The old bald-headed lawyer had gone down to the hotel smoking-saloon for a little diversion, and we faced each other in the drawing-room—Miss Russell and I. The glass was still in my hand.
“And the new doctor is so-so, eh?” I remarked.
“What do you mean?” she faltered.
“I think you know what I mean,” I retorted. “I need only tell you that by a sheer chance I stumbled upon your atrocious plot—the plot of that scoundrel upstairs. All you had to do was to exchange the bottles, and administer pure trinitrin instead of my prescribed solution of it, and Miss Spanton would be dead in half an hour. The three millions would go to the Australian cousin, and you would doubtless have your reward—say, a cool hundred thousand, or perhaps marriage. And you were about to give the poison when I stopped you.”
“I was not!” she cried. And she fell into a chair, and hid her face in her hands, and then looked, as it were longingly, towards the bedroom.
“Miss Spanton is in no danger,” I said sneeringly. “She will be quite well to-morrow. So you were not going to give the poison, after all?” I laughed.
“I beg you to listen, doctor,” she said at length, standing up. “I am in a most invidious position. Nevertheless, I think I can convince you that your suspicions against me are unfounded.”
I laughed again. But secretly I admired her for acting the part so well.
“Doubtless!” I interjected sarcastically, in the pause.
“The man upstairs is Samuel Grist, supposed to be in Australia. It is four months ago since I, who am Adelaide Spanton’s sole friend, discovered that he was scheming her death. The skill of his methods appalled me. There was nothing to put before the police, and yet I had a horrible fear of the worst. I felt that he would stop at nothing—absolutely at nothing. I felt that, if we ran away, he would follow us. I had a presentiment that he would infallibly succeed, and I was haunted by it day and night. Then an idea occurred to me—I would pretend to be his accomplice. And I saw suddenly that that was the surest way—the sole way, of defeating him. I approached him and he accepted the bait. I carried out all his instructions, except the fatal instructions. It is by his orders, and for his purposes, that we are staying in this hotel. Heavens! To make certain of saving my darling Adelaide, I have even gone through the farce of promising to marry him!”