say, I say!” he whispered as soon as Bryce’s landlady had shut the door on them. “Here’s a fine business! I’ve heard something—something I can hardly credit—but it’s true. I’ve been to tell Collishaw’s family what’s happened. And—I’m fairly dazed by it—yet it’s there—it is so!”
“What’s so?” demanded Bryce. “What is it that’s true?”
Mitchington bent closer over the table.
“Dr. Ransford was fetched to Collishaw’s cottage at six o’clock this morning!” he said. “It seems that Collishaw’s wife has been in a poor way about her health of late, and Dr. Ransford has attended her, off and on. She had some sort of a seizure this morning—early—and Ransford was sent for. He was there some little time—and I’ve heard some queer things.”
“What sort of queer things?” demanded Bryce. “Don’t be afraid of speaking out, man!—there’s no one to hear but myself.”
“Well, things that look suspicious, on the face of it,” continued Mitchington, who was obviously much upset. “As you’ll acknowledge when you hear them. I got my information from the next-door neighbour, Mrs. Batts. Mrs. Batts says that when Ransford—who’d been fetched by Mrs. Batts’s eldest lad—came to Collishaw’s house, Collishaw was putting up his dinner to take to his work—”
“What on earth made Mrs. Batts tell you that?” interrupted Bryce.
“Oh, well, to tell you the truth, I put a few questions to her as to what went on while Ransford was in the house,” answered Mitchington. “When I’d once found that he had been there, you know, I naturally wanted to know all I could.”
“Well?” asked Bryce.
“Collishaw, I say, was putting up his dinner to take to his work,” continued Mitchington. “Mrs. Batts was doing a thing or two about the house. Ransford went upstairs to see Mrs. Collishaw. After a while he came down and said he would have to remain a little. Collishaw went up to speak to his wife before going out. And then Ransford asked Mrs. Batts for something—I forget what—some small matter which the Collishaw’s hadn’t got and she had, and she went next door to fetch it. Therefore—do you see?—Ransford was left alone with—Collishaw’s tin bottle!”
Bryce, who had been listening attentively, looked steadily at the inspector.
“You’re suspecting Ransford already!” he said.
Mitchington shook his head.
“What’s it look like?” he answered, almost appealingly. “I put it to you, now!—what does it look like? Here’s this man been poisoned without a doubt—I’m certain of it. And—there were those rumours—it’s idle to deny that they centred in Ransford. And—this morning Ransford had the chance!”
“That’s arguing that Ransford purposely carried a dose of poison to put into Collishaw’s tin bottle!” said Bryce half-sneeringly. “Not very probable, you know, Mitchington.”
Mitchington spread out his hands.
“Well, there it is!” he said. “As I say, there’s no denying the suspicious look of it. If I were only certain that those rumours about what Collishaw hinted he could say had got to Ransford’s ears!—why, then—”
“What’s being done about that post-mortem?” asked Bryce.
“Dr. Coates and Dr. Everest are going to do it this afternoon,” replied Mitchington. “The Coroner went to them at once, as soon as I told him.”
“They’ll probably have to call in an expert from London,” said Bryce. “However, you can’t do anything definite, you know, until the result’s known. Don’t say anything of this to anybody. I’ll drop in at your place later and hear if Coates can say anything really certain.”
Mitchington went away, and Bryce spent the rest of the afternoon wondering, speculating and scheming. If Ransford had really got rid of this man who knew something—why, then, it was certainly Ransford who killed Braden.
He went round to the police-station at five o’clock. Mitchington drew him aside.
“Coates says there’s no doubt about it!” he whispered. “Poisoned! Hydrocyanic acid!”
Chapter XIII. Bryce is Asked a Question
Mitchington stepped aside into a private room, motioning Bryce to follow him. He carefully closed the door, and looking significantly at his companion, repeated his last words, with a shake of the head.
“Poisoned!—without the very least doubt,” he whispered. “Hydrocyanic acid—which, I understand, is the same thing as what’s commonly called prussic acid. They say then hadn’t the least difficulty in finding that out! so there you are.”
“That’s what Coates has told you, of course?” asked Bryce. “After the autopsy?”
“Both of ‘em told me—Coates, and Everest, who helped him,” replied Mitchington. “They said it was obvious from the very start. And—I say!”
“Well?” said Bryce.
“It wasn’t in that tin bottle, anyway,” remarked Mitchington, who was evidently greatly weighted with mystery.
“No!—of course it wasn’t!” affirmed Bryce. “Good Heavens, man—I know that!”
“How do you know?” asked Mitchington.
“Because I poured a few drops from that bottle into my hand when I first found Collishaw and tasted the stuff,” answered Bryce readily. “Cold tea! with too much sugar in it. There was no H.C.N. in that besides, wherever it is, there’s always a smell stronger or fainter—of bitter almonds. There was none about that bottle.”
“Yet you were very anxious that we should take care of the bottle?” observed Mitchington.
“Of course!—because I suspected the use of some much rarer poison than that,” retorted Bryce. “Pooh!—it’s a clumsy way of poisoning anybody!—quick though it is.”
“Well, there’s where it is!” said Mitchington. “That’ll be the medical evidence at the inquest, anyway. That’s how it was done. And the question now is—”
“Who did it?” interrupted Bryce. “Precisely! Well—I’ll say this much at once, Mitchington. Whoever did it was either a big bungler—or damned clever! That’s what I say!”
“I don’t understand you,” said Mitchington.
“Plain enough—my meaning,” replied Bryce, smiling. “To finish anybody with that stuff is easy enough—but no poison is more easily detected. It’s an amateurish way of poisoning anybody—unless you can do it in such a fashion that no suspicion can attach you to. And in this case it’s here—whoever administered that poison to Collishaw must have been certain—absolutely certain, mind you!—that it was impossible for any one to find out that he’d done so. Therefore, I say what I said—the man must be damned
