Kent stared at
her incredulously.
"Do you mean that, notwithstanding the risk to which you were
subjecting him with his weak heart, you kept up the farce simply
that Barbara might win an idiotic wager?" Kent asked.
Helen passed one nervous hand over the other; her palms were hot
and dry, and two hectic spots had appeared in each white cheek.
"Jimmie was quite well Monday night," she protested. "He - he - had
some heart medicine with him."
Amyl nitrite?"
"No."
"Nitro-glycerine?"
"I - I think that was it, I am not quite sure," she spoke with
uncertainty, and Kent knew that she lied. His heart sank.
"Did he swallow any medicine in your presence?"
She shook her head vigorously. "No, he did not."
Kent lowered his voice. "Did you see him take Mrs. Brewster's
aconitine pills off the hall table?"
Helen shifted her gaze to his face and then back to her ever
restless hands. "No," she said. "I did not see him take the pills."
Kent studied her in a silence which, to her, seemed never-ending.
"I want the true answer to this question," he announced with meaning
emphasis.
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