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"It seemed to me," answered the superintendent nurse, "that this one case of all others would be the hardest, the most disagreeable for you to take. It seems that Mr. Bennett has leased Dr. Pitts's house from him. He is there now. At the time when Mr. Ferriss was beginning to be ill Mr. Bennett was with him a great deal and undertook to nurse him till Dr.
But the next day he found he could not eat, and all the afternoon, though he held doggedly to his work, he was troubled with nausea. At times a great weakness, a relaxing of all the muscles, came over him. In the evening he sent a note to Dr. Pitts's address in the City, asking him to come down to Medford the next day.
Lloyd held back the door, and Bennett came in, leaning heavily on Dr. Pitts's shoulder. Adler stiffened upon the instant as if in answer to some unheard bugle-call, and when Bennett had taken his seat, pushed his chair gently to the table and unfolded his napkin with a flourish as though giving a banner to the wind.
The four-twenty was the first train I could have taken the two-forty-five express is a through train and don't stop at Medford and, as I say, I was just going out of the door when Dr. Pitts's second despatch came, countermanding the first, and telling us that the patient had died. It seems that it was one of the officers of the Freja expedition. We didn't know "
But Lloyd, sitting near the foot-board of the bed, turned her head from him. It was not expedient that Ferriss should recognise her now. Lloyd could not but commend the wisdom of bringing Ferriss to Dr. Pitts's own house in so quiet a place as Medford. The doctor risked nothing. He was without a family, the only other occupants of the house being the housekeeper and cook.
Kennedy paused, then finished with irresistibly dramatic logic; "Who else but the man who held the secret of Minna Pitts's past and power over her future so long as he could keep alive the unfortunate Thornton the up-to-date doctor who substituted an elixir of death at night for the elixir of life prescribed for you by him in the daytime Dr. Lord." Kennedy had moved quietly toward the door.
At the foot of the steps of the veranda he paused, and as Bennett made a movement turned in his direction and said: "Is this Dr. Pitts's house?" Bennett's reply was drowned in the clamour of the dog, but the other seemed to understand, for he answered: "I'm looking for Mr. Ferriss Richard Ferriss, of the Freja; they told me he was brought here."
Pitts's house he did not stop to tie the horses, but threw the reins over their backs and entered the front hall, out of breath and panting. But the doctor, during Bennett's absence, had returned, and it was he who met him half-way up the stairs. "How is he?" demanded Bennett. "I have sent for another nurse; she will be out here on the next train. I wired from the station."
Kennedy said nothing, but was hard at work with puckered brows at piecing together the note which Edward had obtained after hunting through the house. It had been thrown into a fireplace in Mrs. Pitts's own room, and only by chance had part of it been unconsumed. The body of the note was gone altogether, but the first part and the last part remained.
In order to verify Pitts's statement, in order to swell his proposed profits to the utmost, Mitchell knew he ought to learn the "overhead" in English mills; that is, the fixed charges which, added to shop costs and prices of material, are set aside to cover office expenses, cost of operation, and contingencies.
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