Detective and mystery stories; English fiction -- 19th century
in Guy's Hospital Reports for October, 1857. As matters progressed,
I took the opportunity of pointing this out as delicately as I could
to the Baron, and asked if he had any suspicions of foul play. He
seemed at first almost amused by the suggestion; but upon further
consultation was inclined to take a graver view of the matter. We went
carefully through the cases in question, the Baron translating that of
Dr. Mayerhofer for my benefit, as I was not a German scholar. At his
suggestion, we determined to analyse the various excretions, &c., and
an examination was accordingly instituted in the Baron's laboratory.
He was always very particular in keeping up the supply of medicine,
and would never allow the bottles, &c., to be thrown away. There was
therefore some remnant of every medicine that had been made up for
her. These we tested carefully, as well as the excreta, &c., both for
arsenic and for antimony, but without finding the slightest trace of
either. The analysis was conducted by the Baron, who took the greatest
interest in it. I could not, perhaps, have done it myself. Such matters
have not come within my line of practice. In such a case I should
certainly not trust to my own manipulations. I trusted to those of the
Baron, because I knew him to be an expert practical chemist, and in
the daily habit of such operations. My own share in them was limited
to the observation of results, and their comparison with those pointed
out by Professor Taylor. I did not take any special pains to ascertain
the purity of the chemical tests employed or of their being in fact
what they were assumed to be. That is to say, when a colourless liquid
with all the apparent characteristics of nitric acid was taken from
a bottle labelled "Nit. Ac." I took for granted that nitric acid was
being employed. Similarly, of course, with the other chemical agents.
It never occurred to me to do otherwise. Nor did I take any especial
precautions to identify the matters examined. Others might certainly
have been substituted; but if so, it must have been done by the Baron
himself. It was, perhaps, possible that he might have conducted his
investigations, under such supervision as I then exercised, with
fictitious tests, and it was quite so to substitute other matters and
mislead me by subjecting them to a real analysis. That is to say, this
would have been possible to be done by the Baron. No one else could,
under the circumstances, have done it, or at least without his direct
connivance. I had no ground for any suspicion of the kind, nor do I
see any now. I think it most unwarrantable. Every circumstance that
came under my notice goes equally to contravene such a supposition. The
Baron was devotedly attached to his wife: he supplied her liberally
with professional advice, as also with nurses, medicine, and every
necessary; his care for her led him to precautions which, in their
incidental results, must have inevitably exposed any attempt at the
administration of poison.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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