"The devil take you and your case!" he said furiously, "you've killed my dog."
"I'm very sorry, sir," said Dowker, crossing and picking up the dagger, "it was an accident."
"An expensive accident for me," said Ellersby, bitterly; "at all events it proves the dagger was poisoned."
"Yes," said Dowker in a delighted tone, "so the crime must have been committed with the other weapon, for if one was poisoned, it's only common sense to assume the other was."
He had apparently quite forgotten the loss sustained by Ellersby, for there was no doubt the bulldog was quite dead.
That gentleman looked at him in disgust.
"Oh, go to the devil," he said, irritably, "and thank your stars I don't make you pay for this."
Dowker murmured something about an accident, then, slipping the fatal dagger, once more covered in paper, into his pocket, he took his departure. On his way down he met the doctor coming up, and once outside, he was beside himself with joy at having proved the kriss to be poisonous.
"And now," he said, "I'll call and see Mr. Desmond."