The Sirani family had no enemies, and many friends; and the number of persons who could have had access to her or to the food she had taken, was very small. The members of her own family were plunged in grief at their bereavement. The three pupils had been sincerely attached to Elisabetta, and were scarcely less so. There was an old woman, who, on the day before she had been taken seriously ill, had been employed by Giovanni to carry a picture to a patron in the city. Fearing that the messenger might be long detained, he had desired that she might have some food given her in the house, before she started on her errand. Lucia had given her some soup from the pot preparing for the family. The old woman said, that it was insipid. Whereupon, Lucia, who was that same day, it will be remembered, about to leave her place, took, as the old woman swore, a paper of powder from her bosom, and shook some of its contents into the soup, saying "There! take a little cinnamon with it!" She further deposed that the powder was reddish, but did not taste like cinnamon; that she ate only a few spoonsful of the soup because she felt something gritty between her teeth; and, finally, that she was afterwards taken so ill, as to be obliged to go to the hospital. The last fact was indubitably true; but it was equally so that she came out cured, without it ever having occurred to the hospital doctors to treat her for poison. Under these circumstances it was decided, that Lucia must be the poisoner. But she had always been particularly fond of the deceased. Ah! but then she had a love affair with the tinker, which looked very bad. She had obstinately determined to leave her place just before fairing time. That was very suspicious. She had to all appearance poisoned the old woman also; though nobody seems to have dreamed of asking for what possible motive she should have committed this second crime. Then, to clinch all, the reverend Dr. Masi, the Archbishop's fiscal (a friend of the Sirani family), swore, that on his visiting Lucia in prison, in order to examine her as to the state of her soul, she said, "If you mean to hang me, do it at once. At all events, I have given my soul to the devil!" So that it was clear, that Lucia was the poisoner. She was arrested, and the judicial investigations were commenced. Two of the medical men, who had been present at the post mortem examination, Gallerati and another, were examined; and, after giving a detailed account of the appearances they had observed, declared it certain that Elisabetta had died by poison, either administered to her or "naturally developed," but with strong probability in favour of the former hypothesis.