London (England) -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
said to her, ‘You must take care, ma’am, you don’t make any mistake,
the two bottles are so exactly alike.’ ‘I can easily prevent that,’ she
says, and dipped her pen in the ink, and copied the directions on the
broken bottle, on to the label of the bottle that I had just filled.
‘There!’ she said. ‘Now I hope your mind’s at ease?’ She spoke
cheerfully, as if she was joking with me. And then she said, ‘But
where’s the measure-glass?’ I went back to the bedroom to look for it,
and couldn’t find it again. She changed all at once, upon that--she
became quite angry; and walked up and down in a fume, abusing me for my
stupidity. It was very unlike her. On all other occasions she was a
most considerate lady. I made allowances for her. She had been very much
upset earlier in the morning, when she had received a letter, which she
told me herself contained bad news. Yes; another person was present at
the time--the same woman that my mistress told you of. The woman looked
at the address on the letter, and seemed to know who it was from. I told
her a squint-eyed man had brought it to the house--and then she left
directly. I don’t know where she went, or the address at which she
lives, or who the messenger was who brought the letter. As I have said,
I made allowances for the deceased lady. I went downstairs, without
answering, and got a tumbler and a tablespoon to serve instead of the
measure-glass. When I came back with the things, she was still walking
about in a temper. She took no notice of me. I left the room again
quietly, seeing she was not in a state to be spoken to. I saw nothing
more of her, until we were alarmed by hearing her scream. We found
the poor lady on the floor in a kind of fit. I ran out and fetched the
nearest doctor. This is the whole truth, on my oath; and this is all I
know about it.”
The landlady was recalled at the request of the jury, and questioned
again about the old woman. She could give no information. Being asked
next if any letters or papers belonging to, or written by, the deceased
lady had been found, she declared that, after the strictest search,
nothing had been discovered but two medical prescriptions. The writing
desk was empty.
The doctor was the next witness.
He described the state in which he found the patient, on being called
to the house. The symptoms were those of poisoning by strychnine.
Examination of the prescriptions and the bottles, aided by the servant’s
information, convinced him that a fatal mistake had been made by the
deceased; the nature of which he explained to the jury as he had already
explained it to Amelius. Having mentioned the meeting with Amelius
at the house-door, and the events which had followed, he closed his
evidence by stating the result of the postmortem examination, proving
that the death was caused by the poison called strychnine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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