“About that curious incident in the Rue de Courcelles—Mademoiselle de Foville’s strange attack.”
“Well, what of it?” I asked eagerly.
“Strangely enough a man, who proved to be an Englishman giving himself the name of Payne, was brought to the Hôtel Dieu three nights ago in what appeared to be a cataleptic state. He had, it seemed, been found by the police lying on the pavement in the Boulevard St. Germain, and was at first believed to be dead. Some letters in English being found upon him, I was called, and upon examination discovered exactly the same symptoms as those which mademoiselle your friend had displayed. I was enabled, therefore, to administer an antidote, and within twelve hours the man had sufficiently recovered to take his discharge. The case has excited the greatest possible interest at the hospital, for I had previously submitted a portion of the solution obtained from the envelope which mademoiselle had used to Professor Ferrari, of Florence, the greatest authority on toxicology in the world, and he had declared it to be an entirely unknown, but most potent, poison.”
“Who was the Englishman? Did he tell you nothing?”
“No. Unfortunately the hospital authorities allowed him to leave before I deemed it wise to question him. I read the letters found upon him, however; but they conveyed nothing, except that he had been recently living somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hackney.”
“Then you have no idea of the manner in which the poison was administered?” I said, disappointed.
“His right hand was rather swollen, from which I concluded that he had accidentally touched some object impregnated with the fatal compound.”
“You don’t know its composition yet?”
“No. Ferrari is trying to discover it, but at present has failed. The fact of a second person suffering from it is in itself very mysterious. I intended to call upon you this evening and tell you all about it.”
“The affair is extraordinary,” I admitted. “I wonder whether the same person who made the attempt upon Yolande’s life is responsible for the attempt upon the Englishman? What can be the motive?”