“Forgive me,” she sobbed. “I can stand it no longer. I had tried to keep this thing about Thornton from you. I have tried to make you happy and well—oh—tried so hard, so faithfully. Yet that old skeleton of my past which I thought was buried would not stay buried. I have bought Thornton off again and again, with money—my money—only to find him threatening again. But about this other thing, this poison, I am as innocent, and I believe Thornton is as—”
Craig laid a gentle hand on her lips. She rose wildly and faced him in passionate appeal.
“Who—who is this Thornton?” demanded Emery Pitts.
Quickly, delicately, sparing her as much as he could, Craig hurried over our experiences.
“He is in the next room,” Craig went on, then facing Pitts added: “With you alive, Emery Pitts, this blackmail of your wife might have gone on, although there was always the danger that you might hear of it—and do as I see you have already done—forgive, and plan to right the unfortunate mistake. But with you dead, this Thornton, or rather some one using him, might take away from Minna Pitts her whole interest in your estate, at a word. The law, or your heirs at law, would never forgive as you would.”
Pitts, long poisoned by the subtle microbic poison, stared at Kennedy as if dazed.
“Who was caught in your kitchen, Mr. Pitts, and, to escape detection, killed your faithful chef and covered his own traces so cleverly?” rapped out Kennedy. “Who would have known the new process of healing wounds? Who knew about the fatal properties of indol? Who was willing to forego a one-hundred-thousand-dollar prize in order to gain a fortune of many hundreds of thousands?”
Kennedy paused, then finished with irresistibly dramatic logic; “Who else but the man who held the secret of Minna Pitts’s past and power over her future so long as he could keep alive the unfortunate Thornton—the up-to-date doctor who substituted an elixir of death at night for the elixir of life prescribed for you by him in the daytime—Dr. Lord.”
Kennedy had moved quietly toward the door. It was unnecessary. Dr. Lord was cornered and knew it. He made no fight. In fact, instantly his keen mind was busy outlining his battle in court, relying on the conflicting testimony of hired experts.
“Minna,” murmured Pitts, falling back, exhausted by the excitement, on his pillows, “Minna—forgive? What is there to forgive? The only thing to do is to correct. I shall be well—soon now—my dear. Then all will be straightened out.”