"There may be something in what you say," said Gardiner. "I have a slip of paper here with the key to the secret."
He reached with his finger and thumb in his vest pocket and drew out a small folded paper.
This he unfolded very slowly and deliberately before the eyes of the onlookers. It contained a small quantity of white powder. Before any hand could reach him he had thrown his head back and swallowed it.
"Too late!" he cried, as Grey snatched the empty paper from his fingers. "Too late! Well, I guess I beat you all out, eh? And, as I said before, what are you going to do about it? Twenty years, eh, Jim? You'll be scrawny and rheumatic by that time, and the beautiful Beulah will be fat and figureless. Twenty years for you, Jim, but twenty minutes for me—and I wouldn't trade with you, damn you! I beg the pardon of the ladies present. One should never forget to be a gentleman, even when—when—"
But Gardiner's breath was beginning to come fast, and he raised his hands to his throat. A choking spell seized him, and he would have fallen had not the policeman and the coroner held him on his feet. "Let me lie down," he said, when he got his breath. "Let me lie down, can't you? Have I got to die on end, like a murderer?"
They led him to the adjoining room, where he fell upon the bed. The muscles of his great arms and neck were working in contortions, and his tongue seemed to fill his mouth.
"Most extraordinary," said the coroner. "Strychnine, doubtless. We can't do much for him, I'm afraid. We might try some mustard and hot water, Mrs. Arthurs."
"Take your time, Lil," whispered Arthurs. "You may save your country a long board bill." But Lilian Arthurs' abhorrence of Gardiner's perfidy had been overwhelmed in a wave of sympathy for a suffering fellow-being. She hurried to the kitchen, while the men of the party filed down the stairs and out into the yard. John Harris was the last to leave the house, and he walked slowly, with bare, bowed head, into the group who were excitedly discussing the amazing turn events had taken. He took no part in their conversation, but stood a little apart, plunged deep in his own inward struggle.
At last he turned and called his wife in the kitchen door. "Bring
Beulah," he said.
The two women joined him. At first Harris stood with face averted, but in a moment he spoke in a clear, quiet voice.