“Sorry to have been so long,” said the Inspector, “but I couldn’t get Sir John on the telephone, so I had to go and find him. Anything happened?”
“Not a thing,” said Drummond.
MacIver had brought another torch and several candles, and by their light Sir John proceeded to make his examination. He had donned a pair of stout india rubber gloves, but even with their protection he handled things very gingerly.
First he poured what was left of the poison into another bottle, and corked it with a rubber cork. Then he took a sample of the dead woman’s blood, which he placed in a test-tube and carefully stoppered. And finally, after a minute examination of the cut in her hand and the terrible staring eyes, he rose to his feet.
“We can now carry her upstairs,” he remarked. “There is nothing more to be seen here. But on your life don’t touch her hand.”
We lifted her up, and MacIver gave a sudden exclamation. Underneath where the body had been lying, and so unseen by us until then, was a hole in the floor. It had been made by removing a brick, and the brick, itself, which had been concealed by the body, lay beside the hole. At the bottom of the hole was some broken glass and the neck of the bottle from the base of which Sir John had removed the poison. So it was obviously the place where the poison had been hidden. But who had hidden it—and why?
“Obviously not a member of the gang,” said MacIver, “or she would have known where it was and not wasted time ransacking the house.”
“Therefore obviously Gaunt himself,” said Drummond. “Great Scott! man,” he added, “it’s the third brick from the wall. Give me your stick, Sir John. The handkerchief, MacIver—3 and 7.”
He tapped on the seventh brick, and sure enough it sounded hollow. With growing excitement we crowded round as he endeavoured to prise it up.
“Careful—careful,” cried Sir John anxiously. “If there’s another bottle we don’t want any risk of another casualty. Let me: I’ve got gloves on.”
And sure enough when the seventh brick was removed, a similar hole was disclosed, at the bottom of which lay a small cardboard pillbox. With the utmost care he lifted it out, and removed the lid. It was filled with a white paste, which looked like boracic ointment.
“Hullo!” he said after he’d sniffed it. “What fresh development have we here?”
And suddenly Drummond gave a shout of comprehension.
“I’ve got it. It’s the message on the handkerchief. 3 P. The third brick—poison: 7 A N T—the seventh brick, antidote. That’s the antidote, Sir John, you’ve got in your hand; and that’s what they’ve been after. That woman came down to look for it—and she only found the poison. Gaunt must have hidden them both while he was a prisoner down here, and then left that last despairing message of his …”
“We’ll try at once,” said Sir John quietly.
He handed me the pillbox, and took the poison himself.
“Take a little of the ointment on the end of a match,” he said, “and I’ll take a little of the poison. You hold one of the guinea-pigs, MacIver. Now the instant I have applied the poison, you follow it up with your stuff in the same place, Stockton.”
But the experiment was valueless. With a sudden convulsive shudder the little animal died, and when we tried with another the result was the same.
“Not a very effective antidote,” said Sir John sarcastically.
“Nevertheless,” said Drummond doggedly, “I’ll bet you it is the antidote. Couldn’t you analyse it, Sir John?”
“Of course I can analyse it,” snapped the other. “And I shall analyse it.”
He slipped the box into his bag, followed by the bottle of poison.
“I wonder if I might make a suggestion,” said Drummond. “I don’t want to seem unduly alarmist, but I think we’ve seen enough to realise that we are up against a pretty tough proposition. Now do you think it’s wise to have all one’s eggs in one basket, or rather all that snuff in one box? It might get lost: it might be stolen. Wouldn’t it be safer, Sir John, to give, say, half of it to MacIver—until at any rate your analysis is concluded? I see you have a spare box in your bag.”
We were going up the steps as he spoke and he was in front. And suddenly he paused for a moment or two and stared at the door. Then he went on into the hall, and I noticed that he glanced round him in all directions.
“A most sensible suggestion,” said Sir John, “with which I fully agree.”
“Then come in here, Sir John,” said Drummond. He led the way into one of the downstairs rooms, and shut the door. And it seemed to me that he was looking unduly grave. He watched the transfer of half the paste to another box, and he waited till MacIver had it in his pocket. Then—
“Please send for Fosdick, MacIver.”
A little surprised, the Inspector stepped to the window and beckoned to the man outside.
“Anyone been in this house, Fosdick, during the last half-hour?” said Drummond.
“Only Sir John’s assistant, sir.”
“I haven’t got an assistant,” snapped Sir John.
“My sainted aunt, Mac,” said Drummond grimly, “we’re up against the real thing this time. He’s gone, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir,” said Fosdick. “About ten minutes ago.”
“Then I tell you, Sir John, your life is not safe. It’s the stuff in the pillbox that they are after. Perhaps we’ve put it on wrong: perhaps you’ve got to eat it. Anyway that man who posed as your assistant knows you’ve got it. I beg of you to put yourself under police protection day and night. If possible, at any rate, until you have analysed the stuff don’t go near your house. Remain inside Scotland Yard itself.”
But what Sir John lacked in inches he made up for in pugnacity.
“If you imagine, sir,” he snapped, “that I am going to be kept out of my own
