Kennedy extended an accusing forefinger at the man cowering before him.
“This is nothing but a get-rich-quick scheme, Denison. There never was a milligram of radium in the Poor Little Rich Valley, not a milligram here in all the carefully kept reports of Miss Wallace—except what was bought outside by the Corporation with the money it collected from its dupes. Haughton has been fleeced. Miss Wallace, blinded by her loyalty to you—you will always find such a faithful girl in such schemes as yours—has been fooled.
“And how did you repay it? What was cleverer, you said to yourself, than to seem to be robbed of what you never had, to blame it on a bitter rival who never existed? Then to make assurance doubly sure, you planned to disable, perhaps get rid of the come-on whom you had trimmed, and the faithful girl whose eyes you had blinded to your gigantic swindle.
“Denison,” concluded Kennedy, as the man drew back, his very face convicting him, “Denison, you are the radium robber—robber in another sense!”
CHAPTER XVI
THE DEAD LINE
Maiden Lane, no less than Wall Street, was deeply interested in the radium case. In fact, it seemed that one case in this section of the city led to another.
Naturally, the Star and the other papers made much of the capture of Denison. Still, I was not prepared for the host of Maiden Lane cases that followed. Many of them were essentially trivial. But one proved to be of extreme importance.
“Professor Kennedy, I have just heard of your radium case, and I—I feel that I can—trust you.”
There was a note of appeal in the hesitating voice of the tall, heavily veiled woman whose card had been sent up to us with a nervous “Urgent” written across its face.
It was very early in the morning, but our visitor was evidently completely unnerved by some news which she had just received and which had sent her posting to see Craig.