“Well, doctor, it’s all over, I suppose.”
Steel nodded, hearing Miss Harriet’s voice in the distance rasping out endearments to the dead man’s dog.
“Dr. Brimley and I have completed the examination.”
“Poor Tom! poor Tom!”
“I can sympathize with you, Mrs. Baxter.”
“Thank you, doctor. How that dog do howl, to be sure! And now, sir, let’s come to business.”
The widow sat erect and rigid in her chair, her hands clasped in her lap, an expression of determined alertness on her face. Steel, student of human nature that he was, felt relieved that it was Murchison and not he who had incurred the resentment of this hard-fibred woman.
“Will you be so good as to tell me, doctor, just what my husband died of?”
Parker Steel fidgeted, and studied his finger-nails.
“It is rather painful to me,” he began.