“Yes,” he said, “it is. I am convinced that some one or other has added some of the contents of that little bottle to the draft that I made up for Stella, and that that is the cause of her death.” He spoke in his quiet precise voice as though he had been making some trivial statement in general conversation, but the rest of us were too astonished to say anything at all.
“Come, time presses,” he added after a pause, “let us go back to the dining-room.”
As soon as we were seated again in our old positions he repeated to the rest what he had told me with regard to the history of the weird little Chinese bottle, and the action of its deadly contents. He explained to us how, in China, he had seen a man who had been poisoned by it, that Stella’s appearance was exactly similar, and that he knew of no other poison which produced even approximately similar symptoms. He feared, although he had of course only had time for a very brief examination, that there was little if any likelihood of his opinion being incorrect.
We sat nerved and taut, as one sits looking for the lightning flashes in a violent storm, and it was Margaret who first broke the silence. I noticed that she was holding to the table edge, and her finger-tips were white with the pressure of her grip.
“Did Stella know of the Chinese flagon?” she asked.
“No, not to my knowledge,” he replied, “besides which, it is difficult to see how she could have got at it had she wished to do so. There are only the two keys to the cupboard—mine and Miss Summerson’s. Mine I can answer for, and Miss Summerson left the dispensary yesterday afternoon at three o’clock in order to go over to Millingham to see some friends of hers. I gave her special leave for the purpose and she is not to return until midday to-day. She always carries the key on a chain attached to her waist and is a model of care in such matters.”
“Then you really do suspect foul play?” I asked. “But who could have done it and what motive could they have had?”
“Yes, I suspect foul play, murder in short, to use the horrid word, but I am not able to answer the rest of your question. The position as I see it is this. Besides the six of us sitting here at this table there were only the two maids in the house last night after the medicine was taken up-stairs, making eight in all. Of the eight, obviously suspicion falls most readily on me as I made the medicine up, but I can assure you most positively that no mistake was made with the prescription. So far as I know, Annie, who carried it up-stairs, does not even know of the existence of the little flagon, and I think that we can probably rule her out of it. Of the rest of you, suspicion points most readily to you, Jeffcock, for I told you all about the poison only the night before, and to you, Ethel, who already knew about it from your father.”
He put his hand over hers and smiled at her as he spoke, but Kenneth sprang up at once crying out angrily, “How dare you make such a suggestion about Miss Hanson?”
“Don’t be a fool, Kenneth,” she replied tersely, “and I was ‘Ethel’ to The Tundish when you were a little boy at school.”