Chapter 25 sixth scene

A few minutes before noon on Saturday morning, Mr. Jerry Lane's big car stopped on the sidewalk in front of Het's mansion, and Edgar Peary and the owner of the car got out.Peary's face was pale, but his will was firm. He didn't say a word all the way down Lansleaf, and Ryan didn't bother him. A policeman answered the bell and opened the door. "Morning, Mr. Wren, are you back, Piri?" He winked at Wren as he spoke, but without replying from the tutor, he quickly walked across the corridor and climbed up the stairs before disappearing. Ren walked through the corridor to the back of the house.He paused, then turned into the kitchen.After a while he came out and went to the library.Conrad Hitter was inside, writing on his desk.

"Ah, Mr. Hatter," said Wren earnestly, "I hear your troubles are coming to an end." "How to say? What does that mean?" Heite immediately raised his head and asked in surprise.He had a dark circle under each eye. "I heard," Ryan said as he sat down, "the ban will be lifted this morning, and the police will finally withdraw." Heite murmured: "Oh! It's about time. In short, there is no result worthy of a curse. Since I found out that my mother was killed two weeks ago, I am still standing still." Ren put on a sad face: "We are not perfect, you know... ah, they are here. Good morning, Moxiu."

"Morning, Mr. Wren," Mo Xiu said loudly, stepping into the library with elephant-like steps, "Okay, sir, we are leaving. Mr. Hatter!" "Mr Wren just told me." "Inspector's order. We're withdrawing—just until the noon clock strikes. Sorry, Mr. Hatter." "Excuse me?" Hayt repeated, standing up and waving his arms in a vicious voice. "Well go, get the hell out of here! We can finally enjoy a little peace." "And privacy," added a sullen voice, as Jill Height entered the room. "With all the interruptions, Conrad, we can really get some quiet."

The four garrisoned in the house—Moshe, Pickson, Klaus, and a dark-haired young man, Dr. Dupin, the poison expert sent to examine the diet—all assembled at the door. "Okay, boys," Pickson said, "let's go. I have a date, huh, huh!" He laughed loudly, shaking the house, and then choked on the way, like a juggler Suddenly interrupted.He stared fixedly at Wren's seat. Everyone turned their heads to look.Mr. Wren slumped limply in his chair, his eyes shut, his face pale--conscious. Dr. Dubin immediately jumped forward, and Pickson was tongue-tied: "He just froze suddenly like that! His face was flushed, he choked on a small mouthful, and then passed out!"

The poison expert fell to his knees by the seat, ripped off Lane's collar, bent his ear to his chest, and listened to his heartbeat. His face was gloomy: "Water," he whispered, "and whiskey, immediately." Jill was leaning against the wall, stunned; Conrad Hitter muttered something vaguely, and took a bottle of whiskey from the wine cabinet; a detective ran to the kitchen and returned promptly with a glass of water.Doctor Dubin forcefully opened Ryan's mouth, and took a big gulp of wine down his throat; the criminal policeman who brought the water overzealously poured a full glass of water on Ryan's face.

The effect is immediate.Ren's throat was grunting, the whites of his eyes were exposed, and his eyes rolled wildly. As he drank the whiskey that choked his throat, he couldn't stop coughing. "Fool!" snarled Dr. Dupin ferociously. "What are you doing—killing him! Come here—do me a favor. . . . Where can I put him, Mr. Hatter? He must be put in bed at once. Heart attack..." "Are you sure you're not poisoned?" Ji'er was tongue-tied.Barbara, Martha, the two children, Mrs. Abuko, all rushed to hear the sound. "Christ," said Barbara in shock, "what's the matter with Mr. Wren?"

"Is there anyone, please help me?" Doctor Dubin was panting, struggling to lift Ryan's limp body from the seat. There was a roar in the corridor, and all the people blocking the door dispersed, and the red-haired Dromeo rushed in... In less than fifteen minutes, the house returned to calm.Dr. Dupin and Dromeo carried the weak Ryan up to the guest room on the third floor.The three detectives stood around looking around, unsure of what to do next, and finally, seeing that there was no instruction to revoke the previous order, they walked out of the mansion together, leaving Ryan and Heite's family to take care of their own future.After all, a heart attack has nothing to do with a murder.

The rest swarmed outside the closed door of the guest room.I couldn't hear anything from the outside, and suddenly the door opened, and Dromeo poked out his fiery head: "The doctor told you to stay away from here, and don't make noise!" The door clicked shut. So they all slowly walked away.Half an hour later Dr. Dupin appeared and went downstairs. "To be completely quiet and rest," he informed them, "nothing serious, but absolutely no movement for a day or two. Please leave him alone, his driver will accompany him and take care of him until he is able to leave. I Will be back tomorrow - he'll be much better then."

At seven-thirty that night, Mr. Jerry Lane set out to create an opportunity for his "heart attack."In view of Dr. Shebin's earnest warning, no one dared to approach the "ward".It was true that Barbara had called Dr. Miriam's office privately—probably out of some inexplicable unease—but when she heard that the doctor was out of town, she made no further moves. . Dromeo sat in the door, enjoying cigars and magazines. He found that the afternoon was not uncomfortable. At least judging by the nervous expression on Ryan's face, he was much more comfortable than his boss.

