“Since when?” “Since yesterday morning, if you want to know.” “I do. I’m most interested. Dr. Foxton doesn’t compound his own prescriptions, does he?” “No. I get ’em made up at Siddle’s.” “Ah. These country chemists often keep drugs in stock till they deteriorate, or even set up chemical changes. Have you the bottles?” “Yes. But what the—” “Anything left in them?” “The last two are half full. Still—” “What a cross-grained chap you are? I buy your pictures, drink your tea, rescue you from a positively dangerous position, warn you against carrying any farther a most serious libel, yet you won’t let me help you in a matter affecting your health!” “Help me? How?” “Even you, I suppose, realize that Scotland Yard employs skilled analysts. Give me your bottles, in strict confidence, of course, and I’ll tell you what they really contain. Then you can compare the analyses with the doctor’s prescriptions. The knowledge should be useful, to say the least. Siddle’s reputation needn’t suffer, but, unless I am greatly mistaken, you will have the whip hand of him in future.” The prospect was alluring. Elkin would enjoy showing up the chemist, who had treated him rather as a precocious infant of late. “By jing!” he cried, “I’m on that. Bet you a quid—But, no. You’d hardly lay against your own opinion. Just wait a tick. I’ll bring ’em.” Furneaux stared fixedly at the table while his host was absent. His conscience was not pricking him with regard to an unmerited slur on the country chemists of Great Britain. All is fair in love and the detection of crime, and he simply had to get hold of those bottles by some daring yet plausible ruse. “Now—I wonder!” he muttered, as Elkin’s step sounded on the stairs. “There you are!” grinned the horse-dealer. “Take a dose of the last one. It’ll stir your liver to some tune.” Furneaux drew the corks out of both bottles, and sniffed the contents. Then he tasted, with much tongue-smacking. “Um!” he said. “Stale laudanum, for a start. I expected as much. Bought by the gallon and sold by the drop. Is that the dogcart with my pictures?” “Yes.” “Hail your man. He can give me a lift.” “But there’s lots of things I want to ask you—” “Probably. I’m here to put questions, not to give information. I’ve gone a long way beyond the official tether already. If you’ve a grain of sense, and I think you’re not altogether lacking in that respect, you’ll keep a close tongue, and act on the tips thrown out. You’ll find pearls of price among the rubbish-heap of my remarks generally. Good-by. See you on Wednesday.” And Furneaux climbed into the cart, holding the pictures so that they would not rattle, and perhaps loosen the old gilded frames.