Should I tell her of my own suspicions? No. To keep my knowledge to myself and seek to discover the key to the problem was my best course.
“And your cousin was with her for twenty minutes, you say?”
“Yes, about that time,” she replied. “I did not hurry to finish my dinner as I believed Beryl was talking with the dressmaker regarding some alterations to an evening bodice which she had mentioned to me. They did not interest me, therefore I sat awaiting her return.”
“And by that time this woman, whoever she was, had already slipped out of the house.”
“She must have done so. No one heard her leave.”
“Let us hope that Hoefer will solve the enigma. If any one is able, he is.”
“But first urge him to bring poor Beryl back to consciousness,” she said, turning to gaze upon the still inanimate form of the woman I adored.
At that moment the German returned, puffing and grunting, for he had hurried, and the perspiration was rolling off his brow.
He took several little packets from his pocket, and, seating himself at the table, commenced to carefully prepare another solution, the ingredients of which were unknown to me. Some of the drugs I knew by their appearance, of course, but others were white powders, impossible to recognise.
Again he administered an injection into the arm of my prostrate loved one, and then we all three stood in silence watching for the effect.