WAX (A British Crime Thriller). Ethel Lina White
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when she was its mistress, she would know how to deal with its deficiencies, or rather superfluities. Sonia could see that she was both quick and capable; she watched Mrs. Cuttle slowly pouring out tea, as though she ached to sweep her off her chair and finish the job.
The alderman introduced a new element into the stuffy room. Every one grew more vital, and ceased to talk of servants and clothes. He flirted indiscriminately with the ladies, with the exception of Miss Yates and Sonia. But, while he was distantly polite to her, Sonia felt that there was an understanding between Miss Yates and himself.
As she watched him ogling Nurse Davis, whose pink bow-shaped lips and dimpled cheeks were wreathed in smiles, it struck her that the alderman was a figure which might become legendary. When the Twentieth Century had rolled away, an old civic Register and contemporary gossip's diary might resurrect the Amorous Alderman as a brilliant, fantastic figure capering against the faded tapestry of the past.
Already his flirtations and popularity were proverbial. On this occasion he was specially tender to his mannequin, Bessie Blair. Pale, with brown hair and green eyes, she had the symmetrical figure and features of a model, together with a reverential attitude towards clothes.
"Cake, Bessie?" asked Miss Yates.
Sonia was sure that Mrs. Cuttle resented the invitation. She opened her lips dumbly, as though in a vain struggle for speech. At that moment her stupid blue eyes were pathetic, as they strained against her handicap of inarticulation.
"Oo, they do look tempting," said Bessie, "but I daren't. The icing might start my tooth aching again. The stopping has come out of a back tooth."
"Dear, dear," clicked Nurse Davis. At the call to her sympathy, she changed instantly from a voluptuous Reubens goddess to a kind and motherly soul. "I've something that will cure that."
Opening her bag, she drew out a small case containing glass tubes.
"I've just been giving a patient a hypodermic," she explained. "Here, Bessie. Crunch this morphine tablet and put it in your tooth, but be careful not to swallow the saliva."
"Why?" asked Bessie.
"Because it's poison."
"Oo!" Bessie took up the case and read the names on the tubes. "Digitaline, atropine, strychnine, hyoscine, morphine...I thought you couldn't get poisons?"
"You couldn't. But I'm a nurse and use them medically."
"But how thrilling. I got The Trial of Madeline Smith out of the free library. It must be thrilling to be in a famous trial. Every one looking at you, and describing you and your dress, and wanting to marry you."
"But what about the eight o'clock walk?" asked the alderman.
"Madeline Smith got off. And anyway, she'd be dead by now. Nurse, do tell me. How many of these little things would it take to kill any one?"
"Let me think." Nurse Davis was purposely vague. "Each pilule is one seventieth of a grain. Perhaps eight or ten. But even a doctor can't say definitely. All drugs and poisons act differently on different people. And there's always an outside chance of an abnormal case."
"Anyway, there's somebody's death in that wee bottle," persisted Bessie. "Isn't it thrilling? How long would they take to act?"
"About a quarter of an hour if injected. Four or five hours, perhaps, taken by the mouth."
"Would the person know she was taking poison?"
"Yes. You'd have to disguise the taste in some highly seasoned food."
It was plain that Bessie was fascinated by the poisons. But as she watched the girl's empty, amiable face, Sonia received the feeling that she was but the mouthpiece of a stronger will. She was a model; usually, a lay-figure on which to drape clothes—now, a machine wound up to ask questions.
"Which would taste least?" she persisted.
"Hum," pondered Nurse Davis. "I should say digitaline was the least bitter."
"And what would it do?"
"It's a narcotic, so it would make you very sleepy. The breathing becomes stertorous, and there are some unpleasant symptoms. The least exertion is fatal. Gradually the heart slows down and then it stops."
"How thrilling," gasped Bessie. "Suppose any one took a fatal dose, could you bring them round again?"
"Yes, if the dose is not too heavy, and it's taken in time with a stomach-pump and a wash-out. But once it's right in the system you're good as dead."
Involuntarily Sonia studied the circle of listeners. She noticed Miss Yates' strained face, her greedy hollow palms and curving crimson-tipped fingers. The laughter-lines sprayed round the alderman's eyes had deepened to spurs in his concentration. Pretty Mrs. Nile was thoughtful, and seemed to have grown a few years older. Bessie's cheeks were flushed with excitement.
Mrs. Cuttle alone was unmoved, as she dipped a corner of her napkin into hot water and wiped a spot of grease off the teapot.
Sonia shuddered. She told herself that, here in the room, were three women who would like to be sitting in Mrs. Cuttle's chair. She was the predestined victim—superfluous, stupid, helpless.
The alderman broke the spell with a laugh like an exploding bombshell.
"Well, Nurse, now you've told this young lady exactly how to poison some one, you'd better tell her what she'll get if she tries it on."
With a feeling of relief Sonia shook off her morbid fancy. She saw the scene as it was in reality—a prosperous middle-class drawing-room, filled with ordinary people of sound morals and conventional virtues. The alderman was a clumsy bumble-bee, blundering from flower to flower; but he always kissed his wife before he went out and when he came home.
And yet—in spite of the muffins and the best china—in that warm, flower-fragrant room, the Spirit of Murder had actually struggled to birth in the dark cell of one brain.
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