The detective felt a sudden thrill, almost of premonition, at her unexpected question, but he controlled himself, and replied quietly:
“That was the diagnosis of the physician, and the coroner’s findings corroborated him.”
“Did it ever occur to you that there might be another 238 and more terrible explanation of his sudden death?”
“A detective must consider and analyze a case from every standpoint, you know, Miss Lawton,” he answered. “It did occur to me that perhaps your father met with foul play, but I put the theory from me for lack of evidence.”
“Mr. Blaine, my father was murdered!”
“Murdered! How do you know? What have you discovered?”
“He was given poison! I have found the bottle which contained it, hidden deep in the folds of his chair there. It was no morbid fancy of mine after all; my instinct was right! No wonder that chair has exerted such a horrible fascination for me ever since my poor father died in it. See!”
With indescribable loathing, she extended her left hand, which until now she had held clenched behind her. Upon the palm lay a tiny flat vial, with a pale, amber-colored substance dried in the bottom of it. Blaine took it and drew the cork. Before he had time to place it at his nostrils, a faint but unmistakable odor of bitter almonds floated out upon the air and pervaded the room.
“Prussic acid!” he exclaimed. “It has the same outward effect as an attack of heart-disease would produce, to a superficial examination. Miss Lawton, how did you discover this?”
“By the merest accident. I have a habit of creeping in here, when I am more deeply despondent than usual, and sitting for a while in my father’s chair. It calms and comforts me, almost as if he were with me once more. I was sitting there just before I telephoned you, thinking over all that had occurred in these 239 last weeks, when I broke down and cried. I felt for my handkerchief, but could not find it, and thinking that I might perhaps have dropped it in the chair, I ran my hand down deep in the leather fold between the seat and the side and back. My fingers encountered something flat and hard which had been jammed away down inside, and I dug it out. It was this bottle! Mr. Blaine, does it mean that my father was murdered by that man whose voice I heard––that man who came to him in the night and threatened him?”