"Sure there was—if you say so. What I mean is I didn't put it there. I didn't know it was there. I—"
"What you mean is you'd planned to get the guy out into the alley after he was dead and you lost your nerve after he keeled over."
"No—no! Nothing like that."
"You had that bottle spiked, waiting for Davis to come in."
"No—no! It was just an ordinary bar bottle."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Every tavern has a brand of whisky they push—their bar whisky. When a customer isn't particular about his brand we give him the bar liquor."
It seemed to me the guy was gaining courage. He wasn't quite as nervous as he'd been. "You served other people out of that same bottle?" I asked.
He licked his lips and dropped his eyes before he answered. "Sure I did."
"But that was before you put the arsenic in it."