"Come in and have a seat," Dr. Sam Hawthorne said, reaching for the brandy. "The story I have to tell you this time is painful for me to recollect —it almost cost me my license to practice medicine . . ."

By the summer of '35 (Dr. Sam continued), I'd started cutting back on house calls. My office in a wing of Pilgrim Memorial Hospital was attracting more patients, and even though it was the depths of the Depression most families in town owned a car or had access to one. Generally, it was only the very young or the very old, especially those living on the outskirts of Northmont, who still needed me to come to their homes.

One of these was old Mrs. Willis, who was in her mid-eighties and suffered from a variety of disorders. I'd been treating her mainly for a heart condition and diabetes, but now she was bedridden after breaking her hip last year. I could see her strength going with each visit I made. She'd simply lost the will to live.

Her husband had died a few years earlier and they'd never had children. She was cared for now by a middle-aged niece and her husband to whom she'd promised the old farmhouse and its surrounding forty acres of untilled land. "It's all I've got to give them," she'd told me once after they'd moved in. "If they can put up with me, they deserve it."

I had to admit that Betty Willis, at the end of her life, was not a lovable person. She was domineering and hard to please. The niece, Freda Ann Parker, was a plain woman of forty or so who tried to take it all in stride. Her husband Nat wasn't nearly as easygoing. I'd heard him grumbling many times out of earshot of the old lady, and once he and Freda Ann had engaged in a heated argument in front of me.

About once a week I stopped by the Willis house unannounced if I had another call to make in that area. On one particular Monday morning, Freda Ann telephoned the office to make sure I'd be coming out. "She had a really bad night, Doctor. I think she's dying."

"I'll be there in about an hour," I promised. I finished up with the patient I was attending and told my nurse, Mary, that I'd be driving out to the Willis place.

It was a lovely June morning, the sort of day when summer seems to stretch out endlessly. I saw some boys running along the side of the dirt road, free at last from the confines of the classroom, and remembered the summer days of my own youth. I'd grown up in the city, but the sense of freedom had to be much the same. As I topped a rise in the road I could see the Willis farmhouse off in the distance, surrounded by a small apple orchard that was the closest to farming the Willises had gotten in recent years. It reminded me of childhood journeys to my grandfather's farm in Pennsylvania in those long-ago years before the Great War.

Nat Parker was in the orchard, inspecting the trees for possible damage from a windstorm the previous evening. He was a tired-looking man with thinning hair and a perpetual shadow of bristle around his chin. Nat seemed a good decade older than his wife, and probably was. "Did you have any damage?" I called out to him as I left my car.

"Nothing much, Doc. The way it was blowing, I feared it would take half the orchard with it."

"Your wife says Betty's not good this morning."

"Well, she could be better."

I left him and went in the front door. It was always unlocked and I knew Freda Ann would have heard my arrival. She came out of the kitchen to greet me. "I'm glad you could come," she said. "Aunt Betty's real bad, Doctor."

I followed her up the creaking stairs to the second floor. Betty Willis still had the big front bedroom she'd shared with her husband for most of her lifetime. Now she lay in the ornate double bed, staring up at me as if she could see the angels coming for her.

"I'm dying," she told me.

"Nonsense." I took her pulse and listened to her heart through my stethoscope. She was certainly weak, her vital signs lower than they'd been on my last visit, but I saw no imminent danger of death. I moved the glass of water with her dentures in it, the only thing on her night table, to make room for my bag. "You'll be fit again, Betty. All you need is some good strong medicine."

Freda Ann came into the room and stood by the door as I completed my examination. "How is she, Dr. Hawthorne?"

"Oh, I think a bit of heart stimulant should perk her up." I reached into my bag and unsnapped the compartment where I kept the digitalis. "Could you bring us a glass of water?"

She went back downstairs to the kitchen sink. The place still used an outhouse and there was no running water on the second floor. "Do I have to take a pill, Doctor?" old Mrs. Willis asked in a shaky voice. Swallowing was hard for her.

"Just a little digitalis, Betty. It'll get your heart pumping again." I took her temperature, though I was pretty sure she had no fever.

Freda Ann returned with the water just as I removed the thermometer.

"Just about normal," I told them. "A bit low, in fact."

Betty took the pill herself and washed it down with a swallow of water. "I feel better already," she said, trying to smile.

