Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 36, No. 4, October 20, 1928

By noon it was quite the thing to kid Cornish about the Christmas gift sent him by a facetious lady; one or two late risers sent to inquire for a dose of bromo seltzer; and one of these, Harry King, was given the bottle and told to go as far as he liked.

A Dinner Party

Harry King’s guardian angel was busy that morning. King took the bottle and the tumbler to the water cooler. There was no water. And, grumbling at the lax ways into which servants had fallen these days, he set the bottle back on the desk and went elsewhere for his dose.

Two days later, when every one had admired the gift, Cornish took it home, the bromo seltzer bottle still intact.

At home, of course, both women admired the little holder. Mrs. Rodgers said that it was the same design as the silver on her dresser, and Cornish promptly handed it to her, with the remark that she might set it with the rest.

“Only I’ll keep the bromo for my own use,” he laughed.

Two days later, as he frequently did to lighten the work for Mrs. Adams, he invited the family to dine with him at a restaurant. The party was a gay affair and they returned home in high spirits. Every one enjoyed it, except, perhaps, Mrs. Adams, for the rich food made her ill, and she went promptly to bed.

The next morning Cornish rose and, as was his custom, went to the rear door of the apartment for his newspaper. He found Mrs. Adams bending over the stove in the kitchen preparing breakfast, with a cloth tied about her head.

“Still ill?” he paused to ask sympathetically, and she nodded. “That’s a shame.”

The Bromo Seltzer

“Just a headache. I am getting too old for rich food and late hours.”

He laughed this away, and after asking if he could be of aid to her, went back to his room to read until summoned for breakfast.

Presently Mrs. Rodgers interrupted him by softly tapping on the door.

“Mother has a very bad headache,” she explained. “I believe that a dose of the bromo seltzer might help her. Isn’t that what they take for dissipation?”

Mrs. Adams, who had followed her in, laughed at this. Cornish handed them the bottle and they disappeared.

Two minutes later they were back again, they could not open the bottle, they said, and stood by with water and a spoon while Cornish turned the trick.

“Ugh, how sour it tastes,” said Mrs. Adams, making a wry face as she downed it.

This interested Cornish. He had seen men take similar doses without wry faces, and decided to try one for himself. But he mixed for his own consumption a smaller doze. Hardly had he swallowed it when he began to feel dizzy and queer, and made his way to the chair by the window.

At that moment there was a cry from the dining room, whither Mrs. Adams had retreated; there were a thud and a scream from Mrs. Rodgers.

“Come quick, mother has fainted!” she called.

Cornish, ill himself, staggered to the other room, and, athlete though he was, was unable by this time to find strength to lift the woman from the floor, where she lay white and drawn in suffering.

“I am ill, too, terribly ill,” he gasped. “What do you suppose was in that bottle? Bromo seltzer could never act like that!”

“Go down to the drug store and find out what to do about it, quick,” urged Mrs. Rodgers, wringing her hands. “If it is poison they will know what to do.”

At the drug store on the corner they could give only this information: It was a poison, all right, which poison they did not know; they could not, consequently, give him the proper antidote.

“But there is a woman dying upstairs!” Cornish groaned.

Cornish Absolved

“Then fetch a doctor,” advised the druggist, and he sent a boy out, calling others on the telephone.

At least half a dozen physicians got word to rush to the Adams flat — the first to arrive, half an hour later, found Cornish comfortable and Mrs. Adams dead.

Now neither this doctor nor Cornish reported the matter to the police. Plainly, they felt it was a case of poisoning with intent to kill Cornish. Mrs. Adams had merely intervened between the poisoner and his intended victim.

When he was able, which was shortly, Cornish hastened to the district attorney’s office, where he had a friend, and told them the story, which he later referred to as “trouble up at the flat.”

Quite naturally it perturbed him deeply to discover that he had an enemy who would resort to extreme measures. With the enemy at large it might easily happen again — with no intervention from Providence in the shape of kind old ladies who never did any one any harm.

The investigation was placed in the hands of George McCluskey, captain of the detectives, who at once absolved Cornish of any intention to kill his aunt by this subtle means.

The relations existing between Cornish and Mrs. Adams were friendly in the extreme. He would have gained nothing by getting her out of the way.

The Holder Traced