A few moments later Mrs. Maitland returned, calmer.

“In his note,” resumed Kennedy, “he spoke of Dr. Ross and—­”

“Oh,” she cried, “can’t you see Dr. Ross about it?  Really I—­I oughtn’t to be—­questioned in this way—­not now, so soon after what I’ve had to go through.”

It seemed that her nerves were getting unstrung again.  Kennedy rose to go.

“Later, come to see me,” she pleaded.  “But now—­you must realise—­ it is too much.  I cannot talk—­I cannot.”

“Mr. Maitland had no enemies that you know of?” asked Kennedy, determined to learn something now, at least.

“No, no.  None that would—­do that.”

“You had had no quarrel?” he added.

“No—­we never quarrelled.  Oh, Price—­why did you?  How could you?”

Her feelings were apparently rapidly getting the better of her. 
Kennedy bowed, and we withdrew silently.  He had learned one thing. 
She believed or wanted others to believe in the note.

At a public telephone, a few minutes later, Kennedy was running over the names in the telephone book.  “Let me see—­here’s an Arnold Masterson,” he considered.  Then turning the pages he went on, “Now we must find this Dr. Ross.  There—­Dr. Sheldon Ross—­ specialist in nerve diseases—­that must be the one.  He lives only a few blocks further uptown.”

Handsome, well built, tall, dignified, in fact distinguished, Dr. Ross proved to be a man whose very face and manner were magnetic, as should be those of one who had chosen his branch of the profession.

“You have heard, I suppose, of the strange death of Price Maitland?” began Kennedy when we were seated in the doctor’s office.

“Yes, about an hour ago.”  It was evident that he was studying us.

“Mrs. Maitland, I believe, is a patient of yours?”

“Yes, Mrs. Maitland is one of my patients,” he admitted interrogatively.  Then, as if considering that Kennedy’s manner was not to be mollified by anything short of a show of confidence, he added:  “She came to me several months ago.  I have had her under treatment for nervous trouble since then, without a marked improvement.”

“And Mr. Maitland,” asked Kennedy, “was he a patient, too?”

“Mr. Maitland,” admitted the doctor with some reticence, “had called on me this morning, but no, he was not a patient.”

“Did you notice anything unusual?”

“He seemed to be much worried,” Dr. Ross replied guardedly.

Kennedy took the suicide note from his pocket and handed it to him.

“I suppose you have heard of this?” asked Craig.

The doctor read it hastily, then looked up, as if measuring from Kennedy’s manner just how much he knew.  “As nearly as I could make out,” he said slowly, his reticence to outward appearance gone, “Maitland seemed to have something on his mind.  He came inquiring as to the real cause of his wife’s nervousness.  Before I had talked to him long I gathered that he had a haunting fear that she did not love him any more, if ever.  I fancied that he even doubted her fidelity.”