“I think I shall be on the safe side, though, and lock up my jewels to-night!” said Corole.
“Don’t be a fool,” observed Dr. Letheny.
Corole’s topaz eyes caught a glint of angry green light.
“Why, really, Louis, being what one can’t help is better, at any rate, than longing for what one can’t get.”
Her somewhat stupid reply did not, to my mind, warrant its effect. Dr. Letheny moved suddenly upright in his chair, his thin lips drawn tight over his teeth.
“Until later, dear cousin.” The words had a sharp edge of fury. “Until later. We have guests at present.”
I could only suppose that the stifling atmosphere had disturbed Dr. Letheny’s always hair-trigger nerves. Otherwise he had not been so needlessly vulgar. He was a brilliant man with a cutting tongue, but gossip had whispered that what Corole lacked in the way of brains she more than made up for in feline cunning of attack. This was the first time, however, that I had heard the two ill-assorted housemates come to open and bad-mannered warfare.
Dr. Hajek relieved the strained silence that naturally followed the little contretemps.
“I hear that you used the radium to-day.” He had a peculiarly inflectionless manner of speech that made him seem heavy and dull.
“Yes.” Dr. Letheny rose and pulled the curtain still farther from the window. “Torrid night, isn’t it? Yes, we are trying it for old Mr. Jackson.” He paused. “I don’t know that it will do any good,” he added callously. “But we may as well try it. By the way, Miss Keate, I shall be in shortly after midnight to see how the patient is getting on. You might leave the south door unlocked for me. Let me see—he is in Room 18, isn’t he?”