“There was another coincidence.” The detective pursued relentlessly. “The brandy-and-soda, which Lord Ashfrith was drinking at the moment of his death, was naturally a pale amber color. So was the brandy which your Uncle Alaric drank as he died. And prussic acid is amber-colored, too, Mr. Rockamore! Lord Ashfrith 269 was carving a peach-stone when the end came, and the odor of peaches clung to his body. Your Uncle Alaric partook of peach brandy, and the same odor hovered about him in death. Prussic acid is redolent of the odor of peaches!”
Rockamore started from his chair.
“I understand what you are attempting to establish by the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence!” he sneered. “But you are away beyond your depth, my man! May I ask where you obtained this interesting but scarcely valuable information?”
“From Scotland Yard, by cable, to-day.” Blaine rose also and faced the other man. “An investigation was started into the second death, upon the Earl’s request, but it was dropped for lack of evidence. About that time, Mr. Rockamore, you decided rather suddenly, and for no apparent reason, to come to America, where you have remained ever since.”
“Mr. Blaine, if I were in the mood to be facetious, I might employ your American vernacular and ask that you tell me something I don’t know! Come to the point, man; you try my patience.”
“In view of recent developments, I am under the impression that Scotland Yard would welcome your reappearance on British soil, but I fear that will be forever impossible,” Blaine said slowly. “Just as you were beside your uncles when each met with his end, so you were beside Pennington Lawton when death came to him! That has been proved. Just as brandy and soda, and peach brandy, are amber-colored, so are Scotch high-balls, which you and Pennington Lawton were drinking. No odor of peaches lingered about the room, for Miss Lawton had lighted a handful of joss-sticks in a vase upon the mantel earlier in the evening, and their pungent 270 perfume filled the air. But the odor of peaches permeated the room when the tiny bottle which you hid in the folds of the chair was uncorked––the odor of peaches rose above the stench of mortifying flesh, when the body of your victim was exhumed late last night for a belated autopsy! The heart would have revealed the truth, had there been no corroborative evidence, for it was filled with arterial blood––incontrovertible proof of death by prussic-acid poisoning.”
There was a tense pause, and then Rockamore spoke sharply, his voice strained to the breaking point.
“If you are so certain of my guilt, Blaine, why have you come to me secretly here and now? What is your price?”
“I have no price,” the great detective answered, simply.
“Then why did you not arrest me at once? Why this purposeless interview?”