“Why so?”
“A nervous man’s fears. Don’t ask me more.”
“Your fears, Dick?”
Mrs. Pelham’s eyes became dilated with a queer expression of intense distress.
“Don’t think anything about it,” he answered. “I am nervous; and to have that special medicine analyzed would set my mind at rest. I know that the medicines were always kept in a cupboard in the dressing-room. Let me go to that cupboard. Give me the key.”
“But this is most alarming,” said Mrs. Pelham. “I think you must be out of your mind.”
“Let me have the key of the cupboard.”
“The cupboard is open, and the medicines have been removed. Dr. Tarbot was here a fortnight ago. He asked me to give him the key of that special cupboard. He told me that there was something peculiar about Piers’s death—of course we all know that he died of acute heart disease, or something of the sort, but Dr. Tarbot was anxious to make copious notes of the case, and he had lost one of the prescriptions. He took all the medicine bottles away.”
While Mrs. Pelham was speaking Dick’s face grew hard and gray.
“If that is the case there is no use in troubling you,” he said. “Tarbot will tell me what I desire to know. Good night.”