"Well," she went on slowly, "we quarrelled. I was indignant that he should suspect my stepfather, and he was full of vengeance against Sir Hugh's friend the doctor. Presently I left, and—and I never saw him again alive!"
"What happened?"
"What happened is explained by this letter," she replied, crossing to a little buhl bureau which she unlocked, taking out a sealed envelope. On breaking it open and handing it to him she said: "This is the letter he wrote to me with his dying hand. I have kept it a secret—a secret even from Sir Hugh."
Walter read the uneven lines eagerly. They grew more shaky and more illegible towards the end, but they were sufficient to make the truth absolutely clear.
"To-night, half an hour ago," (wrote the dying man) "I had a visit from your friend, Weirmarsh. We were alone, with none to overhear, so I told him plainly that I intended to expose him. At first he became defiant, but presently he grew apprehensive, and on taking his leave he made a foul accusation against you. Then, laughing at my refusal to accept his bribe, the scoundrel took my hand in farewell. He must have had a pin stuck in his glove, for I felt a slight scratch across the palm. At the moment I was too furious to pay any attention to it, but ten minutes after he had gone I began to experience a strange faintness. I feel now fainter . . . and fainter . . . A strange feeling has crept over me . . . I am dying . . . poisoned . . . by that king of thieves!
"Come to me quickly . . . at once . . . Enid . . . and tell me that what he has said against you . . . is not true. It . . . it cannot be true. . . . Don't delay. Come quickly. . . . Can't write more.—Harry."
Walter paused for a second after reading through that dramatic letter, the last effort of a dying man.
"And that scoundrel Weirmarsh killed him because he feared exposure," he remarked in a low, hard voice. "Why did you not bring this forward at the inquest?"
"For several reasons," replied the girl. "I feared the doctor's reprisals. Besides, he might easily have denied the allegation, or he might have used the same means to close my lips if he had suspected that I had learnt the truth."
"The dead man's story is no doubt true," declared Fetherston. "He used some deadly poison—one of the newly discovered ones which leaves no trace—to kill his victim who, in all probability, was not his first. Your stepfather does not know, of course, that this letter exists?"
