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PAGE 4

The Cancer House
by [?]

Myra looked at him aghast. It was evidently the first time he had said anything about this new suspicion, even to her. The very idea was shocking. Could it be that someone was using these new forces with devilish ingenuity?

“If that’s the case, who would be the most likely person to do such a thing?” shot out Craig.

“I wouldn’t like to say,” he returned, dodging, though we were all thinking of Dr. Loeb.

“But the motive?” demanded Craig. “What motive would there be?”

“Darius Moreton is very intimate with a certain person,” he returned enigmatically. “It is even reported in town that he has left that person a large sum of money in his will in payment for his services, if you call them so, to the family.”

He had evidently not intended to say so much and, although Craig tried in every way, he could not get the doctor to amplify what he had hinted at.

We returned to the Moreton house, Kennedy apparently much impressed by what Dr. Goode had said.

“If you will permit me,” he asked, “I should like to have a few drops of blood from each of you.”

“Goode tried that,” remarked old Mr. Moreton. “I don’t know that anything came of it. Still, I am not going to refuse, if Myra and Lionel agree.”

Craig had already taken from his pocket a small case containing a hypodermic and some little glass tubes. There seemed to be no valid objection and from each of them he drew off a small quantity of blood. As he worked, I thought I saw what he had in mind. Could there be, I wondered, an X-ray outfit or perhaps radium concealed about the living rooms of the house? First of all, it was necessary to verify Dr. Goode’s observations.

We chatted a few moments, then took leave of Myra Moreton.

“Keep up your courage,” whispered Craig with a look that told her that he had seen the conflict between loyalty to her father and to her lover.

Lionel drove us back to the station in the car alone. Nothing of importance was said by any of us until we had almost reached the station.

“I can see,” he said finally, “that you don’t feel sure that it is a cancer house.”

Kennedy said nothing.

“Well,” he pursued, “I don’t know anything about it, of course. But I do know this much–those doctors are making a good thing out of father and the rest of us.”

The car had pulled up. “I’ve got no use for Loeb,” the young man went on. “Still, I’d rather not that we had trouble with him. I’ll tell you,” he added in a burst of confidence, “he has a little girl who works for him, his secretary, Miss Golder. She comes from Norwood. I should hate to have anything happen to queer her. People used to think Goode was engaged to her before he took that office next to us and got ambitious. Father placed her with Dr. Loeb. If it’s necessary to do anything with him, I wish you’d think whether she couldn’t be kept out of it in some way.”

“I’ll try to do it,” agreed Craig, as we shook hands and climbed on the early afternoon train back to the city.