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Page 70
"No," he said steadily, without hesitation. "It was not. I did not so
much as look at it."
She leaned back in her chair with a long sigh, her eyes wide on his.
And while he marvelled at it, he saw that now her look was one of pure
pity.
"Just what has that got to do with the robberies you mention?"
"Everything!" she burst out. "Everything! Can't you see? Oh, my God!"
She dropped her face into her hands and he saw her shoulders lift and
slump. Glancing aside swiftly, he saw the five golden disks on the
table, almost to be reached from where he sat.
"No doubt," he said hastily, as her head was lifted again, "you think
that you would like to send me to jail?"
"Jail, no! A thousand times no! But you must, you must let me send
you to a hospital!"
He frowned at her while he gave over twirling his hat and grew very
still.
"You think I am crazy?" he asked sharply. "That it?"
"No. You are as sane as I am. I don't think that at all. But . . .
Oh, can't you understand?"
"No, I can't. You accuse me of this and that, you give no reasons for
your wild suspicions, you end up by suggesting medical treatment.
What's the answer, Virginia Page?"
"The answer, Roderick Norton, is a very simple one. But first I am
going to ask you another question or so. You sought to commit a theft
to-night, I saw you, so there is no use denying it to me, is there?"
"Go ahead. What next?"
"While you lay ill during a week or ten days you had time to think.
You remember having told me that you had had time to think about
everything in the world? It was at that time, wasn't it, that you came
to the decision which you mentioned to me that a man to commit crime
and play safe at the same time must keep in mind two essential matters:
First, the lone hand; second, not to kill?"
"I thought it out then; yes. In fact, I suppose I told you so."
"The crimes committed recently have been characterized by these two
essentials, haven't they? Nearly all of them?"
He nodded, watching her keenly, holding back his answers for just a
second or two each time.
"I believe so."
"Did you ever have an impulse to steal before you were knocked
unconscious at the Casa Blanca?"
"No."
"And you have had that impulse almost all the time ever since? Answer
me, tell me the truth! I am right, am I not?"
Now again he laughed softly at her.
"Virginia Page, the medico, speaks," he returned lightly. "She has a
theory. A man may have such an accident, leaving such and such
pressure on the brain, with the result that he becomes a thief or
worse! Virginia . . ."
"Theory! It is no theory. It is an established, undeniable, and
undenied fact! It has occurred time and again, physicians have
observed, have made cures! Can't you see now, Rod Norton? Won't you
see?"
She was upon her feet, her hands clasped before her, her eyes shining,
her figure tense, her cheeks stained with the color of her excitement.
"I don't care whether Patten is a physician or not," she ran on. "He
is a bungler. It is a sheer wonder he did not let you die. You told
me yourself that he attributed the second wound to your fall and that
you knew that Moraga had struck you a terrible blow with his
gun-barrel. Patten did not treat that wound; he cared for the lesser
injury like a fool and allowed the major one to take care of itself.
And the result . . . Oh, dear God! Think of what might have happened.
If any one but me had learned what I have learned to-night."
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