He thought she was going to faint, but she clutched the door-knob and steadied herself.
"Dead!" Her dry lips formed the word. "Impossible! Why, last night she … what was it? Was she ill?"
"No. It seems to have been an accident. There'll have to be an inquest. It's going to be extremely painful, and a terrible shock for you. But remember this—if she'd lived it would have been infinitely worse for us all."
She moistened her lips, regarding him with an ashen face.
"Roger—I don't think I know what you mean."
"Simply this, dear. What Miss Rowe said last night was true, all of it. She wasn't raving."
"You mean that Thérèse and Dr. Sartorius … you can't mean that…"
"I do. They are murderers. They killed my father."
"Your father! But he died of typhoid fever—you know that as well as I do; there was nothing wrong about it."
"They gave him typhoid fever, by means of culture in the milk he was taking. When he was getting well, Sartorius brought on a relapse by means of injecting the pure toxin, deadly stuff. The old man hadn't the ghost of a chance. Yet it was all so hidden we should never have known anything was wrong if it had not been for Esther. She saved my life, you know. They were out to get me as well."