"Hello!" said the visitor. "You're a wonder! I expected to find you prostrated."
"Oh, no," Bristow answered quietly. "I knew the rest and sleep would bring me around all right, and Miss Martin has given me a twentieth of a grain of strychnine. What's the news?"
"I'll sketch it to you. But how about dinner?"
"I've arranged for us to have it up here, if you don't mind?"
Braceway agreed, and Miss Martin straightened up the other room, where the meal was served.
Bristow, restricting himself to clam broth, crackers, and coffee, heard the story of the day's developments with profound interest. Except for the little tremor in his fingers, there was no sign that he had been ill a few hours earlier. Not a detail escaped him. The whole thing was photographed on his mind, even the hours and minutes of the time at which this or that had occurred.
"So," concluded Braceway, "you can see why I feel pretty fine! Morley's a thief, as I'd believed all along. The motive for the murder is established, particularly when you remember that Miss Fulton, who had been advancing him money, was prevented by her sister from doing so any further."
"No; I can't see that," objected Bristow. "A motive? Yes; but not a motive for murder. So far as I can size it up, he wanted to steal more money, and that's all. It's a far cry between theft and murder."
"You stick to your old theory, the negro's guilt?"
"Naturally. There you have the motive and the murder—the proof that he said he would rob, and the indisputable evidence that he did rob and kill. Why, he brought away with him particles of the victim's body! What more do you want?"