Minnie Webb's announcement affected her four hearers in four different ways. It shocked Viola—shocked her greatly, for she had, naturally, expected kindly sympathy and agreement from her friend.
Dr. Baird, who had involuntarily begun to twist his small mustache at the entrance of Miss Webb, looked at her in admiration of her good looks and because she upheld a theory to which he felt himself committed—a theory that Mr. Carwell was a plain out-and-out suicide.
Dr. Lambert was plainly indignant at the bald manner in which Minnie Webb made her statement, and at the same time he had pity for the ignorance of the lay mind that will pronounce judgment against the more cautious opinions of science. And this was not the first poisoning case with which the aged practitioner had dealt.
As for Captain Poland, he gazed blankly at Miss Webb for a moment following her statement, and then he looked more keenly at the young woman, as though seeking to know whence her information came.
And when Viola had recovered from her first shock this was the thought that came to her:
“What did Minnie know?”
And Viola asked that very question—asked it sharply and with an air which told of her determination to know.
“Oh, please don't ask me!” stammered Minnie Webb. “But I have heard that your father's affairs are involved, Viola.”
“His affairs? You mean anything in his—private life?” and the daughter of Horace Carwell—“Carwell the sport,” as he was frequently called—seemed to feel this blow more than the shock of death.
“Oh, no, nothing like that!” exclaimed Minnie, as though abashed at the mere suggestion. “But I did hear—and I can not tell where I heard it—that he was involved financially, and that, perhaps—well, you know some men have a horror of facing the world poor and—”