“My dear madam, it is time for us to leave off fencing with one another. Dr. Cassilis and I are both incapable of betraying your confidence and neither of us has the slightest desire to injure you. This dangerous poison has been stolen from you, and you cannot feel easy in your mind till you know that it has been recovered, and is in safe hands. All we ask is your help in tracing it, and that help I am sure you feel that you ought to give.” He had struck the right note this time. The poor little woman took out her handkerchief and dabbed her forehead in a distracted manner as she nerved herself to speak. “You are quite right, Sir Robert. I know I ought to tell you everything, but it isn’t at all pleasant. Have you ever heard of a Dr. Wycherley?” The situation was too grave for these erratic names to provoke a smile. “I have heard of Dr. Weathered,” the specialist said gravely. “Weathered, of course! How could I have forgotten it. But I never can remember names, Sir Herbert. He isn’t a friend of yours, I hope?” “He never was.” Evidently she hadn’t heard of the death in the Domino Club, and my chief didn’t think the time had yet come to tell her of it. Mrs. Baker gave a sigh of relief before plunging into her tale. “It all began with my going to hear him give a lecture on psycho-analysis at the Caxton Hall. He looked quite a distinguished man, and he lectured beautifully. I was fascinated by the things he said. He told us that he could look inside our minds, and see things there that we had never dreamt of--in our subconscience, he called it.” “Subconsciousness, yes,” Tarleton put in with the least touch of impatience. “I dare say that was it. He said we might have murderous propensities without knowing it. Think of that! I might be secretly longing to kill my dear brother, and if the propensity wasn’t found out and removed in time, I might end by doing it. I was horrified.” I confess I was horrified, too, as I grasped the methods by which Weathered had drawn this harmless little creature into his toils. “I couldn’t sleep for thinking of all the dreadful things that my subconscience might be planning and plotting behind my back. I felt I must know the worst, so as to be on my guard against it. I went to consult Dr. Weathered at his house, and it was a dreadful experience. He found out that I had a murderous propensity. And he told me that the only way for me to rid myself of it was to write letters to him telling him every evil thought that came into my mind.”