took my leave of him; but before I quitted his room Miss Blandy
desired I would visit him again the next day. When I got downstairs
one of the maids put a paper into my hands, which she said Miss Blandy
had thrown into the kitchen fire. Several holes were burnt in the
paper, but not a letter of the superscription was effaced. The
superscription was "The powder to clean the pebbles with."

What is the maid's name that gave you that paper?--I cannot recollect
which of the maids it was that gave it me. I opened the paper very
carefully, and found in it a whiteish powder, like white arsenic in
taste, but slightly discoloured by a little burnt paper mixed with it.
I cannot swear this powder was arsenic, or any other poison, because
the quantity was too small to make any experiment with that could be
depended on.

What do you really suspect it to be?--I really suspect it to be white
arsenic.

Please to proceed, sir.--As soon as the maid had left me, Mr. Norton,
the apothecary, produced a powder that, he said, had been found at the
bottom of that mess of gruel, which, as was supposed, had poisoned Mr.
Blandy. He gave me some of this powder, and I examined it at my
leisure, and believed it to be white arsenic. On Monday morning,
August the 12th, I found Mr. Blandy much worse than I had left him the
day before. His complexion was very bad, his pulse intermitted, and he
breathed and swallowed with great difficulty. He complained more of
his fundament than he had done before. His bowels were still in pain.
I now desired that another physician might be called in, as I
apprehended Mr. Blandy to be in the utmost danger, and that this
affair might come before a Court of judicature. Dr. Lewis was then