Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/247

 one point, the real facts are almost, if not quite, as bad.”

“I learnt, this morning,” he continued, lighting a cigarette, “certain facts which, had I been half as clever as I supposed myself, I should have deduced from the data already in my possession. I was aware, of course, that the unhappy victim—Mrs. Vernon—was addicted to the use of opium, and if a tangible link were necessary, it existed in the form of the written fragment which I myself took from the dead woman’s hand.”…

“A link!” said Denise Ryland.

“A link between Mrs. Vernon and Mrs. Leroux,” explained the physician. “You see, it had never occurred to me that they knew one another.”…

“And did they?” questioned his daughter, eagerly.

“It is almost certain that they were acquainted, at any rate; and in view of certain symptoms, which, without giving them much consideration, I nevertheless had detected in Mrs. Leroux, I am disposed to think that the bond of sympathy which existed between them was”…

He seemed to hesitate, looking at his daughter, whose gray eyes were fixed upon him intently, and then at Denise Ryland, who, with her chin resting upon her hands, and her elbows propped upon the table, was literally glaring at him.

“Opium!” he said.