“Does it taste?”
“Yes, even in extremely dilute quantities it is bitter.”
Allport took the fragile little bottle between finger and thumb of his gloved hand and held it up to the light. He held it up, looking at it absorbed in thought, and then quite suddenly I saw him give a little start as if he had noticed something of particular interest, and he smiled to himself as I had watched him smiling on his knees in Stella’s room. I turned from him to the bottle he held in his hand, but I failed to see what it was that had quickened his attention.
“But this little bottle is very nearly full,” he said after a pause, “the neck is exceedingly narrow and the liquid is less than half an inch from the bottom of the stopper.”
Once more The Tundish explained how he had obtained the poison, telling the detective exactly what he had told me only two days ago. He ended by saying that a single drop, added to Stella’s medicine, would have been quite sufficient to kill.
“Can you tell me, from the position of the liquid in the neck, exactly how much of the poison has been used?”
The doctor thought for a moment and then replied, “Not with any very great accuracy, of course, but I should say not more than two or three drops at the most. I brought two similar bottles with me from China, giving them both to Dr. Hanson. They were both of them full to the stoppers and I had them sealed before my journey. Hanson used about half the contents of one bottle in the course of his investigations, with which I helped him. The remainder he sent away for further examination and test to a chemical society to which we both belong. Of the contents of the second bottle, we used exactly one cubic centimeter in an experiment we made together the last time I visited him, which would be about six months ago. As far as I can remember, we left it with the liquid in practically its present position. I asked Hanson if he had done any further work on it the day he left for Folkestone, and he told me that he had not. You will understand we were interested together. That is why I can state with a considerable amount of certainty that at the most only two or three drops have been used.”
Allport stood turning the tiny flagon this way and that, but obviously listening attentively to the doctor’s statement, which had been made in a voice that showed not the slightest tremor or concern. Then he turned round quickly and asked him, “You would be surprised then if I were to find any recent finger-prints of yours on the bottle?”
“Yes. Any more recent than six months ago.”
“Has it occurred to you that whoever added the poison to Miss Palfreeman’s medicine—providing you are correct in your assumption that it has been taken from this bottle—must have been closely familiar with its properties? He or she evidently intended to kill, or else why add poison at all? Yet, on your own showing only two or three drops were added. It was known to the murderer that that would be enough. He was familiar with its action.”