"That'll be Mr. Hetherwick, I'm thinking," said the chemist, with a polite bow. "Aye, just so!"
"I see you've read the reports of the inquest," remarked Matherfield, with a smile. "Very well, as I say, Granett was found dead later. I discovered a medicine bottle and a glass at his bedside. There'd been whisky in both, but according to the medical experts there had also been poison—the traces, they say, were indisputable. Now, on that medicine bottle were two torn labels—on the upper one, as you see from the facsimile photograph, there's been a name written—all that's left is the initial C. and the first letter of a surname, A. All the rest's gone. And what I want to know is—are you the chemist that made up the medicine or the tonic, or whatever it was, that was in that bottle, and, if so, who is the customer for whom you made it, and whose Christian name begins with C. and surname with A.? Do you comprehend me?"
"Aye, aye, Mr. Matherfield!" answered the chemist eagerly. "I'm appreciating every word you're saying, and very lucid it all is. And I'm willing to give you all the information in my power, but first I'd just like to have a bit myself on a highly pertinent matter. Now, you'll be aware, Mr. Matherfield, if you've seen the newspapers of this last day or two, that there's a firm of solicitors in Lincoln's Inn Fields that's offering a reward of five thousand pounds——"
"I'm well enough aware of it, Mr. Macpherson," interrupted Matherfield with a laugh and a sly glance at Hetherwick. "Mr. Hetherwick and myself have just come straight from their office, and what you want to know is—if you give me information will it be the same thing as giving it to them? You want to make sure about the reward?"
"Precisely, Mr. Matherfield, precisely!" assented the chemist eagerly. "You've hit my meaning exactly. For, of course, when there's a reward like yon——"
"If you give us information, Mr. Macpherson, that'll lead to the arrest and conviction of the guilty party, you can rest assured you'll get that reward," said Matherfield. "And Mr. Hetherwick'll support me in that, I'm sure."
"I'm satisfied—I'm satisfied, gentlemen!" exclaimed Macpherson, as Hetherwick murmured his confirmation. "Well, it's a strange, black business, and I'd no idea that I would come to be associated with it until that man of yours called in this morning, Mr. Matherfield. But then I knew! And I'll shorten matters by telling you, at once—I made up the tonic that was in that bottle!"
Matherfield rubbed his hands.
"Good!" he said quietly. "Good! And now, then—the critical question! For whom?"
"For a Dr. Charles Ambrose, from a prescription of his own," replied Macpherson. "It's a sort of pick-me-up tonic. I first made it up for him two years ago; I've made it up for him several times since. The last occasion was about six weeks ago. I have all the dates, though, in my books; I can show you them."