I had ascertained that Gascoyne and Miss Falconer had two rooms on the same landing as myself, Nos. 10 and 11. On Friday morning, the day of their departure, as I was on my way downstairs I saw a breakfast tray for two on a chair on the landing outside their room. The breakfast was untasted. It was obviously theirs, and the waiter had most probably gone back for something.
There was not a soul in sight. I looked over the staircase. There was no one to be seen in the hall below. In a second my resolution was taken. Swiftly I took the tiny phial containing the aconite from my pocket and dropped a few grains into the teapot.
As I descended the stairs I met the waiter returning, breathless. He held a sugar basin in his hands, which he had evidently forgotten. I went on to the dining-room. To me the hotel was already full of the ghosts of pain. I was haunted even in that moment of stress by the one weak spot in my scheme. Aconitine is not instantaneous, neither does it rob the victims of their intelligence, which remains clear and undisturbed till the end. Should either of them be asked if it had been suicide the reply would of course be in the negative, and that would be an awkward factor at the inquest.
In a few minutes the hotel was in a state of excitement. This was what I had expected. The doctor was telephoned for from the village. Before he arrived, however, all was over and an awful gloom descended on the place. I felt severely the disadvantage of not knowing all that had passed in the death chamber. It appeared that the widow lady thoroughly understood nursing, and had at once ordered anyone who could not be of use out of the room. I was certainly not likely to pretend to any medical knowledge, so I remained in the hall asking eagerly for news from anyone who came down from the sick room, the widow’s two daughters, all their reserve banished, keeping me company.
It was their mother who brought us word of the tragic ending.
In a few minutes everybody in the hotel was gathered in the hall discussing the affair in hushed voices, and it was at this moment that the doctor bustled in.
“I was not at home when you telephoned,” he said.
The manageress explained that the people he had come to attend on were dead.
“Surely not, my dear Miss Worcester. Let me see them at once.”
The widow stepped forward.