I was just turning away from the bed when I heard her gasp. I looked back to see her lined face twisted with pain and surprise. Then her whole body sagged and she sank back into the pillows. "Betty!" I reached for her pulse.

"What happened?" Freda Ann demanded. "What did you do to her?"

I couldn't believe she was accusing me of anything. "She's had some sort of seizure." There was no pulse, no heartbeat. I took a small mirror from my bag and held it to her nostrils. There was no clouding. "She's dead, isn't she?" "Yes," I told her.

"Was it that pill you gave her?"

"It couldn't have been. That was nothing but digitalis."

She stared at me with uncertain eyes. "It was so sudden. One minute she seemed fine—"

"You said yourself you thought she was dying," I replied, sounding more defensive than I'd meant to.

Freda Ann bit her lower lip, trying to decide what to do. At that moment her husband came up the stairs. "Aunt Betty's dead," she told him. "She went just like that."

He stared at the body, grim-faced. "It's for the best."

As I bent closer to close Betty's eyes, the unmistakable odor of bitter almonds hit my nostrils. I'd had experience with it in the past, on the night Prohibition ended back in '33. When I straightened up I said, "Something's wrong here. You'd better ring up Sheriff Lens on the phone."

Sheriff Lens had been my friend since I first arrived in Northmont to set up my practice thirteen years earlier. In many ways he was a typical country sheriff, and I'd been happy to lend a hand when he needed it. Now it seemed that I was the one who needed help.

He listened patiently to my account of Betty Willis's death and then asked, "Is there any chance you could have given her the wrong pill by mistake, Doc?"

"Not a chance in the world! I don't even carry cyanide compounds in my bag."

Sheriff Lens glanced around the bedroom, seeming to take in the faded, water-stained wallpaper, the family portraits, the bit of ivy struggling to grow on the windowsill. Then his eyes fastened on the half empty glass of

water on the bedside table. "Is that the water she took it with?"

I nodded. "It should be tested, though I doubt if it's poisoned."

"How come?"

"No odor. I checked it right away." As I spoke, I took a small bottle from my bag—one used for urine samples—and poured the water into it. On a hunch, I also sampled the water her dentures were in.

"We'll have to do an autopsy," the sheriff said almost apologetically.

"Of course."

We went down to the sitting room where Freda Ann and Nat were waiting. "What did you find?" she asked.

"Nothing," I replied. "Is there something you think we should have found?"

Nat Parker seemed to be staring at the ceiling, perhaps studying a fluttering cobweb in one corner. Finally he said, "The old lady had a good long life. Her time was up."

His wife suddenly turned on him, close to tears. "I really believe you're glad she's gone, Nat! You couldn't stand having her in the house."

"Now, Freda—"

"It's true, you know it!"

He stood. "Maybe I should go out and check on the orchard."

Sheriff Lens cleared his throat. "We'll be taking your aunt in to Pilgrim Memorial for an autopsy, Mrs. Parker. You can go ahead and make the arrangements with the undertaker if you want to. He can probably pick her up there in the morning."

"Thank you, Sheriff."

He accompanied me to my car. As I was getting in, he asked, "What do you think, Doc?"

"There's a possibility one or both of them killed her," I told him, "but for the life of me I can't figure out how."

The following morning, Dr. Wolfe from the local Medical Society stopped by my office. Mary knew him and ushered him right in. "It's Dr. Wolfe to see you."

I laid down the medical journal I'd been reading and stood to greet him. "To what do I owe this honor, Doctor?"

Martin Wolfe was a tall man in his sixties with a mane of wavy white hair. He wasn't someone you addressed by his first name unless you were his senior in years and experience. "I've come about the tragic death of Betty Willis," he said.

"I've been waiting to hear the autopsy result," I told him.

"I have it right here," he said, handing over the official form. "Death was due to a sudden paralysis of her heart, respiratory system, and brain, caused by ingestion of hydrocyanic acid. A classic case of poisoning."

"I feared as much," I said. "But I can't see how it could have happened. I never left her for an instant. The digitalis preparation I gave her came from my own bag and the glass of water had no detectable odor."

"The water was pure," he confirmed. "It was tested. Tell me, Dr.

Hawthorne, what type of digitalis preparation did you administer?"

