"It's important I should know, Barry. You know she was very desirous of keeping her visit here unknown, and if you have been giving it away, I must at least know the facts, so as to head off trouble if possible." He threw all his earnestness into his voice and Barry yielded a reluctant reply, saying,
"It is possible that I did. I thought it was your message."
"Did he ask anything else in particular?"
"No. Excuse me, I'm very busy." And the 'phone shut off.
Lyon walked out and back up Hemlock Avenue. He was breathing quickly as though he had been running.
"If I were Bede I think I should be rather proud of myself, making two such hauls as that in one morning. At this rate, Bede will soon know all that I know myself and a little more," he said to himself. "Is it possible that he will attach any significance to Miss Wolcott's purchase of a soporific on the fatal 25th? Good Lord, I wish she had stayed at home that evening! That visit to the druggist at half-past nine brings her very close to the scene of the murder. Did she go for a sleeping powder before or after the murder? Is it possible after all--" He shook his head impatiently at his own suggestion.
"At any rate, I must let Howell know at once that Bede has discovered Mrs. Broughton. Something will come from that, and soon. I suspect we'll have to defy dear Dr. Barry. He deserves the limit of the law."
He was within half a block of Olden's. He determined to go there to telephone. It was the nearest place and incidentally it would enable him to get Kittie's latest report on Mrs. Broughton's condition.
As he entered the hall. Olden met him,--if indeed this wild-eyed man, whose goggles lay crushed on the floor and whose white wig sat askew upon his own black hair, could be the sedate and decorous Olden. He fairly hurled himself at Lyon, crushing his arm with an iron grasp.
"The curtain is down,--have you seen? What does it mean? Where is she? Has she gone away? Can't you speak? What do you know about it? Where has she gone?" His questions piled one upon another unintelligibly.