A Dram of Poison

Ken Gibson was far from a swash-buckler. He was a college professor and at fifty-five a lonely bachelor, but within the pages of Charlotte Armstrong's latest off-beat thriller he becomes the center of events that offer a rare treat to those who crave excitement.

Happiness had appeared on the horizon for Ken in the form of Rosemary, a woman in her thirties. Ken pitied Rosemary and thought that by marrying her he could give her a home and have the joy of watching her thrive in new surroundings. It did not occur to him that there were other human emotions that might intrude on a seemingly ideal domestic arrangement. He had not bar-gained for suspicion and for jealousy, but these had come. Ethel, his self-willed sister, had brought them cloaked in the guise of devotion to Ken. It was blindness on Ken's part, she insinuated, for him to think that he could hold Rosemary when the young, handsome Paul Townsend lived next door. Tortured by the fact that he was a burden to his lovely wife, Ken decides on a grim solution, a solution involving a deadly poison that Paul kept at his laboratory. But unforeseen circumstances intervene in his care-fully made plans and the ensuing events reveal Miss Armstrong at her best.