A FRIEND.
As I read it I asked myself vainly what it could mean. There was no direct accusation against any one, yet the implication was plain. A woman had been moved by one of the primal passions to betray—some one.
I looked up from the note on the table at Craig. He was still studying the handwriting.
"It's that peculiar vertical, angular hand affected by many women," he commented, half to himself. "Even at a glance you can see that it's written hastily, as if under the stress of excitement and sudden resolution. You'll notice how those capitals—" The laboratory door opened, interrupting him.
"Hello, Kennedy," greeted Doctor Leslie, our friend, the coroner's physician, who had recently been appointed Health Commissioner of the city.
It was the first time we had seen him since the appointment and we hastened to congratulate him. He thanked us absently, and it was evident that there was something on his mind, some problem which, in his new office, he felt that he must solve if for no other purpose than to justify his reputation. Craig said nothing, preferring to let the commissioner come to the point in his own way.
"Do you know, Kennedy," he said, at length, turning in his chair and facing us, "I believe we have found one of the strangest cases in the history of the department."
The commissioner paused, then went on, quickly, "It looks as if it were nothing less than an epidemic of beriberi—not on a ship coming into port as so often happens, but actually in the heart of the city."
"Beriberi—in New York?" queried Craig, incredulously.
"It looks like it," reiterated Leslie, "in the family of a Doctor
Wardlaw, up-town here, in the Forum—"