At six o'clock, Barbara asked Mrs. Abko to prepare a plate of light food and send it to the guest room. Dromeo accepted it with Gaelic heroism. Mrs. Kou closed the door with an unhappy face.Not long after, Miss Smith knocked on the door out of professional conscience, inquiring if there was any need for her services. Dromeo discussed her illness with her for five minutes, and at last she found that she could only stare at the door panel, although the conversation was not bad. Happy, but obviously being rejected, he shook his head and walked away. At 7:30, Mr. Jerry Lane got up, talked softly with Dromeo, and then stood behind the door.Dromeo opened the door and looked around first.The aisle was empty, and he closed the door behind him and walked down the corridor.The door of Miss Smith's room was open, but there was no one in it, the doors of the laboratory and the nursery were closed, and the door of Louisa Kabian's room was wide open. Dromeo checked that there was no one in the room, and quickly returned guest room.

A moment later, Mr. Jerry Lane tiptoed across the corridor and entered the chamber of the dead with rapid steps. He opened the closet door without hesitation and slipped in, and closed the door from the inside, leaving a gap big enough to see into the room.The hallway, the entire second floor, and the room itself were all silent.The room was quickly darkening with the sky, and the closet was very stuffy. Even so, Ryan hid deeper into the pile of women's clothes, trying to keep his breath, and prepared to pass the long night. Time passed minute by minute.Occasionally Dromeo stooped to the door of the guest room, listening to vague sounds from the corridor and downstairs; Ren didn't even have this awareness of the outside world, he couldn't see his fingers here, and no one came into his hiding room .Ren learned from his luminous watch that the time was 7:50, and for the first time there were signs of people walking outside.He froze and instinctively became alert. Suddenly the room was brightly lit, and he figured the light switch was out of sight to the left of the door to the right of the closet, so he couldn't see the visitor.But the suspense was short-lived, and Miss Smith's corpulent figure crossed his line of sight as she plodded across the carpet and turned between the twin beds.Now that the lights were on, Ryan could see clearly that the room had been thoroughly cleaned, ventilated, tidied up, and that all traces of crime had been removed. Miss Smith went to the bedside table and picked up the Braille board and cubes used by Louisa Kabian.She turned and Ryan saw her face.She looked tired, her large breasts heaving with a sigh.Without doing anything further, she left Ren's sight and walked towards the door.After a while, the lights went out, and Ren was in total darkness again. He breathed a sigh of relief and wiped his sweaty brow. At 8:05, a second visitor came to the room of the dead.The lights were bright again, and Ryan saw the tall, aging figure of Mrs. Abkel across the carpet.The woman was out of breath, and Ren judged that it was caused by climbing the stairs. She made an unhappy expression, rubbed the back of her neck, then turned and walked out. But this time—and Wren murmured a few indecent prayers, thanking the gods, large and small, for Mrs. Abuko’s carelessness—the lights were not turned off. Then things happened almost immediately.Exactly four minutes later, that is, at 8:09, Ryan realized that a window on the wall opposite the door had a shutter that had not moved. He couldn't help but tense up, bent his body even lower, and held his breath. Concentrate, open the gap of the cabinet door a little bit, and keep your eyes on the window. The shutters that had been all lowered were pulled up suddenly, and he saw the person he was waiting for crawling on the outer window sill overlooking the garden that ran through the entire outer wall of the second floor.The man lingers there for a few seconds, then quickly jumps into the room.Ren saw that the window that was closed before was now open.The figure quickly jumped towards the door, out of Ren's sight, but he was sure that the visitor was going to close the door, because the man turned back in an instant, and the light was still on.The figure then moved towards the fireplace, and Ren could barely see a part of it.The man bent slightly and disappeared, then saw two legs lifted up, and then disappeared.Ryan waited with his heart beating wildly. A few seconds later, the figure reappeared, holding the white liquid test tube and the medicine dropper that Ren left in the secret hole behind the brick. The visitor ran across the room to the bedside table.His eyes were shining brightly, and he stretched out his hand towards the cup of skim milk... Ren, who was hiding in the closet, couldn't help but shiver.A moment's hesitation... Then, as if determined, the man uncorked the bottle and poured the entire contents of the test tube into the skimmed milk that Mrs. Abkel sent. It was so fast... The man leaped back to the window, cast a quick glance at the garden, and rolled over the sill - the window and the shutters were drawn down again.Wren noticed that the visitor had pulled the shutters a little higher than it should have been... He sighed in the closet, stretched his legs, his face grave. The whole process took no more than three minutes. Ren looked at his watch, and it was exactly 8:12. Midfield...was peaceful, the shutters hadn't even moved.Ren wiped his forehead again, and beads of sweat dripped down his body into his clothes. At 8:15, my intuition told Ren that someone was coming.Two figures blocked the light from his view for a moment—Loisa Cabian, walking slowly and confidently, as she usually did in and around the house, Miss Smith trailing behind.Louisa walked to her bed without hesitation, sat down, crossed her legs, and mechanically, as if it were a nightly routine, reached for the bedside table and grabbed the glass of skim milk.Miss Smith smiled vaguely, patted her cheek, and walked to the right—to the bathroom, Lane knew, remembering the layout of the room. It was not Luisa that caught Ryan's attention, but the window through which the intruder escaped.Just as Louisa held the glass back, Wren saw a lurking figure, a ghostly face, pressed against the windowpane where the shutters didn't cover it.The face was tense and pale, almost frighteningly focused... But Luisa was calm as usual, with the ignorant expression on her face unchanged. She drank the skimmed milk in the glass, put down the glass, stood up, and began to undress. At this moment, Ren's eyes ached from the intense staring.He dared to swear that the face on the window first showed an expression of inconceivable surprise, and then a horrifying disappointment.Then the man flicked like a toy and disappeared. While Miss Smith was still freshening up in the bathroom, Ryan tiptoed out of the closet and slipped out of the room.Louisa didn't even turn her head.