"I'll knock your head off, too. Do you
understand? I'll attend to you as I attended to Boomly--"
"Assassin!" I retorted calmly. "Only an alienist can save you now. In
this awful moment--"
A light touch on my arm interrupted me, and, a trifle irritated, as any
man might be when checked in the full flow of eloquence, I turned to find
Mildred at my elbow.
"Let me talk to him," she said in a quiet voice. "Perhaps I may not
irritate him as you seem to."
"Very well," I said. "Jones and I are here as witnesses." And I folded my
arms in an attitude not, perhaps, unpicturesque.
"Dr. Quint," said Mildred in her soft, agreeable voice, and actually
smiling slightly at the self-confessed murderer, "is it really true that
you are guilty of shedding the blood of Professor Boomly?"
"It is," said Quint, coolly.
She seemed rather taken aback at that, but presently recovered her
equanimity.
"Why?" she asked gently.
"Because he attempted a most hellish crime!" yelled Quint.
"W-what crime?" she asked faintly.
"I'll tell you. He wanted the Carnegie medal, and he knew it would be
given to me if I could incubate and hatch my batch of Silver Moon
butterfly eggs.
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