“A diseased mind,” March supplied. “I don’t know about that. If it were a case of high temper there would be more or less exhibition of it right along. A girl who flies into wild passions at times is going to have slight shows of temper in between or else there’s something radically wrong there. And as I know Miss Remsen, I only know her as a lovely, gentle-natured girl, without this fierce temper at all. If, then, she has spells of it, those spells mean organic trouble of some sort. We could ask her nurse, but we’d learn nothing from her, I’m sure. We could quiz the Pleasure Dome servants, for the older ones, at least, lived there when Alma was there. But again, they would shield her from any suspicion. Or they probably would. We can try it on.”
“What about her doctor?” said Lora. “He’d know.”
“Yes; and that’s a good idea. But her doctor, I think, is Doctor Rogers, and he went to California the day after Mr. Tracy died. He seems to be beyond reach, for he went by the Canadian Pacific, and stopped along the way at various places.”
“Banff and Lake Louise, I suppose,” suggested Maud.
“Yes, but also at some less known places, ranches or such, and his office says he will get no mail until he reaches San Francisco.”
“Fine way for a doctor to leave his arrangements,” exclaimed Keeley.
“Oh, well, he put his practice in good hands, and he’s gone off for a real vacation. But all he could tell us is whether Alma Remsen is in any way or in any degree mentally affected. And I’m quite sure we can somehow find that out without him. If I grill that old butler and that sphinx of a housekeeper over there, I’m sure I can gather from what they say or don’t say about how matters stand.”
“If she is epileptic,” Maud said, “would it explain a criminal act on her part?”
“It might,” March returned, “but I don’t think she is that.”
“I don’t, either,” Kee agreed, and I blessed them both silently for that ray of hope.