His clear eyes narrowed.
“The cuff link is the reason that I doubt her whole story. She still declared that she lost the cuff link and that Dr. Letheny must have picked it up. If she would only tell me the truth about that!” He pulled a yellow slip of paper from his notebook. I recognized it immediately. It was the note Jim Gainsay had written and asked me to take to Maida.
“Read it,” said O’Leary.
Thinking it more discreet to say nothing of my own connection with the note, I did as he requested. It was headed: “Friday afternoon” and read thus:
Must see you at once. Important. C. knows about last night. Say nothing and let me advise you. Will wait at the bridge. Very anxious since news of this afternoon. Be warned. Cannot urge too emphatically. Please meet me at bridge.
It was signed with a vigorously scrawled “J.G.”
I read the thing, read it again and raised my eyes to O’Leary’s.
“It was found in Miss Day’s room,” he explained. “In a pocket of a uniform, in fact; when I asked her to explain it she said at first that it was a message of a personal nature and that she would not explain it. I was forced to urge and she finally admitted exactly three things. First, that the note was written by Jim Gainsay. Second, that ‘C’ referred to Corole Letheny. And third——” He paused as if to give the coming words more emphasis.
“And third—simply this: That Jim Gainsay was strolling in the orchard about one o’clock on the night Dr. Letheny was killed. He passed the open window of the diet kitchen, saw her within, and stopped for a word or two through the window. Corole Letheny was also in the orchard, heard their conversation, and threatened to start a scandal, knowing that it would not sound well for a nurse to be seen visiting thus when she was on duty and at such an hour. For some reason Corole Letheny has developed a violent dislike for Jim Gainsay. According to Miss Day, then, he wrote to warn her against Corole.” O’Leary’s clear gray eyes searched my face. “Somehow the reasons Miss Day gave do not seem to warrant the extreme urgency expressed in this note. Do you think so, Miss Keate?”
“I hardly know,” I said thoughtfully. “Of course, it takes less than that to start a scandal, particularly if the starter is determined and malicious. And Corole is both. She is naturally rather—feline, you know.”