A decanter being placed upon a table, the doctor prepared a potent mixture which he handed to Mr. Lamb. "I think, Mr. Lamb, I understood you to say that Mrs. Lamb was married to you before she met Cuthbert Grahame?" "Of course she was--ever so long. She was never his wife; that was only her bluff. This is something like whisky. Gentlemen, your very good health, and the lady's--never overlook a lady." "You perceive, Andrew, that Mrs. Lamb was already Mrs. Lamb when she encountered your late client, Mr. Cuthbert Grahame, and, therefore, any document in which she is described as his wife is, I believe, on the face of it, null and void." Mr. McTavish made as if about to speak, but a movement of the doctor's left eyelid seemed to act as a check. The doctor turned to Mr. Lamb, grimly affable. "You like this whisky, Mr. Lamb?" Judging from the fact that that gentleman had already emptied his tumbler it seemed as if he did. "Allow me to fill your glass." The speaker suited the action to the word; he did very nearly fill the glass with neat spirit. "From what you said I should imagine that you have recently had rather a singular scene with your wife, Mr. Lamb. You were about to tell us what occurred. Was it anything very remarkable?" "I should think it was remarkable. Your very good health, gentlemen. After the stuff she forced down my throat this is something like whisky; ether she forced down my throat--rank poison. Why, do you know she sees things--actually sees things--give you my word--makes your blood cold to hear her talking. She made out we were in a bedroom--Cuthbert Grahame's bedroom she called it; it was only the boudoir. She talked about the things which were in it just as if they were in it, when of course they were nothing of the kind--just the ordinary furniture! 'You see that bed?' she said. Of course I didn't; there wasn't a bed to see; not even the ghost of a bed. 'That's Cuthbert Grahame lying in it. You see how he's propped up by pillows?' The idea of such a thing in a boudoir! 'Now I'm going to pull away those pillows from under his head.' She actually pretended to be pulling at pillows, or something--positive fact! 'Now,' she said, 'you see how his head's fallen? You hear what a noise he makes in trying to breathe? He's choking. I've only got to leave him like that for a time and he'll be dead. He almost choked to death when a pillow slipped the other day, so I know.' Quite serious she was all the time--frightfully serious; made me all over creeps to hear her--give you my word." "Do we understand you to tell us that she said, 'Now I'm going to pull away those pillows from under his head,' and that then, in pantomime, she went through the action of pulling them?" "Certainly; that's just what she did do--just exactly. Then she pretended to drop them on to the floor, and talked about the noise he made in trying to breathe. Awful!--really awful!" "Was that all she said? or did?"