"Digoxin. It came on the market just last year."

Wolfe pursed his lips. "I'm quite familiar with it. As you must know, it has a very narrow treatment range. The proper dose is sixty percent of a toxic dose. It was a dangerous choice of medication in someone of that age."

He was beginning to irritate me but I tried not to show it. I said, "I might remind you, Dr. Wolfe, that Mrs. Willis died of cyanide poisoning, not an overdose of digitalis."

"A point well taken," he admitted. "But if what you say is true, I can think of only two possible explanations. Either you made a terrible mistake when you gave Mrs. Willis her medication or—"

"Or what?"

"Or you took pity on this woman and decided to put her out of her misery."

"Mercy killing."

"That's what it's called," Dr. Wolfe agreed.

"I can assure you I did neither. I was neither stupid nor criminal in my treatment of her."

"Is there a third explanation, Dr. Hawthorne?"

"I intend to find one."

"Very well." He rose to his feet, towering over the desk. "The Medical Society holds its regular monthly meeting one week from today. This matter is certain to be brought up. I trust you'll have an explanation by that time."

I waited until he'd left the office, unable to move from the desk in my growing fury. When Mary came in, she found me holding the two ends of a pencil I'd just broken.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

"I think you should have taken that job in Springfield," I told her. "A week from now I may not have a practice in Northmont."

"What?"

"Apparently the Medical Society is going to look into Betty Willis's death next week. Wolfe thinks it was either a serious mistake or a mercy killing on my part."

"That's crazy, Sam!" I was too upset to realize until later that she'd used my first name. "Is he out to get you for some reason?"

"I don't know. We've never been especially friendly, but I'm not aware of any injury I've done him."

"Could Mrs. Willis have been poisoned by her niece or her husband?"

"I don't see how." I tried to think. "It had to be them, but I can't see how they did it."

Mary went to the file drawer, removed a folder, and read through it. "The records in Mrs. Willis's folder only seem to go back a year. What about before that?"

"Before—" Suddenly I remembered. I wondered how I could have forgotten it. "Before that she was Martin Wolfe's patient." Mary raised her eyebrows.

"I'd known her only slightly. But shortly after Freda Ann and Nat came to live there, they decided she wasn't getting the finest treatment from Dr. Wolfe. Part of the problem was that he was president of the Medical Society and had so many civic duties it left him with almost no time for house calls. After she broke her hip and became bedridden, they called me and I agreed to take her on as a patient. But there was never any hard feeling over it with

Dr. Wolfe."

"Still, it might explain his present attitude," she said. "There might be a lingering guilt at having abandoned her himself."

All that day, I thought about my relationship with the dead woman and everything that had happened in the farmhouse the previous morning. I'd solved dozens of bizarre puzzles in my time, but nothing had prepared me for this simple case of a woman poisoned under my very eyes. It dogged me as I saw to my other patients and made my hospital rounds.

Betty Willis's body was laid out at the Freedkin Funeral Parlor on Main Street, right on the town square. I called there on Wednesday, the second night of the wake, and then attended the funeral on Thursday morning. There were already people muttering about keeping the body only two days instead of the traditional three, accusing the Parkers of hurrying to get her into the ground.

As I studied Freda Ann and her husband across the grave that morning, as the minister intoned the traditional prayers for the dead, it was difficult for me to imagine either of them as a murderer, and I wondered why they would have felt murder was necessary. Aunt Betty was a dying woman and her condition had been worse that very morning. There was no need for anyone to kill her unless her will contained some obscure provision with a time limit.

Thinking of that, I spotted Seth Rogers at the edge of the circle of mourners. Seth was a well known local attorney, much liked among Northmont's older residents, and it was a good guess that he was attending the funeral because he'd acted as attorney for the deceased. When the crowd started to disperse, I caught up with him, and after a few words of formal greeting I asked him directly.

"Yes, I handled her legal matters," he told me. His eyes behind thick wirerimmed glasses seemed large and fishlike. "Not that she ever had much work for me. A little tinkering with her will from time to time, that was about all."

"When did she tinker with it most recently?"

"Oh, it must have been a year ago—before she broke her hip. She came over to the office to sign it, I remember that."

"And you hadn't seen her since then?"

He smiled at me. "You cross-examine like a lawyer, Sam. As a matter of fact, I visited her just last Friday, three days before her death."

