“Yes, yes, I know. I will—Mr. Adams—I will try to be more sociable. Now—as to—to Doctor Waring—why did he kill himself?”
Old Salt eyed her narrowly. “We don’t know that he did,” he began.
“But Mrs. Adams told me all the details”—she shuddered, “and if that room he was in was so securely locked that they had to break in, how could it be the work of—of another?”
“Well, Miss Austin, as they found a bad wound in the man’s neck, just under his right ear, a wound that produced instant unconsciousness and almost instant death, and as no weapon of any sort could be found in the room, how could it have been suicide?”
“Which would you rather think it?” the strange girl asked, looking gravely at him.
“Well, to me—I’m an old-fashioned chap—suicide always suggests cowardice, and Doc Waring was no coward, that I’ll swear!”
“No, he was not—”
“How do you know?”
Miss Mystery started at the sudden question.
“I heard him lecture, you know,” she returned; “and, too, I saw him in his home—Sunday afternoon—and he seemed a fine man—a fine man.”