Chapter IV

With plenty of money, a distinguished appearance, and the manners of a courtier, Doctor Charles V. Henry had entered New York society three years before, with letters of introduction from prominent men and women in Paris. He soon opened an office in the fashionable up-town residential district. He had an independent fortune--his bachelor apartments cost him fifteen thousand a year--but it pleased him to follow his profession, and when Doctor Grayton died he fell natural heir to his society practice.

“Do not tell me that you are ill, Mr. Colton!” he laughed, as he ushered the blind man and Sydney into his quietly luxurious office half an hour after they had left Donald Wreye.

“Old Hippocrates and I are sworn enemies,” smiled the problemist. “I came to get a little professional information.”

“Yes?” politely from the physician, as he accepted a proffered cigarette.

“It is this.” Colton spoke seriously; all trace of the smile had gone. “Is there any medicinal cure for opium craving?”

The heavy lashes of the doctor veiled his eyes as he looked down thoughtfully at the floor. “There are several reputed cures,” he said finally. “The most effective, and simple, probably, is rice powder and morphia. The morphia satisfies the violent craving at first, then the drug is diminished gradually, until the patient is satisfied with the harmless rice powder. This is effective, however, only in the first stages.”

“I am speaking of atavistic craving. The opium craving, having skipped one generation, appears doubly strong in the next.”

“You mention a rare case,” said Doctor Henry slowly; “and an incurable one. The effect of opium smoking, primarily, is a sensation of the nerves, or, rather, lack of sensation. The nerves feel the craving first. When that craving finds lodgment in the brain, the case is hopeless. With the inherited craving the process is absolutely reversed. The seat of the trouble is in the brain before the nerves know the drug, and when the nerves once feel the satisfied craving, it becomes a monomania. There is no cure.”

For a full minute there was silence in the office. Thornley Colton blew thoughtful smoke-rings toward the ceiling. Sydney Thames was conscious of a strange, new feeling toward the man he loved; the man who had picked him up as a bundle of baby-clothes on the banks of the English river that had given him the only name he had ever known. The feeling was almost bitter. He could not keep his mind from the man and woman that Colton had sent back to their home but a short time before, full of hope, of joy. Now he realized that the words had been but empty encouragement. And there was no hope!

Thornley Colton spoke again. “I disagree with you, doctor. There is a cure!” He had risen to his feet; his voice trembled with vehemence.

The physician, startled from his usual professional calmness, was on his feet, staring. Colton took a step forward, stumbled blindly against a chair, his hands thrust out gropingly. Before Sydney Thames could reach him, Doctor Henry was again the cool physician. He extended a hand, and led the blind man back to his seat.

“I forgot myself,” apologized the blind man huskily. “This thing has unnerved me.” He swallowed hard, his voice became normal. “The time for equivocation is past, doctor; I’m going to be frank. Dorothy Raelton is an opium fiend!”

The physician half rose again from his chair in amazement. “Why--why--such a thing is incredible!” he gasped.

Briefly, dispassionately, Colton told him of the night before. “Now,” he continued, “for the cure.” Again there was excitement in his voice. “Early to-morrow morning the Raeltons start for a year’s cruise on their yacht. I am making all the arrangements. They will go to the South Pacific, and keep wholly out of touch with the world, Mrs. Raelton will not take her maid, Jimmy will not even have his man. They will be absolutely alone, except for the crew. What do you think of that?”

Doctor Henry’s fingers ceased their nervous drumming on the chair-arm, his lowered eyes raised. “It may be effective,” he admitted, in his deepest professional tones. “At what time--do they start?”

“With the seven-o’clock tide. To-night Mrs. Raelton is going to receive a few intimate friends, and explain last night’s postponement. By the way”--he took the newspaper he had purchased from his pocket--“I used your name in explaining to the reporters the cause of last night’s affair. I knew you wouldn’t object.” The physician took the paper eagerly.

The problemist was almost to the door before he remembered another question. “Did you ever suspect that Mrs. Donald Wreye was an opium fiend?” he asked.

The unexpectedness of the question made Doctor Henry forget his usual suave manner for an instant, and his voice was almost sharp as he replied: “She was not! Her death was----” He stopped suddenly; then, in a different tone, “I am going to meet your frankness with frankness,” he said slowly. “I have always thought Mrs. Wreye’s suicide was a natural result of an utter breaking of her hypersensitive nervous system.”

“Her husband?” put in Colton.

“Yes!” emphatically.

“Marjorie Wreye’s death was not a suicide!” Colton spoke quietly, but in his tone was that ominous menace Sydney Thames had noticed so many times that day. “It was deliberate murder! Good-day, doctor.”

He extended his hand. It was taken by the serious-faced physician. Thornley Colton nodded a jerky farewell, and hurried from the office, his brain automatically counting the steps it had registered when he entered.

In the car, speeding homeward, Sydney Thames drew a long breath.

“Great Scott!” he murmured. “What a villain he is!”

“Doctor Henry?” There was mild surprise in the blind man’s voice.

“Donald Wreye,” corrected Sydney shortly. “Hanging is too good for him!”

“Did you notice the almost curious resemblance between the deep professional tones of Doctor Henry and the ordinary voice of Wreye?” asked the problemist seriously.

Without giving Thames a chance to reply he leaned forward to speak to the driver. “Take us to the nearest drug-store telephone pay-station, Michael,” he ordered. And as the car turned in toward the curb he explained to Sydney: “I must tell the Raeltons of my plans; also get twenty grains of trional and a heavy rubber band. Trional is one of the few harmless narcotics. The rubber band is _highly_ important. It is going to trap the most inhuman criminal I have ever known!”