Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/85

Rh beyond the place where he was killed. Do you think it possible that he was going to Doctor O'Connor's, or have you never thought of that?"

"I thought of that, Mr. Trant," the woman returned, a little defiantly. "I tried to hope, at first, that that might be the reason for his going out. But, as I had to tell the detectives who asked me of that some time ago, I know that Mr. Bronson so intensely disliked Doctor O'Connor that he could not have been going to him, no matter how urgent the need. Besides, Doctor Carmeachal, who always attended him, lives around this corner, the other way." She indicated the direction of the car line.

"I see," Trant acknowledged, thoughtfully. "Yet, if Mr. Bronson disliked Doctor O'Connor, he must have met him. Was it here?" He leaned over and took the hand of the pallid little boy. "Perhaps Doctor O'Connor comes to see your son?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Trant!" the child put in eagerly. "Doctor O'Connor always comes to see me. I like Doctor O'Connor."

"Still, I agree with you, Mrs. Mitchell," Trant raised his eyes calmly to meet the woman's suddenly agitated ones, "that Mr. Bronson could scarcely have been going to consult Doctor O'Connor for himself in such a fashion and at—half past one."

"At two, Mr. Trant," the woman corrected.

"Ten minutes after, to be exact, if you mean when the watch was stopped!" The woman arose suddenly, with a motion sinuous as that of a startled tiger. It was as though in the quiet parlor a note of passion and alarm had been struck. Trant bowed quietly as