“Yes, sir.”

“Who prepared it?”

“My wife.”

“Did you meet anyone on your way to the works?”

“Well, I couldn’t rightly say. No one that I remember.”

“No one could have got hold of your supper, anyway?”

The man started. “You think it might ’ave been tampered with?” he queried. He thought for some moments, then shook his head. “No, sir, I’m afraid not. I don’t never let my basket out o’ my ’and till I gets to the boiler-’ouse.”

“Very well. Now when you got to the boiler-house?”

“I put it where I always do, beside one o’ the boilers.”

“And you left it there?”