The little detective shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, then, Miss Hanson, I’m to understand that you broke off your engagement with Mr. Dane because you differed from him over this unfortunate affair, and that you are very fond of the doctor here, but that you are not in love with him. Is that correct?”
“I suppose it’s near enough,” Ethel whispered.
“Now I want you to answer this very carefully. Had you noticed anything between the doctor and Miss Palfreeman? Had you any reason at all to suspect that while she disliked the doctor, he might have had other feelings with regard to her?”
“No. It’s quite absurd. He hardly knew her.”
“Pardon me, he has just informed us that for two years her father was one of his most intimate friends. You are not asking me to believe that he hardly knew the daughter, who was eighteen at the time?”
Then leaning over the table, and speaking very slowly, he asked her, “Did you know where the Chinese poison was kept? Exactly which bottle it was in, I mean?”
“Yes.”
“And roughly what its action was?”
“Yes.”