"Strange indeed!" said Geoffery, "and has inquiry been made? Does any one own to having moved the packet? This may throw light on the whole affair. It is rather too bad that gentlemen are to lose their lives in this manner by the shameful carelessness of servants. How are they to prove it carelessness either? How are they to show it was not intentional? The half of them will be hung, I make no doubt, and richly they deserve it." "The servants are all ready to swear, that not one of them touched it, or so much as went near the place," replied Davison; "and what's more, the groom who was leading the horses round, after the gentlemen returned from riding, _sais_, that he saw Mr. Alfred coming out of the saddle-room with a paper parcel in his hand; so that if one of the family thought proper to remove the arsenic himself, and an accident happened in consequence to any article of food, the servants all say that was no fault of theirs." "Can the man swear to this?" "So he _sais_." "If this could be proved it might certainly clear servants from blame, but it is, I must say, altogether a very improbable story. If Sir Alfred had wished to have the arsenic removed to any other place, he would have given orders to that effect, and not have gone about the thing himself in the clandestine manner you describe. No, no, this won't do, it is but a flimsy excuse, and as I told you before, gentlemen are not to lose their lives by the shameful carelessness of servants; nor are their nonsensical excuses to be taken, and the thing hushed up. As for poor Sir Alfred, he is too much overcome by his grief to attend to any thing; it necessarily devolves upon me therefore to make the proper inquiries.--Send Johnson here, I must question him. I shall, in fact, examine them all, both separately and face to face."