"Just the same," remarked Roger rather grimly, "our friend Arthur is not going to be able to skin out of the affair so easily as he thinks. A wireless has already been sent to the boat he sailed on, and when he reaches port he'll be detained and sent back here. In any case, he'll be wanted as an accessory after the act, which may prove an unpleasant business for him…. Go on, though; tell me how you actually came to make up your mind that something was wrong."
"I never did make up my mind until it was too late—that was the awful part! When I think it all over, though, I can see that the thing that most roused my suspicions—not altogether by itself, but taken together with what happened later—was the doctor's flying into a passion with me for mislaying a hypodermic needle. I haven't told you that yet, have I?"
"No. Was it after the injection?"
"It was, and at the very moment when you cut your hand. I put the needle down to attend to you, and I completely forgot where I had laid it. He was fearfully angry, called me names and abused me in a way that got my back up. There seemed no reason for it; I couldn't understand it at all. Then the same day your father got suddenly worse, you remember, and I should have forgotten all about the beast's nasty temper, only…"
"Yes, what happened?"
"Why, quite suddenly, I found the needle! Where do you think? Inside a big book of drawings! I began wondering; I put two and two together…. You see, I didn't dare mention my awful suspicion—I couldn't! It might have ruined me for ever if I was wrong. So I did the only thing I could think of: I took the needle to that chemist and got it analysed. You know all the rest."
"If only you had confided in me, Esther!"
"Even so it was too late to save your father; nothing would have saved him. And you quite understand that if the suspicion had proved unfounded it would have finished me as a nurse for all time!"
He looked at her intently.
"Would that have meant so much to you?"