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"When you came away from the house and dropped your hat, did you go back again, crawling along by the bushes?" "I certainly did not." "Did you see any other man around?" "Not there. I caught a glimpse of a man when I was hurrying through the woods to the station." "When you came to the house, after the tragedy, Mr. Ostrello, what were you so anxious about?" "You mean what was I looking for?"
There were two callers who took an hour of the detective's time, and then he prepared to return to Sidham, to learn if possible more concerning Tom Ostrello, and if anybody besides Cephas Carboy had seen him around that vicinity on the morning of the tragedy. "Letty, I may not be back to-night," he remarked, as he came out into the general office. "And it may be that I'll not be back to-morrow."
Tom Ostrello represented the very drug firm whose advertisement had appeared, in part, on the bit of paper picked up from under the library safe. "And he was there hunting for something," thought the detective. "Was it for that bit of paper or for the something that he secured in his mother's room?" At the depot the pair separated.
He reached the Langmore mansion once more to find that Tom Ostrello had departed for the city on necessary business but was coming back before night. Then at the hotel he found a message from his own office calling him to New York. "You are going away, Mr. Adams?" said Raymond Case, who chanced to see him departing. "Not for long. I'll be back to-night or to-morrow." "Anything new?"
He longed to knock some of the speakers down, but held his temper in check as best he could. He realized that no argument he might advance would make an impression where opinions were so set. Tom Ostrello joined in the search as diligently as the rest, and he and Raymond ran through the woods from end to end several times.
"Oh, I am sure he will help you! He has never yet failed to accomplish anything he has undertaken!" An hour later saw Tom Ostrello on his way to Sidham. His face was careworn and he looked to be ten years older than he had a week before. He was in a thoughtful mood and scarcely looked out of the car window as the train rushed onward to its destination.
He said he left home and came through the woods, where he saw Tom Ostrello just coming from the Langmore mansion. As soon as the coast seemed clear, he ran past the bushes and got in the house by a window. He found Mr. Langmore in the library and asked again for the counterfeits. Langmore said he was going to give them to the authorities, and expose Styles.
"Tell me at once, did Matlock Styles say anything about poisoning this young lady?" he demanded, catching the old woman by the arm. "The truth now, remember!" "No, he didn't say anything. But he had some poison, a powder you put it in water. It kills a person in six to ten hours, sure." "We must have a doctor!" Tom Ostrello had heard the talk and saw what had happened.
"Oh, if only the doctor would come!" "Give her some more," said the old woman. "Give her all of it," and this was done. Slowly the time dragged by, until they heard a shouting in the distance, followed by a pistol shot. Then two horses burst into view, one ridden by Ostrello, and the other by a doctor who lived not a great distance away.
"Perhaps a relative." When he stepped up on the piazza Raymond Case came out to meet him. The young man wished to know if he had learned anything from the doctor. "Not a great deal," answered Adam Adams. "Who was that man who just came in?" "Thomas Ostrello, one of Mrs. Langmore's sons by her first husband." "Is he a frequent visitor here?" "I believe not.
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