As we entered Doctor Lathrop's office, we found that not only was he there, but that his wife was there also. However, it was quite evident that they had been having words, and all was not as serene between them as they would have us wish, by the forced looks on their faces. In short, they had been quarreling.
I could have guessed what it was about, but Kennedy affected not to notice that anything was wrong and I fancied that Vina, at least, wore a look of relief as she saw that he was not paying any attention to it.
Briefly, Kennedy outlined what we had found—the physostigmine in the stomach, the poison, the bean itself, which he took particular pains to describe along with the circumstances under which it had been found.
"Did you ever have any of these ordeal beans?" asked Kennedy, displaying the one we had found.
"I have had them," admitted Lathrop.
I thought I caught a covert look at his wife, as if to see how she was taking the discovery. As for Vina, I knew that she was far too clever to betray anything, especially before us.
"They're comparatively easy to obtain in New York," went on Lathrop, with greater ease. "Drug importers get them in quantities to derive the drug from them. However, now I employ the drug itself, the few times I have any occasion to use it. I suppose I've got some in my medicine-chest."
As we talked, I saw that Vina was really listening, keen and silent. If actions for which we had no immediate explanation had bearing on the question of guilt, I felt that her very manner was incriminatory in itself. Why should she try to conceal under a cloak of indifference her real interest in the thing? And yet, even with Vina, I was loath to jump at a conclusion. Somehow or other her preoccupied manner and the stress of her suppressed attention aroused my suspicions most strongly against her, after what other things I knew of her private affairs.
As we left them and hurried toward the laboratory, I found myself wondering whether she might not have been the visitor to Wilford whom the tenant had overheard talking in Wilford's office. As for the why of such a visit, I was forced to admit I had no explanation.
I reacted against the deduction that perhaps Honora had known of the properties of the Calabar bean and had been able to obtain some of them. Yet it was clearly that that was in Kennedy's mind as we approached his workshop.