Vina Lathrop had committed suicide at the Sainte-Germaine!
Practically the whole story was told in the head-lines—that is, all except what little we knew. I turned the pages quickly. Belle Balcom had got in her brief interview with Vina, but it contained nothing new, either.
As I hastened back to the laboratory there ran through my mind the swift succession of events of the morning—our learning of the separation, the visit to the hotel, the meeting, the coming of Belle Balcom, and finally the appearance of Doyle. Without a doubt it was this succession of events that had convinced Vina that there was no escape from the social disgrace that awaited her after the action of Doctor Lathrop.
"What do you think?" I almost shouted, as I burst into the laboratory and threw the paper before Craig, who was still at work in his acid-stained smock. "And, do you know, often I had almost come to regard Vina as a possible suspect in the case, too! Could I have been right? Is it a confession?"
Kennedy read the news item, then tore off his smock and reached for his hat and coat.
"I'll admit that suicide might be taken as a confession, as a general rule," he exclaimed. "But it's not so in this case. Come—we must get over to the hotel. I doubt whether half the story can be known, even by this time. I wish I had been informed of this earlier. However, maybe it won't make any difference."
It did not take us many minutes to get down to the fashionable hotel, nor long to get up to the room from which, in spite of the demands of the hotel people, the body had not been removed.
Leslie, already notified in the course of the city routine, had arrived perhaps five minutes before us.
"I was out on a case," he explained. "When I got back to the office I saw the police notification. But you had already left when I tried to call you up."
I looked about. There was great excitement among the guests and employees on the floor on which Vina had taken her rather cheap and unpretentious room. But in all the group I could not see one familiar face, except that of Doyle, who had arrived just a few moments before Leslie.