“A young lady?” echoed Harry Garlett, surprised. “I don’t think so.” And then suddenly he exclaimed: “You’re quite right—but how very odd that any one should have remembered it! I walked back with Miss Bower, the niece of my wife’s medical attendant, Dr. Maclean. But she went on to her home—she lives with the Macleans—and I had a tray lunch upstairs, with my wife.”
“Were you at home all that afternoon?”
Again it was as if Harry Garlett were making an effort to remember.
“I think so,” he said slowly. “No, I’m wrong! I went to a tennis party. My wife generally rested in the afternoon. But I was back a little after six o’clock, and I sat with her for some time.”
He knitted his brows, trying hard to remember what had happened, and slowly half-forgotten incidents started into life.
“There was a question of some fruit, some forced strawberries that a friend had brought that morning. The lady who was then acting as our housekeeper and as my wife’s nurse, thought I had given Mrs. Garlett the strawberries in question. But that was a mistake. She certainly ate them, so one of the maids must have given them to her. The matter is of some moment, for, as Dr. Maclean will, I think, tell you, it was this fruit which indirectly led to her death. Strawberries generally disagreed with her, but she was very fond of them, and as these were small Alpine strawberries I suppose she thought it would be all right.”
“When did you first become aware of your wife’s serious condition?”
“It must have been about four o’clock in the morning when Mrs. Garlett’s nurse-companion called me. She said my wife was in great pain and had asked if she could have some morphia. So I dressed and went at once for the doctor, who lives about a quarter of a mile from my place.”
“And then?”
“I had some trouble in rousing Dr. Maclean, but I think we were back in my house well under half an hour——”