“A droog?”
“Drugs, I suppose you mean,” said Berg. “What sort of a drug? Camphor? Peppermint? Or, say, did it smell like prussic acid? Peach pits? Bitter almonds? Hey?”
“Ay tank Ay don’t know those names. But it smell bad. And it had molasses.”
“You stick to that molasses! Well, then I say it’s an old molasses bottle long since discarded, and time and the weather had sunk it in the mud.”
“Na, not weathers. It bane buried by somebody. Ay tank the murderer.”
“The witness’s thinks would be of more value,” said the policeman who had brought the bottle, “if we hadn’t found this bit of property also, in his shanty.”
And then, before the eyes of all present, he undid a parcel containing a blood-stained handkerchief! Blood-soaked, rather, for its original white was as incarnadined as the hypothetical seas.
“Hid in between their mattresses,” he added; “looks like that settles it!”
It did look that way, but had there been a question as to the import of this mute testimony, it was answered by the effect on the two Swedes. The woman sank back in her chair, almost fainting, and the man turned ashy white, while his face took on the expression of despair that signifies the death of the last flicker of hope.
“Yours?” asked the coroner, pointing to the tell-tale thing and looking at Sandstrom.