“Oh, well, we all make mistakes! It would have been strange indeed had you suspected arsenic.”
He was debating within himself how he could introduce the subject of Jean Bower, when the doctor suddenly gave him a lead.
“I hope my niece won’t be called as a witness,” he observed, with just that touch of alteration in his voice which betrayed to the other’s legal ear that the speaker felt very nervous.
Mr. Toogood did not answer for a few moments, and then he put his two hands on the table and looked keenly across at his visitor. He felt the time had come to speak plainly.
“It’s no use beating about the bush, Maclean. I suppose you know what’s being said in Grendon to-day, and what will be said all over England to-morrow?”
As the doctor remained silent, he went on:
“Your niece is regarded as having provided the only motive for the crime—if crime there was.” And, as the doctor still said nothing, he added: “I’m not telling you anything you didn’t know, or at least suspect—eh, Maclean?”
And then, at last, the other spoke out, “I realize that what you say is true, but, I’d like you to believe, at any rate, that that notion, or suspicion—I don’t know what to call it—is a damned lie, Toogood! That’s God’s truth—though I realize how difficult it will be to make the truth apparent.”
Mr. Toogood took a mouthpiece from off his table and whistled down it, “I’m not to be disturbed on any account.”
Then he got up, walked across to the door, opened it, looked out on to the empty landing, and, shutting the door, came and stood by the doctor.