That I regarded the case as really serious is surely further supported by the fact that, notwithstanding the easy-going attitude of Dr. Humphreys, I had persisted in urging a consultation, which accordingly took place on the 7th. As to what the attending physicians _knew_ or _did not know_ about the medical aspects of the case, I confidently refer the reader to their own remarkable testimony. There then remains for serious consideration only what is known as the “Valentine meat-juice incident.” Of this I know no more now than is included in my statement at the trial--namely, that at my husband’s urgent, piteous request I placed a powder (which by his direction I took from a pocket in his vest, hanging in the adjoining room, which room until his sickness had been his private bedroom, he having been removed to mine as being larger and more airy) in a bottle of meat juice, no part of the contents of which were given him, and hence at the very most there could only have legally arisen from this act a charge of “intent to poison.” I do not assume that I can solve a problem that has puzzled so many able minds, but I trust I shall make clear that the prosecution can not acquit itself of the inference of “cooking” up a case against me with reference to this meat-juice incident: 1. At the inquest, only a few days after the occurrence, Nurse Gore testified, “I could and did see _clearly_ what Mrs. Maybrick did with the bottle,” though she failed to tell what she saw; and it is remarkable she was not further questioned on this point. At the magisterial inquiry and trial, _per contra_, she testified that “she [I] pushed the door to conceal (note the animus) her [my] movements”; but on cross-examination she so far corrected herself as to say: “Mrs. Maybrick did _not_ shut the dressing-room door.” 2. When I returned with the bottle to the sick-room, she testified that I placed it on the table in a “_surreptitious manner_,” though this action, according to her own testimony, happened while “she [I] raised her right hand and replaced the bottle on the table, while she [I] was talking to me [her].” If one wanted to do such an act “surreptitiously,” would one choose the moment of all others when by conversation one is calling attention to oneself? Do not the two things involve a direct contradiction? 3. It is in evidence that an hour after I had placed the bottle on a little table in the window, I returned to the room and removed it from the table to the washstand (where it remained during most of the next day), lest the sight of it should renew Mr. Maybrick’s desire for it, as he had just awakened. Note how this bottle is juggled with by the witnesses for the prosecution.