Cover murder’s crimson stain,
Still shall find his steps pursued
By inquisitors for blood,
Due to the unavenged dead,
Our malison devotes his head.
—J. Anstice, translated from Æschylus.
The last week in September usually sees all the teachers and staff of the hospitals back at their posts. Mr. Crowe and Dr. Graves were again in harness, and the patients who had been the objects of ’prentice work now came under master hands.
These long vacations are grand times for the junior staff; then they are the lords of the territory, and can try everything without fear of interference from their superiors who do not want any more information on what perhaps interests their juniors keenly.
Mr. Mole had been working away patiently and secretly. He had a vast accumulation of notes of facts, symptoms, and tests on the action of Lorchelin and Bulbosin on man and animals; and what was of equal importance, no one had apparently even suspected his secret. No one except Dr. Sones, and from him he kept nothing, requesting only that outside the walls of his laboratory no word of the business was to pass.
All Dr. Sones’ efforts to find chemical tests for the poisons which could be absolutely relied upon had been fruitless. Mr. Mole was, however, so satisfied with his physiological tests that he declared himself ready to detect the deadly alkaloids under whatever circumstances they might be administered. Suspecting Mr. Crowe of entertaining a very limited amount of affection for his wife, and knowing how he must estimate the burden of her long-continued illness, he imparted his suspicions to Janet Spriggs, and bade her tell him everything fresh that happened. But there was little to tell. A caution was given to her that should her mistress suddenly die, two or three handkerchiefs were to be dropped as by accident in the remains of the last food of which she had partaken, and especially in anything that might be vomited. These handkerchiefs were then to be given to him.