“Would that have worked if the killer didn’t hit a blood vessel?” Hector asked.
“I don’t know,” Gregor admitted. “To tell you the truth, I’ve never run across a case of that kind. Without something like that, though, we’re back to the problem of what became of the cups the coffee was in, and why. Neither Charles van Straadt nor Rosalie was on any kind of medication?”
“Nothing prescribed.”
“What about over the counter? Were either of them taking allergy pills? Did either of them have a cold they might have been taking a decongestant for? How about aspirin for a headache?”
Hector Sheed shifted in his seat. “Neither of them had a cold, and neither of them had any allergies severe enough for their doctors to know about. We’ve talked to the doctors, by the way. We’re pretty thorough in New York. I’ll admit we didn’t ask about over-the-counter allergy medication per se, but we did get complete health records. The only thing of the kind you’re talking about now in either record was in Rosalie van Straadt’s about ten years ago. She was taking diet pills.”
“Diet pills? But she was very thin.”
“She was even thinner, then. She weighed about sixty-nine pounds. She had to be hospitalized.”
“Wonderful. But that doesn’t help us much, does it? We’re still back to the coffee cups. Or to Michael Pride. I was given to understand that you were determined to pin the killing of Charles van Straadt on Michael Pride.”
“Were you?” Hector Sheed looked amused. “I’ll bet you didn’t hear that from Michael. No, Mr. Demarkian, I’m not intent on pinning anything on Michael Pride. In fact, I don’t think Michael Pride could have committed either of these two murders. And you know why?”
“No. Why?”
“Because they’re not nuts enough.” Hector was adamant. “Michael Pride is probably a great man. He may even be a saint. But what he also is, no question, is a certified nutcase. I kid you not. I used to be in uniform down in Times Square. Good God.”
“You ran into Michael Pride down there,” Gregor suggested.
Hector snorted. “Ran into is putting it mildly. You think this glory hole business the papers made so much fuss about is a big deal? Hell, Michael must be getting old. Some of the things he used to pull—what are you supposed to make of something like this? I mean, never mind the fact that the man’s tastes in sexual congress are bizarre in the extreme—I mean, what the hell, Mr. Demarkian, everybody’s a little weird about sex—never mind all that, what about AIDS? The man is a doctor. The man is a good doctor. He ought to know better.”
“I agree with you,” Gregor said. “But he doesn’t seem to care.”
“If Michael Pride committed a murder,” Hector said, “what he’d do is get a wheat scythe and whack his victim’s head off into the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel. Michael Pride is not an introvert. He’s not even what you could call ordinarily restrained.”
“Possibly,” Gregor insisted, “but look at what we have here. We at least have to consider the possibility—”
“That Michael pretended to administer medication to Charles van Straadt and Rosalie van Straadt and administered strychnine instead? All right. Consider it. It won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Because Rosalie van Straadt wouldn’t have let him near her,” Hector said triumphantly. “She had a case for Michael Pride that made Elizabeth Taylor’s love for Richard Burton look weak. And Michael was Michael. Rosalie hated him. She wouldn’t have let him near her.”
Gregor thought about the scene in Michael Pride’s examining room. The glass on the floor. The papers scattered everywhere. Rosalie in tears.
“Maybe you’re right,” he admitted. “But then we’re back to where we began, and we have the same problem as when we began. Strychnine works quickly. It works very quickly. It couldn’t have been administered to the victims in the cafeteria, say, and not taken effect until they got upstairs. There might have been a ghost of a chance of something like that if either of them had eaten a large meal right before taking the poison, but neither of them had. That means the strychnine would have to have been administered either in Michael Pride’s office or somewhere else close on the third floor.”
“It couldn’t have been administered anywhere else in the case of Charles van Straadt,” Hector pointed out. “Charles van Straadt went into Michael’s office around six or so and stayed there until his body was found by Michael at eight something. You can look up the times in the report, but you see what I mean.”