“My dear, he did not suggest it against you. He and I both look upon you as her best safeguard. It is your being with her, that gives us some sort of security: and it is your watchfulness we shall have to look to for detection.”
“Poisoned!” reiterated madame, unable to get over the ugly word. “I think Dr. Knox ought to be made to answer for so wicked a suspicion.”
“Knox did not mean to go so far as that: it was my misapprehension. But he feels perfectly convinced that she is being tampered with. In short, drugged.”
“It is not possible,” reasoned madame. “It could not be done without my knowledge. Indeed, sir, you may dismiss all idea of the kind from your mind; you and Dr. Knox also. I assure you that such a thing would be simply impracticable.”
Mr. Tamlyn shook his head. “Any one who sets to work to commit a crime by degrees, usually possesses a large share of innate cunning—more than enough to deceive lookers-on,” he remarked. “I can understand how thoroughly repulsive this idea is to you, my good lady; that your mind shrinks from admitting it; but I wish you would, just for argument’s sake, allow its possibility.”
But madame was harder than adamant. Old Tamlyn saw what it was—that she took this accusation, and would take it, as a reflection on her care.
“Who is there, amidst us all, that would attempt to injure Lady Jenkins?” she asked. “The household consists only of myself and the servants. They would not seek to harm their mistress.”
“Not so sure; not so sure. It is amidst those servants that we must look for the culprit. Dr. Knox thinks so, and so do I.”
Madame’s face of astonishment was too genuine to be doubted. She feebly lifted her hands in disbelief. To suspect the servants seemed, to her, as ridiculous as the suspicion itself.
“Her maid, Lettice, and the housemaid, Sarah, are the only two servants who approach her when she is ill, sir: Sarah but very little. Both of them are kind-hearted young women.”