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СКАЧАТЬ it!” he whispered. “Poisoned! Hydrocyanic acid!”

Chapter XIII. Bryce is Asked a Question

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      Mitchington stepped aside into a private room, motioning Bryce to follow him. He carefully closed the door, and looking significantly at his companion, repeated his last words, with a shake of the head.

      “Poisoned!—without the very least doubt,” he whispered. “Hydrocyanic acid—which, I understand, is the same thing as what’s commonly called prussic acid. They say then hadn’t the least difficulty in finding that out! so there you are.”

      “That’s what Coates has told you, of course?” asked Bryce. “After the autopsy?”

      “Both of ‘em told me—Coates, and Everest, who helped him,” replied Mitchington. “They said it was obvious from the very start. And—I say!”

      “Well?” said Bryce.

      “It wasn’t in that tin bottle, anyway,” remarked Mitchington, who was evidently greatly weighted with mystery.

      “No!—of course it wasn’t!” affirmed Bryce. “Good Heavens, man—I know that!”

      “How do you know?” asked Mitchington.

      “Because I poured a few drops from that bottle into my hand when I first found Collishaw and tasted the stuff,” answered Bryce readily. “Cold tea! with too much sugar in it. There was no H.C.N. in that besides, wherever it is, there’s always a smell stronger or fainter—of bitter almonds. There was none about that bottle.”

      “Yet you were very anxious that we should take care of the bottle?” observed Mitchington.

      “Of course!—because I suspected the use of some much rarer poison than that,” retorted Bryce. “Pooh!—it’s a clumsy way of poisoning anybody!—quick though it is.”

      “Well, there’s where it is!” said Mitchington. “That’ll be the medical evidence at the inquest, anyway. That’s how it was done. And the question now is—”

      “Who did it?” interrupted Bryce. “Precisely! Well—I’ll say this much at once, Mitchington. Whoever did it was either a big bungler—or damned clever! That’s what I say!”

      “I don’t understand you,” said Mitchington.

      “Plain enough—my meaning,” replied Bryce, smiling. “To finish anybody with that stuff is easy enough—but no poison is more easily detected. It’s an amateurish way of poisoning anybody—unless you can do it in such a fashion that no suspicion can attach you to. And in this case it’s here—whoever administered that poison to Collishaw must have been certain—absolutely certain, mind you!—that it was impossible for any one to find out that he’d done so. Therefore, I say what I said—the man must be damned clever. Otherwise, he’d be found out pretty quick. And all that puzzles me is—how was it administered?”

      “How much would kill anybody—pretty quick?” asked Mitchington.

      “How much? One drop would cause instantaneous death!” answered Bryce. “Cause paralysis of the heart, there and then, instantly!”

      Mitchington remained silent awhile, looking meditatively at Bryce. Then he turned to a locked drawer, produced a key, and took something out of the drawer—a small object, wrapped in paper.

      “I’m telling you a good deal, doctor,” he said. “But as you know so much already, I’ll tell you a bit more. Look at this!”

      He opened his hand and showed Bryce a small cardboard pill-box, across the face of which a few words were written—One after meals—Mr. Collishaw.

      “Whose handwriting’s that?” demanded Mitchington.

      Bryce looked closer, and started.

      “Ransford’s!” he muttered. “Ransford—of course!”

      “That box was in Collishaw’s waistcoat pocket,” said Mitchington. “There are pills inside it, now. See!” He took off the lid of the box and revealed four sugar-coated pills. “It wouldn’t hold more than six, this,” he observed.

      Bryce extracted a pill and put his nose to it, after scratching a little of the sugar coating away.

      “Mere digestive pills,” he announced.

      “Could—it!—have been given in one of these?” asked Mitchington.

      “Possible,” replied Bryce. He stood thinking for a moment. “Have you shown those things to Coates and Everest?” he asked at last.

      “Not yet,” replied Mitchington. “I wanted to find out, first, if Ransford gave this box to Collishaw, and when. I’m going to Collishaw’s house presently—I’ve certain inquiries to make. His widow’ll know about these pills.”

      “You’re suspecting Ransford,” said Bryce. “That’s certain!”

      Mitchington carefully put away the pill-box and relocked the drawer.

      “I’ve got some decidedly uncomfortable ideas—which I’d much rather not have—about Dr. Ransford,” he said. “When one thing seems to fit into another, what is one to think. If I were certain that that rumour which spread, about Collishaw’s knowledge of something—you know, had got to Ransford’s ears—why, I should say it looked very much as if Ransford wanted to stop Collishaw’s tongue for good before it could say more—and next time, perhaps, something definite. If men once begin to hint that they know something, they don’t stop at hinting. Collishaw might have spoken plainly before long—to us!”

      Bryce asked a question about the holding of the inquest and went away. And after thinking things over, he turned in the direction of the Cathedral, and made his way through the Cloisters to the Close. He was going to make another move in his own game, while there was a good chance. Everything at this juncture was throwing excellent cards into his hand—he would be foolish, he thought, not to play them to advantage. And so he made straight for Ransford’s house, and before he reached it, met Ransford and Mary Bewery, who were crossing the Close from another point, on their way from the railway station, whither Mary had gone especially to meet her guardian. They were in such deep conversation that Bryce was close upon them before they observed his presence. When Ransford saw his late assistant, he scowled unconsciously—Bryce, and the interview of the previous afternoon, had been much in his thoughts all day, and he had an uneasy feeling that Bryce was playing some game. Bryce was quick to see that scowl—and to observe the sudden start which Mary could not repress—and he was just as quick to speak.

      “I was going to your house, Dr. Ransford,” he remarked quietly. “I don’t want to force my presence on you, now or at any time—but I think you’d better give me a few minutes.”

      They were at Ransford’s garden gate by that time, and Ransford flung it open and motioned Bryce to follow. He led the way into the dining-room, closed the door on the three, and looked at Bryce. Bryce took the glance as a question, and put another, in words.

      “You’ve heard of what’s happened during the day?” he СКАЧАТЬ