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Page 48
"I see I must give you the facts, Letty. But I will do so on one
condition only, and that is, that you keep what I have to say to
yourself--considering them as office secrets."
"Very well, Uncle Adam, I'll promise," she answered, with a pale face
upturned to him. He bent down and kissed her on the forehead. Then he
locked the office door, sat down in an armchair and let her sit on his
lap, just as she had done since childhood.
His recital took the best part of an hour, and he gave all the
particulars of his interview with Cephas Carboy and with Doctor Calkey,
and told of the finding of the bit of paper with the address of the
drug firm on it, and of the strange Chinese poison. At the mention of
the fatal drug she drew a sharp breath.
"I--I--" she began, and stopped short.
"Do you know anything of that drug, Letty? Perhaps he spoke to you
about it?"
"He did, once, when we were speaking of poisons. He said he was glad
his firm had decided not to handle it, for it was too dangerous. It
has a power that most folks do not know about."
"The power to kill people, I suppose."
"No, not that. He said it was a fatal drug, but more than that, he
said it had a strange power, according to the Chinese chemists who
manufactured it. That power was, if it was used on a person and did
not kill it would, in a few days or a week, make that person mad."
"Humph! Worse and worse! Such a drug should be banished by law. But
to go on with my story, if you must hear the whole of it. I am fairly
certain it was that drug which was used to kill Mr. and Mrs. Langmore."
"But Tom did not use it," she insisted. "Somebody else must have
gotten the drug from him or from his traveling sample case."
"That is possible. Now there is another side to this case, which I
cannot understand at all." And then he told of the counterfeit bank
bills.
"Counterfeits!" she exclaimed, and the color began to leave her face
once more. "What kind of bills were they, Uncle Adam?"
"They were one hundred dollar bills, on the Excelsior National Bank of
New York City."
She gave a gasp and clenched her little hands to control herself. He
could not help but notice her increased agitation.
"What is it, Letty? Do you know--"
"Oh, Uncle Adam, do not ask me," she gasped. "I--I--there is some
mistake--Tom did not--" she failed to go on and looked at the
detective hopelessly.
"What do you know about these counterfeits? Come, it is best that you
tell me everything," he continued kindly, but firmly.
"To--Tom had a counterfeit one hundred dollar bill. He--we went to the
theatre and he got into some trouble over it, until he convinced the
ticket seller that he did not know it was bad."
"Did he tell you where he got the bill?"
"No, he said he got stuck, that's all."
"Do you know what he did with it?"
"He said he was going to give it back and get a good one for it, if he
could."
At that moment a postman's whistle sounded in the hallway and several
letters dropped through the slit in the door. The girl glanced at
them, and uttering a faint cry, arose and picked them up.
"Here is one from Tom now." She tore it open and glanced at it
hastily. "I knew it," she went on. "He is all upset because of the
murder and scarcely knows what to do. He had an important engagement
in Albany for yesterday and one in New York for to-day, but has broken
both. He says he will come to me as soon as he can, and adds a
postscript asking me to look in the papers for the particulars of the
awful affair. You read it, Uncle Adam. That doesn't look much as if
he were guilty, does it?"
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