the powder with a certain proprietary pride. “It’s a derivative of scopolamin that I’ve just succeeded in isolating. Here it is in
tablet form.”
From a cupboard he took a handful of aluminum tubes and opened one. It contained a row of flat, square, grayish tablets. “Five grains each with a little gum arabic as a binder. Easier to
take that way.”
“Oh, it’s some kind of medicine?”
“Not exactly.” Roger’s grin was tight-lipped. “At least, not physical medicine. You might call it moral medicine.”
“Moral medicine! Do you mean poison? Saki’s idea that most people would be enormously improved by dying?”
“No, it’s not poisonous. That’s the whole point. It’s scopolamin with the dangerous properties eliminated.”
“Is this that truth serum you said something about last spring?”
For a moment Roger hesitated—but only for a moment. A small boy walking along the top of a picket fence to impress his best girl would have understood the suddenly expansive impulse that
made Roger tell Claudia a secret which was not his property but that of the Foundation.
“Scopolamin isn’t a ‘serum’ at all. ‘Truth serum’ is just the popular name. Actually, it’s an anesthetic which dulls pain without obliterating
consciousness. It was called twilight sleep when used in childbirth because it creates a twilit state between sleeping and waking. There is no realization of pain or fear and the inhibitions
created by tear of painful punishment are relaxed. A man doped with scopolamin speaks stark truth regardless of consequences to himself or others. Same principle as in vino veritas.
Repression is stupefied, but the older, deeper desire for expression stays wide awake. In several cases police have used scopolamin to force truth from a suspected criminal.”
“Sounds unconstitutional!”
“What’s the Constitution between policemen? They would use scopolamin as often as they dared, but for one thing—it causes confusion, almost delirium. A suspect doped with it
wouldn’t lie to them purposely, but he might mislead them inadvertently just because he was in a fuzzy mental state. That’s why a group of police officers asked the director of the
Foundation some time ago if we could develop a new form of scopolamin with all the advantages of the original drug and none of the disadvantages.”
“And this is it? Roger, how clever of you! Did you do it all by yourself?”
“Well, I had two assistants who helped work out some of my ideas.” Roger’s tone suggested that the two assistants had done little more than sweep out the laboratory and wash up
the flasks and retorts. “I’ve spent nearly six months tinkering with the scopolamin molecule and this is the result. ‘Novopolamin’ I suppose it might be called. It’s
scopolamin with the delirium factor eliminated just as novocaine is cocaine with the habit-forming factor eliminated. A five-grain dose of novopolamin does not impair accuracy in perception, speech
or reasoning. But it does kill a man’s desire to dissemble anything he knows or feels—even if it’s to his interest to do so. A man doped with it appears to be in a perfectly
normal state except for one thing—he tells the truth.”
Claudia didn’t laugh. “For just how long?” There was a world of cynicism in her tone.
“It takes effect in fifteen minutes and lasts for about three hours. Then you fall asleep for about five hours and on waking revert to the normal state of mendacity.”
The wide, pale eyes opened still wider. “You mean you’ve actually tried this diabolical stuff and it works?”
“Oh, yes.” Roger couldn’t keep the note of triumph out of his voice. “I’ve tried it on several fellows here in the lab, I’ve even tried it on
myself.”
Pale eyes narrowed and lengthened. “It must’ve been refreshing to hear you speak the truth! I wish I’d been there.”
“Perhaps it’s just as well you weren’t.” Roger shut the tube in his hand. “It would be diabolical indeed in the wrong hands.”
“I’m sure that’s what the Wright brothers said.” A smile played around the corners of Claudia’s mouth.
“The authorities plan to control the manufacture and distribution of this very strictly,” retorted Roger. “It will be sold only to police officers and psychiatrists and people
like that.”
Claudia’s smile broadened. “They control the manufacture and distribution of morphine very strictly and yet—it does get into the wrong hands. Before you know it you’ll
have bootleggers selling—what is it called?”
“Novopolamin.”
“Nonsense! You said you were going to name it after me. Now I know what it’s for, I shall hold you to that. Call it ‘bethunine.’ No—people might think it was named
after Mike. Call it ‘claudine.’ ”
“Sounds more like the name of a French farce than a new drug.”
