Without noticing his irritation, Geoffery proceeded, "I still mean in the way of accident or mistake. Some of you talk, I understand, of Sir Alfred having been the person who removed the paper of arsenic." And here he enlarged as before, on the affliction our hero would no doubt suffer, could he at all blame himself for any thing that had happened, and how cruel it would therefore be to mention the subject to him.
"Was the arsenic at any time kept in the same place with the glasses? Do you think you might have scattered any quantity about, in lifting it from shelf to shelf?"
"I wiped out the glasses with my own hands, the moment before I carried them in. Besides, the arsenic was never in the cupboard with my things at all, it lay on a shelf in the saddle-room, quite out of the way of what was for any one's use, and was marked in large letters, "arsenic, poison"; for Sir Willoughby was very particular in his orders to me to be careful about it, and made me show him where I put it, and that Mr. Alfred knows, for he was with his brother at the same time, no longer since than yesterday forenoon."
"If your statement is correct, I do not see how it was possible for an accident to have happened," said Geoffery, "could you swear that it was not possible for an accident to have occurred?"
"Yes, I could," he replied, though sulkily. "That is," he added, "as long as the arsenic lay where I left it."
This was one of the main points which Geoffery wanted to establish. He now dismissed the butler, who was sobbing so violently, that he could scarcely answer the questions put to him.
The coachman next entered; and it being Geoffery's object, with the views already stated, to alarm all the servants for their own safety, he looked extremely austere, and, aware that the individual he had now to deal with was not overburdened with wisdom, began thus:
"So I find, James, you don't pretend to deny that you brought arsenic from Arden, and the defence which I understand you pretend to set up, is, that you did so by your master's orders, for the purpose of poisoning rats. Now, this is quite too hackneyed an excuse; as to the orders you say you received, I fancy you have no proof that you received any."
"I told the groom that went with me, and the boy at the apothecary's, that my master sent me."
"You told them! What sort of proof is that? You don't suppose that your own word will be taken for yourself, whatever it may against yourself! This will never do. I know something of the law, and unless there is stronger evidence against some one else, you will certainly be hung for the murder. The only thing in your favour is, that you would get nothing by Sir Willoughby's death."