Coroner Penfield pressed forward. “Can you prove it, Maynard?”
“Yes; examine that glass,” directed Maynard, pointing to the one he had taken from the physician. “Ah, Hayden, you slipped up in your cleverness—though had I been the man you took me for, you would have succeeded in poisoning me, and right under the eyes of Coroner Penfield and Detective Mitchell. God! man, why couldn’t you remain straight, instead of resorting to trickery, treachery, and murder!”
Hayden’s eyes fell before Maynard’s piercing gaze and he stood in sullen silence. Coroner Penfield, moving the medicine glass gently to and fro, sniffed at its contents, and when he set the glass down his face was white.
“Prussic acid!” he announced. “Enough to kill you in three seconds if you had swallowed it, Maynard.”
“Yes. It was the unmistakable odor of the poison which warned me as Hayden held it under my nose.” Maynard took off Burnham’s dressing gown which he wore over his own clothes. “The game is up, Hayden; you might as well confess.”
For the first time Hayden broke his silence. “Confess to what?” he asked insolently. “I did not murder you and I did not murder Count Fritz von Eltz. You—” and his accusing voice rang through the room—“you, Maynard, did that.”
Marian raised her hand to her lips to check the cry of terror which almost escaped her as Mitchell moved slightly toward Maynard.
“Your guess is wrong, Hayden,” answered Maynard composedly. “I did not murder Von Eltz—he killed himself.”
“A likely tale!” scoffed Hayden, with a return of his habitual dictatorial manner.
“A true tale,” responded Maynard sternly. “I admit Von Eltz did not intentionally commit suicide, but he innocently drank the poison he had prepared for me.”