“There is something simpler still to imagine than the culpability of Natacha. It is that Priemkof schemed to pour the poison into the flask of vodka, saying to himself that if the poison didn’t succeed at least it would make the occasion for introducing his dynamite into the house in the pockets of the ‘doctors’ that they would go to find.”
Koupriane seized Rouletabille’s wrist and threw some terrible words at him, looking into the depths of his eyes:
“It was not Priemkof who poured the poison, because there was no poison in the flask.”
Rouletabille, as he heard this extraordinary declaration, rose, more startled than he had ever been in the course of this startling campaign.
If there was no poison in the flask, the poison must have been poured directly into the glasses by a person who was in the kiosk! Now, there were only four persons in the kiosk: the two who were poisoned and Natacha and himself, Rouletabille. And that kiosk was so perfectly isolated that it was impossible for any other persons than the four who were there to pour poison upon the table.
“But it is not possible!” he cried.
“It is so possible that it is so. Pere Alexis declared that there is no poison in the flask, and I ought to tell you that an analysis I had made after his bears him out. There was no poison, either, in the small bottle you took to Pere Alexis and into which you yourself had poured the contents of Natacha’s glass and yours; no trace of poison excepting in two of the four glasses, arsenate of soda was found only on the soiled napkins of Trebassof and his wife and in the two glasses they drank from.”
“Oh, that is horrible,” muttered the stupefied reporter; “that is horrible, for then the poisoner must be either Natacha or me.”
“I have every confidence in you,” declared Koupriane with a great laugh of satisfaction, striking him on the shoulder. “And I arrest Natacha, and you who love logic ought to be satisfied now.”
Rouletabille hadn’t a word more to say. He sat down again and let his head fall into his hands, like one sleep has seized.