“My nurse—” Rodgers was speaking more clearly, “showed me the handkerchiefs which Dr. McLean had removed to put on a proper bandage,” touching his head. “Look at that handkerchief, Mitchell—and tell us what you see.”
Mitchell spread out the costly linen so that all could view it.
“A woman’s handkerchief,” he remarked. “There’s an initial in the corner—the letter—” holding it closer—“the letter ‘P.’” In the utter stillness that followed he laid down the handkerchief. “‘P,’” he repeated musingly—“Potter.”
A cry escaped Nina Potter and she shrank back in her chair, her face buried in her hands, shaking from head to foot. “Not that,” she gasped. “Not that!”
Ted Rodgers bent forward. “‘P’ stands as well for ‘Parsons,’” he commented, and got no further.
“Yo’se done said it!” gasped a voice behind them, and Oscar, perspiration trickling down his black face, came forward, his arm tightly clutched by Welsh, the plain clothes’ detective. “Dar’s de woman who done up ole Miss,” shaking his fist in Mrs. Parsons’ face. “I see’d her acreepin’ away from here on Monday mawnin,’ an’—”
“You—you—Oscar!” Mrs. Parsons’ voice rose and cracked. Again she tried to speak in her natural tones—“Oscar!”
Kitty cried out—a chord of memory had been touched—
“It was you I heard trying to bribe Oscar!” she exclaimed. “You!”
Mrs. Parsons turned with livid face to Charles Craige.