“Well then, ‘claudaine’ or ‘nux claudia’ or ‘claudinite.’ I insist on your keeping your promise and naming it after me.” Limoges enamel glittered
in her hands again as she plied her lipstick. “Roger, I must dash—it’s nearly two. You are coming down this evening, aren’t you?”
“No.” Roger dropped the tube on the workbench and went to the window as if the sea of slum streets that seethed around the Foundation building had suddenly become a matter of
absorbing interest to him.
After a moment Claudia touched his arm lightly. “You’d better!” The touch lingered and became a caress.
“Claudia!” He turned swiftly, his heart in his eyes, only to meet mockery in hers. “No. I’m not coming to Blessingbourne.” His voice was sullen. “I
don’t want to be just another scalp dangling from your belt.”
“No?” Claudia dropped her powder box into her hand bag. She seemed to be enjoying herself. She shut the bag with a snap and tucked it under her arm.
“I can imagine nothing more dull and conventional than the party you describe.” Roger had recovered his fraternal rudeness but he wore it less easily now Claudia could no longer be
deceived by it. “An old fogy like Charles, a clothes horse like Phyllis and that gawky kid—what’s her name?”
“Titus.” Claudia’s smile lingered as her touch had lingered—insinuatingly. Then her rare laughter rang out—clear as a bell on a frosty morning. “You may be
right about some things, Roger, but you’re wrong there. I give you my word, it won’t be a conventional party.”
She went to the door, taking quick, stilted steps on her tall heels. At the threshold, she paused and looked back, her eyes ambushed under the shadow of her hat brim. “If you should change
your mind at the last moment, don’t hesitate to come. . . .”
“Fat chance!”
The door closed. Roger went back to the bench. Automatically, he counted the aluminum tubes before replacing them in the cupboard. Then he frowned and counted them again. And again. He had taken
twelve from the cupboard. Now there were only eleven.
Furiously he snatched the telephone. “Miss Squibbs! Has Mrs. Bethune left the building?”
“Yes.” The receptionist’s voice was as impersonal as ever. “She just passed my desk.”
“See if you can catch her. It’s important.”
A moment later Miss Squibbs was saying: “Sorry, Dr. Slater, but Mrs. Bethune has just driven away in her car. I called and waved to her from the steps outside, but she didn’t seem to
hear me.”
“No, she wouldn’t.” Roger stared at the telephone. “She was right. It won’t be a conventional party—for what could be more unconventional than
truth?”
“What’s that, Dr. Slater? I can’t quite hear you.”
“Nothing.” Roger slammed the telephone back in its cradle, tore off his white overall and reached for his gray flannel jacket. “Johnny!” he shouted to the laboratory boy
in the corridor. “I’m leaving for the day. If anything important comes up, I’ll be at Mrs. Michael Bethune’s. You can find the number in the Suffolk County telephone
book.”
I. Mrs. Michael Bethune to Miss Margaret Titus.
Blessingbourne, High Hampton,
Long Island, 8-27-40.
Dear Peggy,
Of course you must stay with us if you are going to be in this neighborhood next Friday. There’s nothing Mike and I would like better. I’ve asked a few others, but
you’re the only one I really want to see.
A tantôt,
Claudia
Edward Titus was immersed in the Times when his daughter Peggy appeared at the breakfast table Friday morning. The girl’s mother was more alert.
“Peg! How often have I told you not to come down to breakfast in a dressing-gown! If you can’t get dressed by nine o’clock I’ll have a tray sent to your room.”
“This isn’t a dressing-gown—it’s a hostess gown! Some people wear them for dinner.” Peggy set the glass of orange juice at her place to one side, poured out a cup
of black coffee and lit a cigarette.
“You don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive.” Her father was not quite so deep in the Times as he appeared.
“I’m not hungry.” Peggy leaned down to pet Rob Roy, her Aberdeen terrier, who had come out from under the breakfast table to say “good morning” with eyes and tail.
The moment you looked at Peggy you knew she would be good with a dog or a horse and competent on the tennis court, but not quite so competent on the dance floor. Youth in her was serious and
graceless—more puppy than kitten. Her direct, dark gray eyes, short, straight, fair hair and terse speech made her seem more. . .
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