“Anxiety? Depression?”
“I don’t know.”
Dr. Rindger drummed with his fingertips on the desk, reached up to the shelf, and took a book entitled Forensic Medicine. He opened it, and after reading a couple of pages, closed the book and put it back. “Is this just between you and me, or am I speaking officially for publication, and would I be quoted?”
“Just between you and me,” Bertha told him. “You won’t be quoted.”
“Arsenic poisoning,” he said.
“Those are the symptoms?”
“An almost typical case. The burning thirst and nausea are very typical, also the soreness over the stomach and upper abdomen. If you want to be certain, check on the diarrhoea, the cramps in the calves of the legs, the feeling of depression, and note the nature of the vomitus. Rather a rice-water appearance in cases of arsenic poisoning.”
Bertha Cool got up, then hesitated, and said, “How much do I owe you?”
“That’s all right — in case I’m not to be quoted or called as a witness. If I am, that, of course, will be something else.”
Bertha shook hands with him and said, “I’m sorry I disturbed you this late, but it’s an emergency, and I had to know tonight.”