The lawyer pulled out a number of letters."I'm afraid they will have to admit it," he said with reluctance, as if down in his heart he hated to prosecute Dixon."We have lots of these, and no handwriting expert could successfully deny the identity of the writing."He stowed away the letters without letting Kennedy get a hint as to their contents.Kennedy was examining the note carefully.
"May I count on having this note for further examination, of course always at such times and under such conditions as you agree to?"The attorney nodded."I am perfectly willing to do anything not illegal to accommodate the senator," he said."But, on the other hand, I am here to do my duty for the state, cost whom it may."The Willard house was in a virtual state of siege.Newspaper reporters from Boston and New York were actually encamped at every gate, terrible as an army, with cameras.It was with some difficulty that we got in, even though we were expected, for some of the more enterprising had already fooled the family by posing as officers of the law and messengers from Dr.Dixon.
The house was a real, old colonial mansion with tall white pillars, a door with a glittering brass knocker, which gleamed out severely at you as you approached through a hedge of faultlessly trimmed boxwoods.
Senator, or rather former Senator, Willard met us in the library, and a moment later his daughter Alma joined him.She was tall, like her father, a girl of poise and self-control.Yet even the schooling of twenty-two years in rigorous New England self-restraint could not hide the very human pallor of her face after the sleepless nights and nervous days since this trouble had broken on her placid existence.
Yet there was a mark of strength and determination on her face that was fascinating.The man who would trifle with this girl, I felt, was playing fast and loose with her very life.I thought then, and I said to Kennedy afterward: "If this Dr.Dixon is guilty, you have no right to hide it from that girl.Anything less than the truth will only blacken the hideousness of the crime that has already been committed."The senator greeted I us gravely, and I could not but take it as a good omen when, in his pride of wealth and family and tradition, he laid bare everything to us, for the sake of Alma Willard.It was clear that in this family there was one word that stood above all others, "Duty."As we were about to leave after an interview barren of new facts, a young man was announced, Mr.Halsey Post.He bowed politely to us, but it was evident why he had called, as his eye followed Alma about the room.
"The son of the late Halsey Post, of Post & Vance, silversmiths, who have the large factory in town, which you perhaps noticed," explained the senator."My daughter has known him all her life.A very fine young man."Later, we learned that the senator had bent every effort toward securing Halsey Post as a son-in-law, but his daughter had had views of her own on the subject.
Post waited until Alma had withdrawn before he disclosed the real object of his visit.In almost a whisper, lest she should still be listening, he said, "There is a story about town that Vera Lytton's former husband - an artist named Thurston - was here just before her death."Senator Willard leaned forward as if expecting to hear Dixon immediately acquitted.None of us was prepared for the next remark.
"And the story goes on to say that he threatened to make a scene over a wrong he says he has suffered from Dixon.I don't know anything more about it, and I tell you only because I think you ought to know what Danbridge is saying under its breath."We shook off the last of the reporters who affixed themselves to us, and for a moment Kennedy dropped in at the little bungalow to see Mrs.Boncour.She was much better, though she had suffered much.
She had taken only a pinhead of the poison, but it had proved very nearly fatal.
"Had Miss Lytton any enemies whom you think of, people who were jealous of her professionally or personally?" asked Craig.
"I should not even have said Dr.Dixon was an enemy," she replied evasively.
"But this Mr.Thurston," put in Kennedy quickly."One is not usually visited in perfect friendship by a husband who has been divorced."She regarded him keenly for a moment."Halsey Post told you that,"she said."No one else knew he was here.But Halsey Post was an old friend of both Vera and Mr.Thurston before they separated.By chance he happened to drop in the day Mr.Thurston was here, and later in the day I gave him a letter to forward to Mr.Thurston, which had come after the artist left.I'm sure no one else knew the artist.He was here the morning of the day she died, and - and - that's every bit I'm going to tell you about him, so there.Idon't know why he came or where he went.""That's a thing we must follow up later," remarked Kennedy as we made our adieus."Just now I want to get the facts in hand.The next thing on my programme is to see this Dr.Waterworth."We found the doctor still in bed; in fact, a wreck as the result of his adventure.He had little to correct in the facts of the story which had been published so far.But there were many other details of the poisoning he was quite willing to discuss frankly.
"It was true about the jar of ammonia?" asked Kennedy.
"Yes," he answered."It was standing on her dressing-table with the note crumpled up in it, just as the papers said.""And you have no idea why it was there?"
"I didn't say that.I can guess.Fumes of ammonia are one of the antidotes for poisoning of this kind.""But Vera Lytton could hardly have known that," objected Kennedy.
"No, of course not.But she probably did know that ammonia is good for just that sort of faintness which she must have experienced after taking the powder.Perhaps she thought of sal volatile, Idon't know.But most people know that ammonia in some form is good for faintness of this sort, even if they don't know anything about cyanides and - ""Then it was cyanide?" interrupted Craig.