"Could I ask the nature of your visit? I'm not asking you to be specific, just—"

"She wanted some advice about selling off a portion of the property. But she didn't pursue it at all. I gathered it was merely a possibility for some future time."

We'd strolled down the knoll to his car, a flashy green Cadillac Sport Phaeton with sixteen cylinders and a white convertible top. Though in many ways I preferred my own red Mercedes, I had to admit a secret fondness for this massive beauty with its $5,000 price tag. "Did she seem well when you saw her?" I asked as he got behind the wheel of the car.

"As well as she'd been lately. Well enough to be sucking on hard candy all the time I was there."

I remembered. "It was her one weakness. She always kept a bag of it on her night table. I couldn't complain, though. She was a good patient and generally did everything I told her to."

Seth frowned at me and leaned out the car window. "Just between us,

Sam, was she murdered?"

"I wish I knew, Seth," I told him. "I really do."

All that day I was aware of gazes in the street, of whispered words as my familiar car drove past the center of town. The news was getting around that my conduct in Betty Willis's final illness was under investigation—by the Medical Society if not by the police. Back at the office, Mary confirmed how bad things were becoming. "Three of your patients for this afternoon and tomorrow called to cancel their appointments." "Did they give reasons?" I asked her.

"Well, Mrs. Mason wasn't feeling well—"

"I guess we know the real reason, don't we, Mary? The word's getting around that Betty Willis was poisoned."

Her expression was bleak. "Everyone at the hospital knows the autopsy results and the word was bound to spread. What are you going to do?"

"Think about it," I told her. "I have the advantage of knowing I'm innocent. There has to have been some other cause of death."

She sat down opposite me. "Let's go over it step by step, Sam. Is there any possibility someone could have substituted cyanide for the digitalis pills in your bag?"

"Not a chance. You know what they look like. The manufacturer's mark is on every one. It's not something a pharmacist could duplicate in his back room. Even if one of them had been poisoned, I shook it from a nearly full bottle of a hundred. I've examined the others and they're perfect. No one could have known who'd get the poisoned one, or when."

"How about the Parkers? Were they in the room with you and Mrs. Willis?"

"Nat didn't come upstairs until after she was dead. Freda Ann stood near the door during my examination. The only time she approached the bed was to hand me the glass of water."

"And you're certain Mrs. Willis was really dead?"

"She was really dead, Mary. There was no pulse, no breathing, no heartbeat. And she couldn't have been faking it somehow, because I never left the room until Sheriff Lens arrived."

"Then it has to be the water. The glass of water. It's the only way she could have been poisoned."

"Don't you think I thought of that? First of all, when most cyanide compounds are dissolved in water, they give off a distinctive odor. Second, the half empty glass was never out of my sight after she drank from it. Third, I took a sample of the water for testing and it was perfectly all right. So was the water her teeth were in."

The next patient—one who hadn't canceled—arrived then and our ruminating came to an end.

I slept badly that night, expecting that what had happened so far was just the prelude to a growing storm.

On Friday morning, Mary told me there'd been two more cancellations. With some free hours ahead of me, I decided to drive out to the Willis place, my first visit since Monday's tragedy. It was a fine morning, sunny and warm, and Mary was already planning a Fourth of July picnic with some of the other nurses. It would be coming up the following Thursday, two days after the Medical Society met. I wondered if I'd have anything to celebrate.

At the Willis farm I found Nat Parker in the pumphouse, repairing a pipe that supplied well water to the living quarters. "Good to see you, Doc," he said, wiping the grease from his hands. "Thanks for coming to the funeral yesterday."

"It was the least I could do. How's Freda Ann holding up?"

"Oh, it's a bit hard on her but I think we both know it was for the best. The old lady wasn't doing nobody any good wasting away up there in that bed. Whatever you done, I thank you for it."

"Whatever I—? Look here, Nat, I didn't do a thing to hasten her end. I certainly didn't poison her, if that's what you're getting at!"

"No, no, of course not. I just meant whatever sort of accident happened. We take no stock in this talk that's goin' around town. You were a good doctor to her. She always spoke highly of you. She told us once you done more for her than old Doc Wolfe ever did."

"Did he ever come around to see her after I took her on as a patient?"

