"Something of that sort, Mr. Macpherson," assented Matherfield, as he and Hetherwick took chairs at a centre table. "But my man'll have prepared you a bit, no doubt. He tells me he showed you the photographed facsimiles of certain torn labels that are on a medicine bottle which figures in the Hannaford case, and that in consequence of your seeing them you asked to see me. Well, sir, here I am!" "Aye, just so, Mr. Matherfield, just so, precisely," replied the chemist, turning up the gas-jet which hung above the table. "Aye, to be sure!" He, too, sat down at the table, and folded his thin long fingers together. "Aye, and you'll be thinking, Mr. Matherfield, that yon bottle has something to do with the poisoning of Hannaford?" "I'll be candid with you, Mr. Macpherson," answered Matherfield. "But first let me ask you something. Have you read the newspaper accounts of this affair?" "I've done that, Mr. Matherfield--yes, all I could lay hands on." "Then you'll be aware that there was another man poisoned as well as Hannaford--a man named Granett, who was in Hannaford's company on the night when it all happened? This gentleman here is the one that was in the Underground train and saw Hannaford die, and Granett make off, as he said, to fetch a doctor." "That'll be Mr. Hetherwick, I'm thinking," said the chemist, with a polite bow. "Aye, just so!" "I see you've read the reports of the inquest," remarked Matherfield, with a smile. "Very well, as I say, Granett was found dead later. I discovered a medicine bottle and a glass at his bedside. There'd been whisky in both, but according to the medical experts there had also been poison--the traces, they say, were indisputable. Now, on that medicine bottle were two torn labels--on the upper one, as you see from the facsimile photograph, there's been a name written--all that's left is the initial C. and the first letter of a surname, A. All the rest's gone. And what I want to know is--are you the chemist that made up the medicine or the tonic, or whatever it was, that was in that bottle, and, if so, who is the customer for whom you made it, and whose Christian name begins with C. and surname with A.? Do you comprehend me?" "Aye, aye, Mr. Matherfield!" answered the chemist eagerly. "I'm appreciating every word you're saying, and very lucid it all is. And I'm willing to give you all the information in my power, but first I'd just like to have a bit myself on a highly pertinent matter. Now, you'll be aware, Mr. Matherfield, if you've seen the newspapers of this last day or two, that there's a firm of solicitors in Lincoln's Inn Fields that's offering a reward of five thousand pounds----"