The Case of the Horrified Heirs by Erle Stanley Gardner

all."
    "We'll go on up," Dr. Alton said with formal dignity. "Right this way, please."
    The physician indicated the stairway with a sweep of his arm and climbed the stairs.
    Mason and Della Street followed a tread behind.
    Briggs stood at the foot of the stairs and watched them go up, his expression one of frowning contemplation.
    Dr. Alton reached the head of the stairs, started down the corridor with long strides. Then slowed perceptibly for a moment just before coming to a door where he knocked.
    A woman opened the door.
    This time Dr. Alton performed the introductions. "Miss Anna Fritch," he said. "Trained nurse.
    "Miss Fritch, this is Miss Della Street, Perry Mason's secretary and Mr. Perry Mason, the attorney."
    Her eyes widened. "Why, how do you do? How do you do?" she said.
    Dr. Alton pushed his way into the room; held the door open for Della Street and Perry Mason. "How's the patient?" he asked.
    The nurse's eyes met his. She lowered her voice and said, "She's gone."
    Dr. Alton's face was apprehensive. "You mean she's-"
    "No, no," the nurse hastened to explain, "she is out somewhere."
    Dr. Alton frowned. "I told you to take precautions about her diet and-"
    "Why, certainly," the nurse said, "I put it on the chart. She had dry toast which I fixed myself on an electric toaster and two soft-boiled eggs which I cracked myself. There was no seasoning at all. I'm afraid I may have gone to extremes. I insisted she eat the eggs without salt and I told her that you didn't want her to have any seasoning tonight."
    "But you didn't tell her to stay in?"
    "You didn't tell me to tell her that."
    "Is she driving?"
    "I think George Eagan, the chauffeur, is driving her."
    "How long has she been gone?"
    "I don't know. I didn't even know she was going. She didn't come out through here. There's an exit door from her bedroom to the corridor. You can see for yourself."
    The nurse crossed the bedroom to an adjoining bedroom and opened the door.
    It was a huge bedroom with rose tapestry, indirect lighting, a king-sized bed with a telephone beside it, half a dozen comfortable chairs, an open door to a bathroom and another door leading to the corridor.
    "She didn't tell you she was going out?"
    "I had no idea of it."
    "What time did you give her the toast and eggs?"
    "About seven o'clock, and I impressed on her that you didn't want her to have anything else."
    "What did she say when you told her I suspected an allergy and wanted samples of her hair and her nails?"
    "She was most co-operative. She said she certainly would like to find out what was causing the trouble, that somehow she didn't think her troubles were due to what she had eaten. She suspected some sort of an allergy."
    Dr. Alton said, "It's important, very important that I see her-You don't know when she'll be back?"
    The nurse shook her head.
    "Nor when she went out?"
    "No, Doctor, it's just as I told you. I looked in on her after she had had her supper and she was gone."
    "She isn't in the house?"
    "No, I asked and someone said she had taken the car and gone out."
    Dr. Alton walked over to the bedroom and closed the door. Then he closed the corridor door and turned to Anna Fritch.
    "Did you have any clue as to why I wanted hair and nail scrapings?" he asked.
    Her eyes avoided his.
    "Did you?" Dr. Alton asked.
    "I wondered."
    "Did you suspect?"
    "The request, coupled with your instructions about diet-Well, I prepared the food myself and didn't let anyone else near it."
    "Then you did suspect?"
    "Frankly, yes."
    The door from the corridor opened, and Boring Briggs, accompanied by another man, entered the room.
    "I demand to know what's going on!" Briggs said.
    Dr. Alton regarded the two men with cold disdain. "I am giving instructions to the nurse."
    "And you need a lawyer with you for that?" Briggs asked.
    Dr. Alton said to Mason, "Mr. Mason, meet the other brother-in-law, Gordon Kelvin."
    Kelvin, a tall, distinguished-looking man in his late fifties, who gave the impression of