I had never seen inside that room more than half a dozen times in my whole life. There was nothing in there to go for. It had been used as a store room for old furniture ever since I could remember. Finally the suspense grew unbearable. I rose impulsively, went hastily to the door through which he had passed and flung it open.
The room had been cleared of its junk and remodeled into a neat little laboratory. Thornton stood at the far side of a table in the center of the floor, pouring absinthe into a glass that was sitting perilously near the edge. With the glass half full he placed the bottle on the table. It tilted and rolled off; but he paid it no heed. Supporting himself with one hand and raising the glass in the other, he seemed aware of my presence for the first time.
“Frank,” he gasped huskily, “no one but you knows; and they will never guess.”
I remembered in a flash, what he had said of his abandoned plan to poison Lakeland, and realized; but before I could reach him he had drained the glass. It slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor. He stood for a moment, staring on past me into space.
I grasped the edge of the table for support and felt the cold sweat start on my brow and weakening limbs.
“Green as hell!” he muttered; and flinging his arms across his fixed eyes, crumpled to the floor; then stiffened, stark and dead.
For minutes I stood motionless, powerless to move.
Finally, tossing a burning match into the spilt liquor, I answered his last and only plea:
“No, Thornt, they shall never know.”