Part 37 (2/2)

”I heard you were here,” he said, ”and thought it would be a good time to come around. I want to see if there's anything in Blair's papers that would help to turn suspicion away from Mac Thorpe. I don't believe that man did it, and I wish we could free him.”

”That's what we're after,” and Wise made room for Shelby to sit beside him at Blair's desk.

But though they made systematic search of all letters they found none other than friendly. There were some from his mother and sister, pathetic ones, telling of their ill health, for both were invalids.

They had not come East on learning of Blair's death, for they could not well stand the trip, and, too, there was no real reason for their coming. After the police investigation was over Blair's effects were to be sent to them, but for the present everything remained as it was found at his death.

”Let me help you, if I can,” Shelby went on to Wise. ”You know Blair and I were chums. Poor Gilbert, and Peter Boots, too, both gone, and both by such tragic means. I don't know which death was the worse.”

Zizi showed him the small bottle she had found, and asked his opinion of her theory about it.

”What an ingenious notion,” Shelby exclaimed; ”yes, it might be the truth, of course, but a dozen other ways might have been used either.”

”Such as what?” asked Wise, ”it's always a help to talk these things over.”

”Well, granting that some one administered poison to Blair, secretly, mightn't he have put it in anything that Blair was about to eat or drink?”

”Not this poison,” objected Wise. ”It acts too quickly. Whatever plan was adopted, it was some scheme by which Blair would take the poison unknowingly, but naturally. As Zizi says, if it had been put in some one of his bottles of medicine, he must take it, sooner or later.”

”Yes; well, then say it was put in a cigarette, no that's foolish; why, hang it all, Wise, don't you see there's no plausible theory except that some one put it in a drink Blair took just before going to bed, or even after he was in bed.”

”Where's the gla.s.s, then?”

”That's just the point. What's the answer, except that Thorpe washed it and put it away? Of course, Blair would take a drink Thorpe offered him.”

”Also, he might have taken a soda mint just as he went to bed or after,”

said Zizi.

”Yes,” agreed Shelby, thoughtfully. ”He might have done so, but could one introduce poison into one of those things? They're quite hard, you know.”

”Yes, it could be done,” Wise declared. ”I've heard of such a thing before. The little pellet could be soaked in the poison----”

”That would make it taste, and he wouldn't swallow it,” Shelby said.

”True. Well, I think, with a hypodermic needle, the poison could be got into the mint.”

”Maybe, but I doubt it. However, I don't know much about such things.

You're doubtless experienced.”

”Yes, I've had a lot of poison cases. And, if we give up all thought of the soda mint, it does come back to a drink of some sort mixed by Thorpe.”

”Or Blair might have mixed his own drink, and Thorpe added the poison, unnoticed.”

”But I want to get away from Thorpe,” Zizi said, her eyes anxious and worried.

”So do we all,” returned Shelby gravely. ”But where can we look?”

<script>