“Yes, yes,” I cried impatiently. “What is it? Whom does it concern?”
He hesitated a moment, looking straight into my eyes. “Then I regret to have to give you sad news, concerning your friend.”
“Which friend?”
“Mr Miller. He is dead.”
“Miller dead!” I gasped, starting up in bed and staring at him.
“He died apparently from the effects of something which he partook of at the house of this American.”
“And Lucie, his daughter?”
“She is well, though prostrated by grief. I have seen and questioned her,” was his answer. “She is greatly distressed to hear that you were here.”
“Did you give her my message?”
“Yes. She has promised to come and see you this afternoon. I would not allow her to come before,” the inspector said. “From her statement, it seems that on leaving the house in Hyde Park Gate she and her father walked along Kensington Gore to the cab-rank outside the Albert Hall, and entering a hansom told the man to drive to the Buckingham Palace Hotel. Ten minutes later, when outside the Knightsbridge Barracks, Mr Miller complained of feeling very unwell, and attributed it to something he had eaten not being quite fresh. He told his daughter that he had a strange sensation down his spine, and that in his jaws were tetanic convulsions. She grew alarmed, but he declared that when he reached the hotel he would call a doctor. Five minutes later, however, he was in terrible agony, and the young lady ordered the cab to stop at the next chemist’s. They pulled up before the one close to the corner of Sloane Street, but the gentleman was then in a state of collapse and unable to descend. The chemist saw the gravity of the case and told the man to drive on here—to this hospital. He accompanied the sufferer, who, before his arrival here, had breathed his last. The body was therefore taken to the mortuary, where a post-mortem was held this morning. I’ve just left the doctor’s. They say that he has died of some neurotic poison, in all probability the akazza bean, a poison whose reactions must resemble those of strychnia—in all probability the same as was administered to you.”