“Man, you’re not saying what you mean,” cried Grayne. “I tell you I found the poison in one of the coffee cups.”
“There was always Said, of course,” added Fisher, “either for hatred or hire. We agreed he was capable of almost anything.”
“And we agreed he was incapable of hurting his master,” retorted Grayne.
“Well, well,” said Fisher, amiably, “I dare say you are right; but I should just like to have a look at the library and the coffee cups.”
He passed inside, while Grayne turned to the policeman in attendance and handed him a scribbled note, to be telegraphed from headquarters. The man saluted and hurried off; and Grayne, following his friend into the library, found him beside the bookstand in the middle of the room, on which were the empty cups.
“This is where Boyle looked for Budge, or pretended to look for him, according to your account,” he said.
As Fisher spoke he bent down in a half-crouching attitude, to look at the volumes in the low, revolving shelf, for the whole bookstand was not much higher than an ordinary table. The next moment he sprang up as if he had been stung.
“Oh, my God!” he cried.
Very few people, if any, had ever seen Mr. Horne Fisher behave as he behaved just then. He flashed a glance at the door, saw that the open window was nearer, went out of it with a flying leap, as if over a hurdle, and went racing across the turf, in the track of the disappearing policeman. Grayne, who stood staring after him, soon saw his tall, loose figure, returning, restored to all its normal limpness and air of leisure. He was fanning himself slowly with a piece of paper, the telegram he had so violently intercepted.
“Lucky I stopped that,” he observed. “We must keep this affair as quiet as death. Hastings must die of apoplexy or heart disease.”