Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/167

 Minna Pitts had been clutching for support at the arms of her chair as Kennedy proceeded. She now threw herself at the feet of Emery Pitts.

"Forgive me," she sobbed. "I can stand it no longer. I had tried to keep this thing about Thornton from you. I have tried to make you happy and well—oh—tried so hard, so faithfully. Yet that old skeleton of my past which I thought was buried would not stay buried. I have bought Thornton off again and again, with money—my money—only to find him threatening again. But about this other thing, this poison, I am as innocent, and I believe Thornton is as—"

Craig laid a gentle hand on her lips. She rose wildly and faced him in passionate appeal.

"Who—who is this Thornton?" demanded Emery Pitts.

Quickly, delicately, sparing her as much as he could, Craig hurried over our experiences.

"He is in the next room," Craig went on, then facing Pitts added: "With you alive, Emery Pitts, this blackmail of your wife might have gone on, although there was always the danger that you might hear of it—and do as I see you have already done—forgive, and plan to right the unfortunate mistake. But with you dead, this Thornton, or rather some one using him, might take away from Minna Pitts her whole interest in your estate, at a word. The law, or your heirs at law, would never forgive as you would."

Pitts, long poisoned by the subtle microbic poison, stared at Kennedy as if dazed.

"Who was caught in your kitchen, Mr. Pitts, and,