le
flask of nitrate of amyl in Florence's hand suggested instantly to
my mind the idea of the failure of her heart. Nitrate of amyl, you
understand, is the drug that is given to relieve sufferers from angina
pectoris.

Seeing Florence, as I had seen her, running with a white face and
with one hand held over her heart, and seeing her, as I immediately
afterwards saw her, lying upon her bed with the so familiar little brown
flask clenched in her fingers, it was natural enough for my mind to
frame the idea. As happened now and again, I thought, she had gone out
without her remedy and, having felt an attack coming on whilst she was
in the gardens, she had run in to get the nitrate in order, as quickly
as possible, to obtain relief. And it was equally inevitable my mind
should frame the thought that her heart, unable to stand the strain
of the running, should have broken in her side. How could I have known
that, during all the years of our married life, that little brown
flask had contained, not nitrate of amyl, but prussic acid? It was
inconceivable.

Why, not even Edward Ashburnham, who was, after all more intimate with
her than I was, had an inkling of the truth. He just thought that she
had dropped dead of heart disease. Indeed, I fancy that the only people
who ever knew that Florence had committed suicide were Leonora, the
Grand Duke, the head of the police and the hotel-keeper. I mention these
last three because my recollection of that night is only the sort of
pinkish effulgence from the electric-lamps in the hotel lounge. There
seemed to bob into my consciousness, like floating globes, the faces of
those three. Now it would be the bearded, monarchical, benevolent head
of the Grand Duke; then the sharp-featured, brown, cavalry-moustached
feature of the chief of police; then the globular, polished and
high-collared vacuousness that represented Monsieur Schontz, the
proprietor of the hotel. At times one head would be there alone, at
another the spiked helmet of the official would be close to the healthy
baldness of the prince; then M. Schontz's oiled locks would push in
between the two. The sovereign's soft, exquisitely trained voice would
say, "Ja, ja, ja!" each word dropping out like so many soft pellets
of suet; the subdued rasp of the official would come: "Zum Befehl
Durchlaucht," like five revolver-shots; the voice of M. Schontz would go
on and on under its breath like that of an unclean priest reciting
from his