"Heck, no. At least I never seen him out here."

I went up to the house and found Freda Ann washing out some things in the kitchen. "There's lots to be done," she said, brushing the dark hair back from her forehead. "I've been cleaning out her bedroom and closets, washing the curtains and bedding."

"Has Sheriff Lens been out to see you?"

"He came by again last evening, full of questions. He still thinks my aunt was poisoned."

"She was, Freda Ann. There's no doubt about it."

"I don't know how it could have happened with you sittin' there right by her bed!"

"I'm sure that's what the sheriff is trying to determine. Tell me something. Was it just you who took care of your aunt, or did your husband sometimes tend to her needs, too?"

"Are you kidding? Nat stayed as far away from her as he could. He wanted to put her in an old folks' home, but I figured she was leaving the place to us in return for taking care of her and we had to do something to earn it."

"Have you spoken to the attorney since her death?"

"Mr. Rogers? Yes, he telephoned to arrange a meeting in his office. Nat and I are going in on Monday morning."

"Any problems?"

"No, I just have to sign some papers. The property comes to me, along with a small bank account and some stock she owned."

"I wonder if I could see her bedroom again. I'm just trying to get clear in my own mind what happened."

"Certainly." She led the way upstairs to the second floor. "I want you to know that Nat and I both think this business of the Medical Society holding a hearing next week is ridiculous. We have every confidence in you."

"I appreciate that."

I stood for a moment in the doorway, studying the bare bed and the scant furnishings. Without curtains, the morning sun streamed in the window, bathing everything in a golden glow. I sat on the same cane-backed chair I'd sat in the previous Monday, thinking about all that had happened since then. "Was Seth Rogers here last week?" I asked Freda Ann.

She nodded. "On Friday. He stayed about a half hour."

"Were you in the room while they talked?"

"Heavens, no. She always kept her legal and financial affairs strictly to herself."

I walked to the window and looked out, shielding my eyes from the sun. I could see Nat out in the yard, carrying his tools from the pumphouse. Then I turned and looked at the bare bedside table. "Was she buried with her teeth in?"

"Of course." Freda Ann looked at me strangely. "What an odd question to ask."

The weekend dragged on. I had two patients Saturday morning, and when I'd seen them both I stayed in the office going over Betty Willis's records. Mary poked her head in once and asked if I'd be attending the Fourth of July picnic. "We've got about twenty people so far," she told me.

"I don't know, Mary. Right now I don't think my heart would be in it." She understood. "I'll ask you again later," she said.

The next time the office door opened it was Sheriff Lens. "I was hopin'

I'd find you here, Doc."

"What's up, Sheriff?"

He came in and sat down. "I'm still workin' on the Willis case. Folks want some action, but I don't know what to do. Should I arrest the niece,

Mrs. Parker?"

"Your only alternative is to arrest me, Sheriff."

"Don't talk foolish, Doc!"

"Martin Wolfe doesn't think it's so foolish."

"Don't worry about him. He's just a lot of talk."

"If the Medical Society believes him, they could take away my practice."

"They don't think you murdered her, Doc. They just think you might have made a mistake of some kind."

"For a doctor, it's pretty much the same thing. If I made a mistake, I murdered her."

Sheriff Lens took out a package of chewing tobacco and opened it as he spoke. "I been thinking about it and comin' up with all these crazy theories

—the sort you'd think of."

"For instance?"

"Well, maybe Mrs. Parker or her husband poisoned the old lady's false teeth."

I had to smile at that one. But would the truth, if I ever discovered it, be any less bizarre? "Cyanide kills instantly, Sheriff—within seconds. She didn't have her teeth in her mouth all the time I was there. And if she'd been poisoned before I arrived, she'd have been dead already."

"What went into her mouth while you were there?"

"The digitalis pill and a little water." I remembered something else. "And my thermometer. I took her temperature."

"Could someone have gotten to it and poisoned it?"

"Not a chance. I don't even carry it in my bag. It's right here in a little case inside my coat, with my pen and pencil."

"Well—"

"Believe me, Sheriff, I've been all over the possibilities already. Betty Willis couldn't have been poisoned, but she was."

"What are you going to do, Doc?" Sheriff Lens asked.

"I'll attend the hearing on Tuesday, of course. I'll abide by their verdict."

