y looked up, interested.

"I believe," continued Lawrence, "that there have been cases where the
cumulative effect of a drug, administered for some time, has ended
by causing death. Also, is it not possible that she may have taken an
overdose of her medicine by accident?"

"This is the first we have heard of the deceased taking strychnine at
the time of her death. We are much obliged to you, Mr. Cavendish."

Dr. Wilkins was recalled and ridiculed the idea.

"What Mr. Cavendish suggests is quite impossible. Any doctor would tell
you the same. Strychnine is, in a certain sense, a cumulative poison,
but it would be quite impossible for it to result in sudden death in
this way. There would have to be a long period of chronic symptoms which
would at once have attracted my attention. The whole thing is absurd."

"And the second suggestion? That Mrs. Inglethorp may have inadvertently
taken an overdose?"

"Three, or even four doses, would not have resulted in death. Mrs.
Inglethorp always had an extra large amount of medicine made up at a
time, as she dealt with Coot's, the Cash Chemists in Tadminster. She
would have had to take very nearly the whole bottle to account for the
amount of strychnine found at the post-mortem."

"Then you consider that we may dismiss the tonic as not being in any way
instrumental in causing her death?"

"Certainly. The supposition is ridiculous."

The same juryman who had interrupted before here suggested that the
chemist who made up the medicine might have committed an error.

"That, of course, is always possible," replied the doctor.

But Dorcas, who was the next witness called, dispelled even that
possibility. The medicine had not been newly made up. On the contrary,
Mrs. Inglethorp had taken the last dose on the day of her death.

So the question of the tonic was finally abandoned, and the Coroner
proceeded with his task. Having elicited from Dorcas how she had
been awakened by the violent ringing of her mistress's bell, and had
subsequently roused the household, he passed to the subject of the
quarrel on the preceding afternoon.

Dorcas's evidence on this point was substantially what Poirot and I had
already heard, so I will not repeat it here.

The next witness was Mary Cavendish. She stood very upright, and
spoke in a low, clear, and perfectly composed voice. In answer to the
Coroner's question, she told how, her alarm clock having aroused her at
4.30 as usual, she was dressin