Annette Oakleigh had been indiscreetly intimate with a young
physician in the town, a Dr. Gunther, a friend, by the way, of
Minturn. "There has been no trial yet," went on Kennedy, "but
Minturn seems to have appeared before the coroner's jury at
Stratfield and to have asserted the innocence of Mrs. Pearcy and
that of Dr. Gunther so well that, although the jury brought in a
verdict of murder by poison by some one unknown, there has been no
mention of the name of anyone else. The coroner simply adjourned
the inquest so that a more careful analysis might be made of the
vital organs. And now comes this second tragedy in New York."

"What was the poison?" I asked. "Have they found out yet?"

"They are pretty sure, so Minturn told me, that it was lead
poisoning. The fact not generally known is," he added in a lower
tone, "that the cases were not confined to the Pearcy house. They
had even extended to Minturn's too, although about that he said
little yesterday. The estates up there adjoin, you know."

Owen Minturn, I recalled, had gained a formidable reputation by
his successful handling of cases from the lowest strata of society
to the highest. Indeed it was a byword that his appearance in
court indicated two things--the guilt of the accused and a verdict
of acquittal.

"Of course," Craig pursued as we were jolted from station to
station downtown, "you know they say that Minturn never kept a
record of a case. But written records were as nothing compared to
what that man must have carried only in his head."