"If they say you can't practice here—"

"There are other places besides Northmont." I managed a weak grin.

"Maybe I'll become a veterinarian. They might let me treat animals."

"Doc!"

"Go on, Sheriff. I'm only kidding."

"I have to appear at the hearing on Tuesday. I been tryin' to trace any local purchases of cyanide compounds, but that's tough to do. A lot of photographic chemicals, like reducing or toning agents, have cyanide bases. People have little darkrooms at home for developing pictures and they go out and buy the stuff over the counter."

"They can even buy the stuff if they don't have darkrooms," I pointed out.

"And the cyanide can be easily extracted."

He still looked unhappy. "What should I tell them on Tuesday, Doc?"

"The truth," I reassured him. "It's the only thing you can do."

Only one of my patients showed up on Monday, and I noticed people had stopped whispering when they saw me in the street. They didn't need to any more—everyone knew I was suspect in Mrs. Willis's death.

"I'm going with you," Mary announced Tuesday morning as I prepared to leave for the hearing.

"Nonsense—someone has to take care of the office."

Her clear blue eyes sparkled. "I've already arranged for one of the girls to answer the phone. I'm going along, Sam."

At that moment I had too much on my mind to argue with her. I merely shook my head in resignation and started for the door. She followed along and slid into the seat of the Mercedes next to me.

The hearing was scheduled for 10:30, and we were there early. The Medical Society served a three-county area, renting office space in the new Northmont Bank Building. A conference room had been set aside for the hearing and when I entered I saw that Dr. Wolfe and two other physicians I barely knew were already seated at the end of a long table.

Wolfe gave me a half friendly smile. "Take a seat anywhere, Dr. Hawthorne. I believe you know Dr. Black and Dr. Tobias. They're representing the other counties in our group."

We shook hands all around and I introduced Mary. "This is my nurse, Miss Best."

Wolfe cleared his throat. "A pleasure to see you again, Miss Best, but this isn't a public hearing. I'll have to ask you to wait outside."

Mary retreated with some reluctance and I faced the three of them alone. "What questions do you gentlemen have?" I asked.

"This is an informal hearing, not a trial," Wolfe told me. "First off, let me say we've all admired your dedication and high visibility in Northmont during the years you've been practicing here, Doctor. I'm certain no one believes for a moment that any deliberate act was involved in the poisoning of Mrs. Willis. We simply want to determine if her death was the result of some preventable error on the part of yourself or someone else."

"There was no error," I insisted. "I gave her digitalis, the drug I intended to give her. The autopsy found it in her stomach."

"We plan to call two others to speak to the circumstances of this tragedy

—Freda Ann Parker and Sheriff Lens. Do you have any objection?" "None whatever," I said.

We listened to Freda Ann tell her story, about phoning my office when her aunt's condition seemed so bad, about my arrival, and about fetching the glass of water for me. They asked very few questions. Then it was my turn. While Freda Ann took a seat against the wall, I told them what I knew of Betty Willis's condition on Monday morning a week ago, of my decision to treat her with digitalis, and of her sudden seizure and death.

"You knew immediately that she'd been poisoned?" Dr. Wolfe asked.

"Yes. The odor of bitter almonds was unmistakable. I witnessed a similar poisoning a few years ago."

"And you told Mrs. Parker to telephone Sheriff Lens?"

"That's correct."

Wolfe held a whispered conversation with the other two doctors and they decided to call the sheriff in for his story. He entered the room with seeming reluctance, glancing at me as he took his place at the table. His questioning was brief as he told of receiving the call and arriving at the house to find me still waiting in the bedroom with the dead woman.

When he'd finished, Dr. Wolfe said, "That'll be all for the moment, Sheriff. Dr. Hawthorne, could we review the evidence with you?" "Certainly."

Sheriff Lens took a seat against the wall near Freda Ann Parker as Wolfe turned to me with another attempt at a smile. "Let me quickly review the facts of the case, Dr. Hawthorne. Please correct me if I'm wrong. When you arrived at the house, you found Mrs. Willis confined to bed as she had been for the past year. Your diagnosis was that she needed a heart stimulant but otherwise was in no danger of death. You were alone with the patient during the examination, except that Mrs. Parker came to stand in the doorway. She brought a glass of water to wash down the pill you prescribed, and almost immediately Betty Willis expired, with an odor of bitter almonds pointing to the presence of a cyanide compound. Sheriff Lens was summoned and you remained with the body until his arrival. The unfinished glass of water was never out of your sight, and when it was later tested it was found to be free of any poison. Is that a fair summary of the events?" "It is," I conceded.

