"Could the beetle-powder have poisoned the children?" I asked. "I don't know, Johnny. It is an odd tale altogether. We will go down and inquire into it." Which of course implied that he expected me to go with him. Nothing loath was I; more eager than he. Finishing what was left of the tea and bread-and-butter, we went on to Piefinch Cut. Ann Dovey was alone, except for her husband and mother. She flung herself on the sofa when she saw us--the blacksmith's house was comfortably off for furniture--and began to scream. "Now, just you stop that, Ann Dovey," said Duffham, who was always short with hysterics. "I want to come to the bottom of this business; you can't tell it me while you scream. What in the world possessed you to go about with your pocket full of poison?" She had her share of sense, and knew Duffham was not one to be trifled with; so she told the tale as well as she could for sobbing. "Have you mentioned this out of doors?" was the first question Duffham asked when it was over. "No," interposed Dovey. "I telled 'er afore I come to you not to be soft enough for that. Not a soul have heard it, sir, but me and her"--pointing to the old mother--"and you and Master Johnny. We don't want all the parish swarming about us like so many hornets." "Good," said Duffham. "But it is rather a serious thing, I fear. Uncertain, at any rate." "Be it, sir?" returned Ann, raising her heavy eyes questioningly. "Do you think so?" "Why, you see, the mischief must have lain between that beetle-powder and Crew's pills. As Crew is so careful a man, I don't think it could have been the pills; and that's the truth." "But how could the beetle-powder have got anigh the children out of my pocket, sir?" she asked, her eyes wild. "I never put my hand into my pocket while I sat there; I never did." "You can't be sure of that," returned Duffham. "We may put our hands into our pockets fifty times a day without remembering it." "D'you suppose, sir, I should take out some o' that there beetle-powder and cram it down the poor innocents' throats?" she demanded, on the verge of further screaming. "Where is the powder?" questioned Duffham. The powder was where it had been all along: in the gown-pocket. Want of opportunity, through fear of Dovey's eyes, or dread of touching the stuff, had kept her from meddling with it. When she took the gown off, the night of the inquest, she hung it up on the accustomed hook, and there it was still. The old mother went to the bedroom and brought it forward, handling it gingerly: a very smart print gown with bright flowers upon it. Duffham looked round, saw a tin pie-dish, and turned the pocket inside out into it. A speckled sort of powder, brown and white. He plunged his fingers into it fearlessly, felt it, and smelt it. The blue paper it had been sold in lay amidst it, cracked all across. Duffham took it up.