Thomas Carden broke in with a touch of impatience: “But nothing else has been found, my boy! Lane should tell you that the whole theory of your having known Mrs. Garvice rests on these two letters—which never reached you.”
Father and son seemed suddenly to have changed places. The old man spoke in a strong, self-confident tone, but the other, his grey face supported on his hands, was staring fixedly into the fire.
“Yes,” said Major Lane, more kindly, “I ought perhaps to tell you, Carden, that within an hour of my being shown these letters I had Mrs. Garvice’s house once more searched, and nothing was found connecting you with the woman, excepting, I am sorry to say, this”;—and he held out an envelope on which was written in Theodore Carden’s clear handwriting the young man’s name and business address. “Now I should like you to tell me, if you don’t mind doing so, where, when, and how this name and address came to be written?”
“Yes, I will certainly tell you.” Carden spoke collectedly; he was beginning to realise the practical outcome of the conversation. “I wrote that address about the middle of last October, in London, at Mansell’s Hotel in Pall Mall East.”
“The poor fellow’s going to make a clean breast of it at last”; so thought Major Lane with a strange feeling of relief, for on the flap of the envelope, which he had kept carefully turned down, was stamped “Mansell’s Hotel.”
It was in a considerate, almost kindly tone, that the Head Constable next spoke. “And now, Carden, I beg you, for your own sake, to tell me the truth. Perhaps I ought to inform you, before you say anything, that, according to our theory, Mrs. Garvice was certainly assisted in procuring the drug with which, I firmly believe, she slowly poisoned her husband. As yet we have no clue as to the person who helped her, but we have ascertained that for the last two months, in fact from about the date of the first letter addressed to you, a man did purchase minute quantities of this drug at Birmingham, at Wolverhampton, and at Walsall. Now, mind you, I do not, I never have, suspected you of having any hand in that, but I fear you’ll have to face the ordeal of being confronted with the various chemists, of whom two declare most positively that they can identify the man who brought them the prescription which obtained him the drug in question.”
While Major Lane was speaking, Theodore Carden had to a certain extent regained his self-possession; here, at least, he stood on firm ground. “Of course, I am prepared to face anything of the kind that may be necessary.” He added almost inaudibly; “I have brought it on myself.” Then he turned, his whole voice altering and softening: “Father, perhaps you would not mind my asking Major Lane to go into the library with me? I should prefer to see him alone.”
II
“And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I: