“Then Dr. Phillimore was right. Something in the food, I suppose?”
He hesitated.
“We don’t quite know. We have not finished our investigation yet.”
This I knew was not true. The detective had evidently asked him, if his own discretion had not prompted him, to hold his tongue.
The specialist volunteered no more information, and in a few minutes my wife and Mrs. Gascoyne joined us.
Chapter XXVII
The inquest took place in the justice-room.
It was not deemed probable that it would be necessary to summon Lady Gascoyne as witness. The evidence of the others who had been in the room at the time when Lord Gascoyne was taken ill was considered sufficient. The statement I had already made to the coroner’s officer was quite simple. I declared that I had not noticed any signs of illness on the part of Lord Gascoyne till we reached the room where the ladies were. There had certainly been nothing to arouse anxiety before we left the table.
The depositions of myself, Mrs. Gascoyne, my wife, and Miss Lane were taken first, and they then passed on to the medical evidence.
Dr. Grange was the first to be examined. He stated that on reaching the castle he found Lord Gascoyne in such a serious state that he immediately sent for the assistance of Dr. Phillimore. The latter seemed to think that Lord Gascoyne was suffering from poisoning, an opinion which he had not at first shared. At the post-mortem, however, a sufficient amount of arsenic was found in the body to have caused death.