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Page 54
"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.
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