The Desert Moon Mystery by Kay Cleaver Strahan

"I was afraid of that," Miss MacDonald said, when I returned with my information and nothing else to the dining-room. "Now then: Would it be possible for you to remember who last took one of these powders, and when, with no ill effects?"

"Danny and Mary each took one the night of the fourth, when Martha did," Sam answered. "I've asked them about it, and both of them say that they did not feel queer at all, afterwards. They were both wide awake in the morning."

"My word! " said Miss MacDonald.

"I think," I offered, "that something was all wrong with Martha's heart before she took the powder. She acted sleepy, stupid, all afternoon."

"From noon on, you mean?"

"No-at least, I didn't notice until later in the afternoon. Mrs. Ricker said that she had a hard time keeping her awake between seven and eight o'clock."

"I see. Mrs. Ricker did not take one of the sleeping powders that night?"

"She didn't need one," Sam explained. "She is naturally calm. She didn't go all to pieces like the other girls did."

"And yet, I have gathered that she was far from calm when her daughter died?"

"She went clear, raving crazy," I said.

"Yes. Now then -- "

"Hold on a minute," Sam said. "I think that you think, from the questions you have been asking, that the sleeping powder, like I gave the other girls, would not have caused Martha's death. Now I want to know -- "

"I am sorry, Mr. Stanley," she interrupted, "but I have explained that I can not answer questions."

"Suppose I insist on a few common sense questions being answered, right now?"

"You can't do that. You can hamper me in my progress. You can dismiss me from the case, right now. But you aren't going to do either, are you?"

"I won't hamper you, if I can help it. I won't dismiss you, as you say, now, either. It wouldn't be right, without giving you a chance, after you came all the way up here, and you know it. That's why you should try to be reasonable."

"I am trying to be reasonable, Mr. Stanley. " Her smile at Sam, just then, looked as if she might be trying to be something a mite more charming than reasonable, besides. "Now then -- "

She was off again, leading us with her questions, through Mrs. Ricker's confession and her suspicions of Martha.

"After Martha came into the house with the bracelet," she asked, "was she out of the room again within the hour; or even within the second hour, between five and six?"

"She was not out between four and five," I said. "She might have been any place, for all I know, between five and six. I was in the kitchen."