"That? Madam uses it sometimes for fly-poison. I purposed inquiring of you if the alkaloid could be extracted."
Carroll shook his head gravely. "It doesn't need extraction. The whole thing is replete with poison. 'Tis amanita muscaria, the deadliest of all fungi. Have you seen the symptoms?"
Deborah shook her head.
"Then you shall. I mind me I had a case of them many years ago—a family ate them at supper. All four died.* There was no help that I or any one else had to give. Such agony I have never seen. The effect is not apparent for from four to nine hours after eating, though internal dissemination of the poison must begin at once. After the case I mentioned, I experimented a good deal with them. Time does not seem to affect their power. After four months' keeping I knew one of them to cause death to a dog in ten hours. Would you care to try this to-day on your cat there, Deborah, in conjunction with one of the liquids?"
* This case is taken from a medical journal of 1877.
Deborah did not reply at once, and Claude hoped that she would decline the proposition. Her answer was a question: "Will you stay, doctor, till the fungus acts? I couldn't distinguish the different symptoms alone."
The doctor reflected. "'Tis eleven now. By four the thing should be under way. I'll get home by six. Yes, I'll stay."
"Then let us give it at once."
"Very well. What will you combine with it?"
Deborah went to the cupboard and surveyed her array of phials. Finally, selecting one filled with a clear, white liquid, with less sediment at the bottom than most of her mixtures contained, she brought it over to Dr. Carroll.