The jury had no questions to put to Mabel but were manifestly all agog to hear Dr. Dimsdale’s evidence. The housemaid was accordingly sent back to her seat, and the doctor stepped briskly—almost too briskly, I thought—up to the table.
Chapter V.
Madeline’s Ordeal
I was rather sorry for Dimsdale. His position was a very disagreeable one and he fully realized it. His patient had been poisoned before his very eyes and he had never suspected even grave illness. In a sense, the death of Harold Monkhouse lay at his door and it was pretty certain that every one present would hold him accountable for the disaster. Indeed, it was likely that he would receive less than justice. Those who judged him would hardly stop to reflect on the extraordinary difficulties that beset a busy medical man whose patient is being secretly poisoned; would fail to consider the immense number of cases of illness presented to him in the course of years of practice and the infinitely remote probability that any one of them is a case of poison. The immense majority of doctors pass through the whole of their professional lives without meeting with such a case; and it is not surprising that when the infinitely rare contingency arises, it nearly always takes the practitioner unawares. My own amazement at this incredible horror tended to make me sympathetic towards Dimsdale and it was with some relief that I noted the courteous and considerate manner that the coroner adopted in dealing with the new witness.
“I think,” the former observed, “that we had better, in the first place, pursue our inquiries concerning the medicine. You have heard the evidence of Dr. Randall and Dr. Barnes. This bottle of medicine, before any was taken from it, contained twelve and a half grains of arsenious acid, in the form of just over three fluid ounces of Fowler’s Solution. Can you suggest any explanation of that fact?”
“No,” replied Dimsdale, “I cannot.”
“What should the bottle have contained? What was the composition of the medicine?”
“The medicine was just a simple, very mild tonic and alternative. The bottle contained twenty-four minims of Tincture of Nux Vomica, sixteen minims of Liquor Arsenicalis, half a fluid ounce of Syrup of Bitter Orange to cover the taste of the Nux Vomica and half an ounce of Compound Tincture of Cardamoms. So that each dose contained three minims of Tincture of Nux Vomica and two minims of Liquor Arsenicalis.”
“Liquor Arsenicalis is another name for Fowler’s Solution I understand?”
“Yes, it is the official name; the other is the popular name.”
“Who supplied this medicine?”