rical while trying to tell the captain, and start
screaming in the saloon, `Fully dressed! Dead! Fully dressed!' Mrs
Anthony ran out of course but she didn't get hysterical. Franklin, who
was there too, told me that she hid her face on the captain's breast and
then he went out and left them there. It was days before Mrs Anthony
was seen on deck. The first time I spoke to her she gave me her hand
and said, `My poor father was quite fond of you, Mr Powell.' She
started wiping her eyes and I fled to the other side of the deck. One
would like to forget all this had ever come near her."

But clearly he could not, because after lighting his pipe he began
musing aloud: "Very strong stuff it must have been. I wonder where he
got it. It could hardly be at a common chemist. Well, he had it from
somewhere--a mere pinch it must have been, no more."

"I have my theory," observed Marlow, "which to a certain extent does
away with the added horror of a coldly premeditated crime. Chance had
stepped in there too. It was not Mr Smith who obtained the poison. It
was the Great de Barral. And it was not meant for the obscure,
magnanimous conqueror of Flora de Barral; it was meant for the notorious
financier whose enterprises had nothing to do with magnanimity. He had
his physician in his days of greatness. I even seem to remember that
the man was called at the trial on some small point or other. I can
imagine that de Barral went to him when he saw, as he could hardly help
seeing, the possibility of a `triumph of envious rivals'--a heavy
sentence."

I doubt if for love or even for money, but I think possibly, from pity
that man provided him with what Mr Powell called "strong stuff." From
what Powell saw of the very act I am fairly certain it must have been
contained in a capsule and that he had it about him on the last day of
his trial, perhaps secured by a stitch in his waistcoat pocket. He
didn't use it. Why? Did he think of his child at the last moment? Was
it want of courage? We can't tell. But he found it in his clothes when
he came out of jail. It had escaped investigation if there was any.
Chance had armed him. And chance alone, the chance of Mr Powell's
life, forced him to turn the abominable weapon against himself.

I imparted my theory to Mr Powell who accepted it at once as, in a
sense, favourable to the father of Mrs Anthony. Then he waved his
hand. "Don't let us think of it."

I acquiesced and ve