"Give me a pair of scissors," he continued; and then, after a minute, when they had been handed to him and he had removed the fur, "Ha!" he said gravely, "this is not so simple as I thought. The cat has been poisoned, but by a prick with some sharp instrument."
The King uttered an exclamation of incredulity. "But it drank the milk," he said. "Some milk that—"
"Pardon, sire," Du Laurens answered positively. "A draught of milk, however drugged, does not produce an external swelling with a small blue puncture in the middle."
"What does?" the King asked, with something like a sneer.
"Ah, that is the question," the physician answered. "A ring, perhaps, with a poison-chamber and hollow dart."
"But there is no question of that here," I said. "Let us be clear. Do you say that the cat did not die of the milk?"
"I see no proof that it did," he answered. "And many things to show that it died of poison administered by puncture."
"But then," I answered, in no little confusion of thought, "what of La Trape?"
He turned, and with him all eyes, to the unfortunate equerry, who still lay seemingly moribund, with his head propped on some cushions. M. Du Laurens advanced to him and again felt his pulse, an operation which appeared to bring a slight tinge of colour to the fading cheeks. "How much milk did he drink?" the physician asked after a pause.
"More than half a pint," I answered.