“I am doing so. There is positively no evidence that Mr. Embury was poisoned, yet owing to the absolute lack of any hint of any other means of death, we are forced to the conclusion that he was poisoned.”
“By his own hand?” asked Hendricks, his face grave.
“Probably not. You see, sir, with no knowledge of how the poison was administered—with no suspicion of any reason for its being administered—we are working in the dark—”
“I should say so!” exclaimed Elliott; “black darkness, I call it. Are you within your rights in assuming poison?”
“Entirely; it has to be the truth. No agent but a swift, subtle poison could have cut off the victim’s life like that.”
Crowell was now walking up and down the room. He was a restless, nervous man, and under stress of anxiety he became almost hysterical.
“I don’t know!” he cried out, as one in an extremity of uncertainty. “It must be poison—it must have been—murder!”
He pronounced the last word in a gasping way—as if afraid to suggest it but forced to do so.
Hendricks looked at him with a slight touch of contempt in his glance, but seeing this, Dr. Harper interjected:
“The Examiner is regretting the necessity of thrusting his convictions upon you, but he knows it must be done.”