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preferable to move out of the bedroom that she had allowed me to
use, into one of the guest suites that Wilkinson offered me.
Miss Desdemona is not really a bad person, sir. She needs
psychological help but the master is not prepared to entertain the
idea for fear it would reflect badly on his candidacy.
Wilkinson, this is his only daughter we are talking about. She
has conspired with a known felon to defraud her own father of
millions of dollars and risk the life of her brother and step-mother
in the process.
Ah, sir, but you have no proof of that. Miss Desdemona denies it
and your theories are supported only by circumstantial possibilities,
I hesitate to call them evidence.
You are quite right, Wilkinson but those circumstantial
possibilities are the only things that fit the facts. Only Desdemona
was present when I discovered where Crawley was on two occasions.
She is the only one who could have warned him.
Why would she warn the villain, sir? He kidnapped her and has
been terrorizing this family ever since.
He was her drug dealer, Wilkinson. She relied on him for
cocaine. She told me once that he took her virginity. I suspect,
although I do not know, that she was the one who suggested the
kidnapping to him. She is a very bright girl. She has spent all her
life trying to get her father s attention. She has substituted the man
who gives her sexual and drug pleasure for the father that ignores
her. Her plan was to collect a five million dollar ransom for her
own kidnapping and to go to South America with Crawley to live
a life of drugs, alcohol and sex. When I messed up her kidnapping
by rescuing her, she was quite happy to change the plan to the
kidnapping of Daniel.
I could see that my arguments had struck home with Wilkinson.
His anguish showed on his face.
I have cared for that girl as if she were my own daughter. Why
could she not have substituted me as her father instead of that
criminal?
As you quite rightly said, Wilkinson, she needs psychiatric help
and we must do what we can to persuade the Mayor to accept that.
He never will, sir. You have seen how fixated he is on becoming
the State Governor. If he achieves that aim he will then move on to
being fixated on the Presidency.
There is something of the father in the daughter, Wilkinson.
You are correct, sir. Please will you excuse me now. I could see
that he was about to break into tears so I left the room to him and
went down to the pool with my envelope of news cuttings.
I opened the envelope and settled down to peruse the cuttings.
There was a lot about the tragedy of a young woman with so
much to live for, dying in the prime of her life and leaving behind a
grieving husband and eight year old daughter. Several commentators
attributed the Mayor s success in the municipal elections to the very
large sympathy vote.
The Mayor had done some very good public relations work on
the matter and most articles concluded that it was an accidental
death arising from the deceased awakening in the course of the
night and sleepily overdosing to get back to sleep again.
The family doctor named as Carter had confirmed that he had
prescribed the pills due to the patient s stress from overwork but
nowhere was the substance of the pills disclosed although it was
once mentioned that the prescribed dose had been 25 milligrams
whereas the fatal dose was many times greater than that.
I looked up Doctor Carter in the local directory and found two:
a Charles and a Donna.
As the article mentioned he prescribed the pills I went for Dr
Charles Carter.
Doctor Carter is semi-retired. The receptionist-nurse said. He
doesn t take new patients and he only works from nine until one
from Monday to Friday.
I am an investigator looking into the affairs of one of Doctor
Carter s patients. The patient has been dead for ten years. I would
be happy to pay his consultation fee if he be so kind as to give me
a moment of his time. I am sure that my questions will not take up
more than ten minutes.
She lifted the telephone and repeated my story into the
mouthpiece.
The doctor will see you for ten minutes.
I went into his office. The furniture looked about as old as the
man behind the desk. I judged him to be in his early seventies.
Doctor, ten years ago you treated a Mrs Delice Bronson who
died as a result of an overdose of a sleeping pill. Are you able to
remember what that sleeping pill was?
I certainly remember that case very well. That was our mayor s
wife, wasn t it? I prescribed 25 milligrams of Seroquel but it was
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