The other doctors consulted again, then Wolfe said, "I think we have all the facts. There will be a ten-minute recess."

The three men remained at the table while the rest of us filed out. Mary was waiting in the hall. "What happened?" "They're considering the verdict," I told her. "What do you think?"

I patted her arm. "It doesn't look too good."

Sheriff Lens joined us, nervously unfolding his package of chewing tobacco. "I don't see how they can do anything to you, Doc. They got no evidence. All they're saying is that they don't know how she died, so you musta been responsible."

I was annoyed at everyone just then, even the sheriff. "Where did you pick up this habit of chewing tobacco all of a sudden?"

He put it away, looking chagrined. "Well, Sam, I was just tryin' to relax."

Dr. Wolfe appeared at the door to motion me inside. The others remained in the hallway.

When I was seated at the table, he began to speak. "Dr. Hawthorne, as I stated at the beginning, this is not a trial but an inquiry. Nevertheless, we have found sufficient circumstantial evidence that the death of Betty Willis could only have been caused by the mistaken administration of—" Chewing tobacco.

I was remembering Sheriff Lens and his chewing tobacco. It was like chewing tobacco, in a way. The flavor mattered more than anything else.

"Excuse me for interrupting, Dr. Wolfe," I said, "but I've just thought of something."

"Unless it has a bearing on Mrs. Willis's death—"

"It does."

"Proceed, then."

I leaned forward on the desk. "Betty Willis had one small vice. She always kept a bag of hard candy next to her bed. It was there as recently as the Friday before her death, when her lawyer, Seth Rogers, paid a visit, but it wasn't there on Monday when I came to see her. Only a glass of water

with her false teeth was on the bedside table."

"If her teeth were out, she couldn't have eaten anything, anyway," Wolfe pointed out.

"She could have had a piece of hard candy. She could simply have sucked on it and let it dissolve in her mouth. And that's how she was poisoned. The cyanide was injected into the center of the hard candy. It was dissolving into her mouth all the time I examined her without my knowing it. When it dissolved enough to release the cyanide, she died."

"Do you have any proof of this theory?"

"The absence of the traditional bag of hard candy is proof enough for me. Freda Ann Parker had to remove it after Mrs. Willis took a piece of it because she'd probably poisoned it and couldn't risk my examining it."

"Why Freda Ann and not her husband?"

"She's the one who tended to Betty. She would have offered the candy, and only she could have removed the bag. Nat was rarely in the room, and his presence would have been suspicious. And it was Freda Ann who phoned and urged me to come out because the woman was dying. She wanted Betty to die in my presence, to remove any blame from herself. She didn't realize the odor of the poison would be immediately obvious to me."

"Why would she do such a thing if Mrs. Willis was dying, anyway?"

"That's just the point—she wasn't dying. Her condition had been fairly stable, and Seth Rogers found her as well as usual on Friday. His visit, on a minor matter, is what triggered the fatal events. Freda Ann must have feared her aunt was about to change her will. She knew it hadn't been done yet because there were no witnesses to sign any document, but she decided to tell me that Betty Willis was dying, and then make the lie come true. Maybe Betty asked the lawyer out there to frighten her deliberately, never knowing it would lead to her murder."

Dr. Wolfe looked perplexed. "How will we ever prove this?"

"I suggest we begin by calling Sheriff Lens in to our meeting," I said. "It was him and his chewing tobacco that made me remember Betty Willis and her hard candy."

"The rest of it was easier than I could have hoped for," Dr. Sam Hawthorne concluded. "Freda Ann had given her husband the bag of hard candy to burn with the rubbish, but he was suspicious and held it out. He turned it over to Sheriff Lens and we found poison in four other pieces. Freda Ann received a long prison term—I don't recollect what ever happened to Nat.

"The good folks of Northmont more than made up to me for their suspicions during that terrible week. I went to Mary Best's picnic on the Fourth of July and it was a happy day without the hint of a crime. In fact, it wasn't until late that summer— But, no—I have to save something for next time."