The Box In The Lake,Part Two

By the time Lieutenant Turner arrived at the large house his entire detective force were in a giant fix. For several hours they had invaded the mansion that had previously evaded all scrutiny. They had marked the great room, overturned bedsheets, rummaged through the wardrobe and some lockers, dusted all furniture in the room; in short basically upheaving the whole place under the direction of Tom Boyle an over eager seargent- detective who was pratically salivating at the chance to investigate a challenging crime. Even he was stumped.
"So what do we have?"asked Turner as he entered the room.
Boyle took him around the room indicating the marked place where the maid and the man had been discovered . He pointed out a moderate sized oak table, sparkingly brown with bulbous joints which had some hard cover books and two upturned medical bottles. At the foot of the table were powdery residues next to discarded skins of what looked like capsules.
" I've had Jeffrey to identify the drugs. It was easy since we found replicas in the bathroom cabinet. It was lopressor. Obviously the man had had some heart trouble, the other bottle contains alcohol."
"And this extra large syringe near the bodies. Was it used to inject the mixture?"
Boyle scratched his head indecisively then cleared his throat before answering.
"The drug was injected, we've identified the marks on the man's arm but it doesn't make sense since the drug is a capsule and mixing an overdose with alcohol can be fatal."
"Should we then rule it as what suicide? Attempted suicide? By the way is the man dead?"
"Unconscious at best." replied Boyle, "He's been rushed to ICU."
"Who is he?"
"We don't know yet sir. We were unable to get his prints round the house, no one in town knows who he is. We've sent the ones we got off his unconscious body over to metro. We should have a match in a few hours."
Tom then read out the account of Elizabeth alone because her friend was still unconscious and thus unable to make a statement. Turner who had moved to the window overlooking the lake during the narration and was carefully studying it,nodded with slow comprehension when Tom finished.
"So only Nora normally cleaned this room."
"Yes."
"And this curtain was drawn over the window when you came just as that wardrobe was open?"
"Yes sir."
"Get some men to dregde that lake,seargent and meet me in my office in an hour."
Turner was printing out the results of his inquiries when Tom returned to his office thoroughly excited.
"I see you have news."said Turner blandly.
"His name is Carl Lindley sir. My inquiries have confirmed that he used to work for MFI. A major intel operative..."
"Good now what was in the metal box."
Tom was astonished by the Lieutenant's question.
"How did you.."
"It was easy." said Turner with a smug smile, "That thick window needed something heavy to cut through it."
"Well, The box contains papers with enough dirt to sink three of the major power and oil companies in the country."
The Lieutenant whistled unconsciously.what a saga but then it now finally made sense. He handed Tom several of the papers he had printed out.
"Over the last two weeks Nora Adams had recieved amounts totalling 15 Million from yet unindenfied sources. I think the corporations knew about those papers."
"True true. I see it now. Nora was the only one who knew much carl, only she could have known about the lopressors and only she could get close to lindley without rousing suspicions from him."
"Exactly considering how reclused the man was they had to use her. It would have been easily concluded had not the man woken up perhaps because of her friend speaking through the ear piece. When he discovered what was happening he probably smashed the window to draw the attention of nd to ruin the people who tried to kill him."
"That might just be it, sir. Would be hard to prove though since she wore gloves throughout."
"That's why I'm hoping Carl recovers in time for the trial. We could actually make it one of the most sensational cases of the century."
But the lieutenant's hope was soon dashed because when he called the hospital to inquire about Carl's condition he was informed that the man had disappeared from the hospital...

The end