“I don’t want to dictate. I’m just as willing as anybody to have the criminal side of this mess cleared up, if there is a criminal side.”
“Endicott would hardly have crawled into a cupboard to have a stroke, would he, Doctor?”
“No.” Dr. Worth’s intelligent eyes stared speculatively at Lieutenant Valcour for a minute. “Not unless he’d hidden in there to overhear something, and did overhear something that gave him a stroke,” he said.
The cesspool, Lieutenant Valcour decided, was beginning to show strange depths within its depth. The medical examiner came over and joined them. He complimented Dr. Worth briefly on the success of his operation, assured Lieutenant Valcour that the homicide chief would be given a full report of Endicott’s recovery, and presumed that from now on the case would be left in Lieutenant Valcour’s hands. Lieutenant Valcour would deal with whatever charges of robbery or assault might develop from it. He said goodbye and left the room, with the fullest intention of going right straight home to bed; and so he promptly did, as soon as he had made the promised report to Andrews.
Dr. Worth pointedly raised his eyebrows. “Then there will be charges, Lieutenant?”
“That will depend largely upon Endicott, Doctor. As he is now revived he will tell us himself who attacked him, or the nature of the circumstance that gave him the shock.”
“I trust so.”
“There isn’t any doubt, is there?”
Dr. Worth grew expansive. “Certainly there is a doubt,” he said. “While it is true that Endicott has been revived, it is impossible to state definitely that he will recover consciousness. And even granting that he should