Page 99 of The Other Lady Vanishes

“Dynamite is not exactly a subtle method of getting rid of people,” Jake said, “but it does have one very useful side effect.”

“It doesn’t leave much in the way of evidence,” Raina observed.

Adelaide turned around, coffeepot in hand, just in time to catch the expression on Luther’s face. He was watching Raina with an interesting mix of speculation, curiosity, and admiration.

“You make an excellent point,” he said.

When news of the explosion reached the police station, they had all piled into cars and followed Brandon and his officers to the scene. There was enough left of the burning vehicle to identify it as a Ford, but the warped and twisted metal was still too hot to allow the fire department to extract the remains of the body in the front seat. The hotel desk clerk said that one of his guests had driven the Ford.

Detective Brandon had not argued when Jake, Adelaide, Raina, and Luther accompanied him up the hotel stairs to number five. Gill had done a thorough job of packing but he had missed the crumpled receipt for three sticks of dynamite in the small trash basket. Jake was the one who had noticed it.

“What we know for certain is that someone, presumably Gill, purchased three sticks of dynamite from a hardware store in a small town about halfway between Burning Cove and Rushbrook,” Jake said. “If weassume that one of the sticks was used to blow up my car, that means Gill might have had two more in the Ford.”

Adelaide poured coffee into the four mugs on the table. “If Gill was the one who purchased the dynamite sticks, the explosion tonight must have been accidental.”

Jake picked up his mug and cradled it in two hands. “A stick of fresh dynamite is not particularly unstable, but old dynamite is very dangerous. The stuff degrades over time. The nitroglycerin seeps out and that, of course, is highly volatile. Wouldn’t take much to set it off.”

“Dynamite purchased in a small-town hardware store might be old,” Luther observed. “A careless match or even a strong jolt could cause it to explode.’”

“Gill smoked,” Adelaide said. She sat down in the empty chair next to Jake. “He always had a cigarette in his hand. I remember Dr. Ormsby complaining about it whenever Gill came up to the lab. Some of the chemicals were highly flammable.”

Raina’s eyes narrowed a little. “If Gill tossed a match or a half-smoked cigarette out the window and it blew back into the car and landed on the dynamite, that would certainly account for the explosion.”

“Maybe,” Jake said.

Adelaide looked at him. “What’s worrying you?”

Luther studied Jake from the opposite side of the table. “He’s thinking that this whole thing seems to be ending a little too neatly.”

“Neatly?” Raina said. “It all seems very bizarre to me.”

“Not if you consider that everything that has happened somehow revolves around the drug that Adelaide’s parents discovered,” Jake said.

Adelaide shuddered. “Daydream. They should have called it Nightmare.”

“Let’s assume that Gill and Paxton had been running a profitable little drug ring and marketing their wares to Hollywood celebrities,”Jake said. “They used Madam Zolanda and Thelma Leggett as distributors. Then Gill realizes that Adelaide’s parents have discovered a new hallucinogen with hypnotic properties.”

“A drug that could be used to implant hypnotic suggestions could be worth a fortune not only on the private market but also to certain government agencies in every country in the world,” Raina mused. “The potential would be huge.”

“But only if Gill and Paxton can have exclusive control of the drug,” Jake continued. “So they decide to get rid of everyone who knew too much about the original drug ring and about Daydream. Patient A evidently died from the effects of the drug. That left Ormsby, Zolanda, Thelma Leggett, and Patient B.”

“Me,” Adelaide said.

Jake looked at her. “But Patient B vanished the night they planned to murder her. That left Gill and Paxton with a serious problem because Adelaide was the one person who knew all about the secret experiments at Rushbrook. They had to find her before they continued dismantling the ring. They finally tracked her down here in Burning Cove.”

“Madam Zolanda and Thelma Leggett were sent here to get a handle on the situation,” Luther said. “If Jake’s right about Paxton, that explains his presence in town.”

“They knew that I wouldn’t recognize any of them,” Adelaide said. “But by the time they found me, I had settled into life here in Burning Cove. I had a job. Friends. People would have noticed if I simply vanished. They needed a plan to kidnap me or maybe murder me without drawing attention to themselves.”

Raina nodded. “Do you think the original scheme involved Madam Zolanda making that final prediction about someone dying before morning?”

“Maybe,” Jake said. “It wouldn’t have been a bad plan, when you think about it. If Adelaide had been killed or if she had vanished thatnight, the press would have gone wild. Zolanda could have added to her fame by helping the police find the body.”

“Instead, it was Zolanda who was killed,” Luther said. “If her plan was to predict Adelaide’s death, it backfired.”

“Gill and Paxton obviously had a different outcome in mind,” Adelaide said.

“One thing seems certain,” Raina said. “If we’re right about all of this, Paxton is the last member of the drug ring who is still alive. How do we go about proving he is not only a killer but also in possession of a dangerous new hallucinogen?”

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