"Of murdering my cousin under the disguise of the negro Caesar, but I am innocent, Mr. Fanks, as I hope to prove to you. I was trapped by that man and his accomplice, Dr. Turnor." "Ah!" murmured Fanks, while Binjoy scowled. "I was sure that the ferret had something to do with the matter." "Of that you shall judge for yourself," said Fellenger. "Have you heard of Mithridates, Mr. Fanks?" The detective was rather astonished at this apparently irrelevant question; but having some knowledge of ancient history, he said that he had heard of the monarch. "He was a king of Pontus, wasn't he; who lived on poisons?" "Exactly. He accustomed himself to taking poisons for so long that in the end the most deadly had no effect on him. I always thought that this was a fable and I wanted to see if I was right. For this purpose, I tried experiments on dogs. I inoculated an animal with a weak poison, and gradually increased the dose. Whether I was successful does not matter; it has nothing to do with my story. But I may tell you this, that, with the aid of Binjoy, I prepared a very powerful vegetable poison for my final experiment; with this I impregnated a needle." "Oh!" said Fanks, "now I am beginning to see. Was it an ordinary needle?" "No, it was not an ordinary needle," replied Fellenger. "In the first place it was silver; in the second, it was hollow; in the third, it was filled with this deadly vegetable poison, of which I told you." "Prepared by Dr. Binjoy?" "Prepared by both of us," said Binjoy, savagely. "Let him take his share of the guilt." "I am not guilty. Mr. Fanks can judge of that for himself when I tell him what I know," retorted the baronet. "Well, Mr. Fanks, we prepared this needle and placed it in a case; for the least prick with it meant death by blood poisoning. We intended to use it on the dog, when the animal was sufficiently saturated with weaker poisons to admit of the experiment being made. You may be sure, sir, that I was very careful of that needle; I placed it in my cabinet. Dr. Binjoy had access to that cabinet." "I had not," contradicted Binjoy. "Yes, you had; you possessed a key as well as myself," retorted Sir Louis, sharply. "I did not," said the doctor, obstinate in his denial. "Don't lie, Binjoy, I found you with it opened one day; the day Anne Colmer was with you, and I was so angry." "Oh, Anne Colmer knew about this needle?" said Fanks. "I can't say," said Fellenger. "While I was living at Taxton-on-Thames, Miss Colmer sometimes came to the house. But I was angry at Binjoy for opening that cabinet in her presence, as there were a lot of dangerous drugs in it." "She touched none of them," growled. Binjoy. "Oh!" said Fanks, sharply. "Then you admit that you showed Miss Colmer the cabinet of poisons."