“Suppose he knows of you pushing Aimee Jacquet overboard when our ship was in mid-ocean?” remarked Enoch.
It was now Kidd who became very pale.
“You dropped no hint of that?” he said, in a low and tremulous whisper.
“Do you take me to be a fool?”
“The captain of the vessel reported that my wife, Aimee, committed suicide by leaping overboard while suffering from an attack of temporary insanity.”
“She was not insane.”
“Of course not; but didn’t I bribe the ship’s surgeon to say he had noticed the woman’s mind giving way for several days before she was lost?”
“Dick,” said Cook, “I never could understand why you wanted pretty Aimee out of the way after the hard work you had in succeeding to have her desert her husband.”
Kidd laughed, and then all at once he became very serious again.
“One night when drunk—it was the night before we sailed for New York—I told her all about the diamond. The first day out my wife and I had a little tiff. The quarrel grew in dimensions, and she several times taunted me with being a thief.