Boncour, in convulsions--practically insensible--with a
bottle of headache-powder and a jar of ammonia on her dressing-table.
Mrs. Boncour sends the maid for the nearest doctor, who happens to be
a Dr. Waterworth. Meanwhile she tries to restore Miss Lytton, but
with no result. She smells the ammonia and then just tastes the
headache-powder, a very foolish thing to do, for by the time Dr.
Waterworth arrives he has two patients."
"No," I corrected, "only one, for Miss Lytton was dead when he
arrived, according to his latest statement."
"Very well, then--one. He arrives, Mrs. Boncour is ill, the maid knows
nothing at all about it, and Vera Lytton is dead. He, too, smells the
ammonia, tastes the headache-powder--just the merest trace--and then
he has two patients, one of them himself. We must see him, for his
experience must have been appalling. How he ever did it I
can't imagine, but he saved both himself and Mrs. Boncour from
poisoning--cyanide, the papers say, but of course we can't accept that
until we see. It seems to me, Walter, that lately the papers have made
the rule in murder cases: When in doubt, call it cyanide."
Not relishing Kennedy in the humor of expressing his real opinion
of the newspapers, I hastily turned the conversation back again by
asking, "How about the note from Dr. Dixon?"
"Ah, there is the crux of the whole case--that note from Dixon. Let
us see. Dr. Dixon is, if I am informed correctly, of a fine and
aristocratic family, though not wealthy.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25