carry through any enterprise he set his mind to. His wife, without being
beautiful, was attractive, the kind of woman you begin to call pretty
after you have known her a little while.

That night I wrote a full report to Christopher Quarles with my own
comments in the margin, and three days later I had a wire from Zena,
saying they were returning to Chelsea at once.

There was no need to ask the professor whether the case interested him or
not. He began by being complimentary about my report, praised my
astuteness in not calling upon the doctor, and he made me give him a
verbal description of Morrison and his wife.

"Of course, Wigan, looks count for nothing, but they are often misleading
evidence, and we are told to beware of that man of whom every one speaks
well. The most saintly individual I ever knew had a strong likeness to a
notorious criminal I once saw, and on a slight acquaintance you and I
would probably have trusted Cleopatra or Helen of Troy, neither of them
very estimable women, I take it. Now apparently this doctor and his wife
are near the center of this mystery."

"It seems so, but--"

"Believe me, I am making no accusation," he interrupted; "indeed, I am
more inclined to argue that they occupy an eccentric point within the
circle rather than the true center. Still, we must not overlook one or
two facts which you have duly emphasized in your report. The rivalry
between Morrison and Farrell does supply, as you say, a motive for the
crime, if crime it was, and it is the only motive that is apparent.
Again, a doctor could obtain and make use of poison with less risk than