"For exactly that reason," my employer said. "Because the fact of the drugging drives you to the inevitable conclusion that the murder followed the drugging, when Rafe was unconscious. That was the only reason Rafe was drugged, to push us in that direction, to make us assume that the murder happened during the time when Lucy had a complete alibi. Felix was dead before she even brought Rafe the coffee."
Mona shook her head, as if she was finding this to be a difficult concept to absorb. I sympathized, this was the thing that had stumped me, once I had realized where my employer was going. Then Mona looked up. "One more thing," she said. "I've never strangled anybody, but from what I know I have the idea that it would take a lot of strength. Wouldn't it have to have been a man?"
"How was it done?" Neil asked. "Bare hands, or with a rope of some sort?"
Jan nodded at the window. "With a cord from those curtains. And remember, Felix was groggy."
"Then it could have been anybody," Neil said. "With bare hands, that's one thing, but with a cord and the right type of knot, and the man half-conscious? Any one of us could have done it."
"But why?" Dorothy asked quietly. "He fooled around before, nobody wanted to kill him, not even me."
"Well, this is somewhat speculative, but Marshall reported to me that Lucy was unusually tense all day, since Felix was first brought in. What if he never told her about you? What if she thought she was his one-and-only, and suddenly there he was, injured, and accompanied by another woman, and a pregnant one at that? People have killed each other for less than that."
Mona looked dissatisfied. "Well, I'm not convinced, but we should go down and talk to her."
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