Read The Last Drive for Free Online Page B

better proof than that little spot on his skin.”
    â€œThe symptoms were conclusive.”
    â€œIn a way. Second-hand. Wortley didn’t get there till it was over.”
    â€œThe examination of the organs will settle it.”
    â€œBy Wortley?”
    â€œYes. He’s at it now.”
    â€œOf course, that will settle it,” agreed the lawyer. “I don’t dispute the probable correctness of his diagnosis, but I wait for proof. Anyway, you have my theory. You understand my position in the matter. As the representative of the Colonel’s heirs, I feel it my duty to defend them against what seems to me unjust suspicion. I thought it best to be entirely frank with you . . .”
    â€œThen you think I am merely wasting my time here at Greenlawn?”
    â€œI do. Not that I regard the time as particularly valuable. I doubt if any direct evidence will be discoverable anywhere. It is my opinion that if the mystery is solved it will be only after a most minute and thorough examination of the Colonel’s life. I feel that the roots of this tragedy are buried somewhere deep in the past.”
    â€œI wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right, Mr. Mawson.” The detective got to his feet. “But as you say, in that case the present time is of no peculiar value, and I believe I’ll use some of it snooping around here just to satisfy an idea I’ve got. You’ve no objection to my looking through the safe?”
    For reply the lawyer handed him the bunch of keys to the several compartments. Rankin prosecuted his search in a leisurely and deliberate manner, still his eye was alert. Mawson turned to his books and resumed his writing.
    The search revealed nothing. In these papers and books that the detective examined the simple straightforwardness of Carson Phillips’s life was revealed logically and in order, like the lucid march of a geometrical proposition to its Q.E.D. The mistakes of his youth were chronicled in letters of thirty-five years ago by his father; the brilliancy of his early army career in medals and copies of dispatches; his one affair of the heart in a bundle of blue-tinted envelopes; the generosity and charity of his maturity in innumerable letters and receipts and documents of various kinds. Here, too, were copies of affidavits, since proven forgeries, on which a famous breach of promise suit had been based; Rankin knew of it, though it had been before his time. The only note of hardness was a reminder here and there of the sternness with which the Colonel had insisted on the same standard of strict loyalty in others as he imposed on himself. To him treachery and deceit had been the deadly, unforgivable sin; his detestation of these qualities had at times smothered his charity.
    Rankin had about finished when a servant appeared at the door with a message that Doctor Wortley wished to see him in the library. He went at once, leaving Mawson still poring over the account books. In the hall he saw the two Adams boys at the foot of the great staircase; Fred had returned from the Mortons, then. They were talking in low tones with Mrs. Graves, the old housekeeper, whose eyes were red with weeping.
    Doctor Wortley was alone in the library, standing by a window overlooking the garden. As he turned at the detective’s entrance the latter saw at once by the expression of his face that he had made some new discovery. Immediately and hastily he came forward, holding out some small object in his hand.
    â€œI’ve probed,” he said, abruptly. “See what I found.”
    Rankin took the small object and examined it. It was a tiny steel needle, little more than an inch in length, with the blunt end filed off square; there was no eye. Rankin tried the sharpness of the point against his finger.
    â€œTake care!” called the Doctor sharply, stopping him. “There may be poison left on it.”
    Dusk was coming on, and the detective moved nearer