just tastes the headache-powder, a very foolish thing to do, for by
the time Dr. Waterworth arrives he has two patients."

"No," I corrected, "only one, for Miss Lytton was dead when he
arrived, according to his latest statement."

"Very well, then - one. He arrives, Mrs. Boncour is ill, the maid
knows nothing at all about it, and Vera Lytton is dead. He, too,
smells the ammonia, tastes the headache-powder - just the merest
trace - and then he has two patients, one of them himself. We must
see him, for his experience must have been appalling. How he ever
did it I can't imagine, but he saved both himself and Mrs. Boncour
from poisoning - cyanide, the papers say, but of course we can't
accept that until we see. It seems to me, Walter, that lately the
papers have made the rule in murder cases: When in doubt, call it
cyanide."

Not relishing Kennedy in the humour of expressing his real opinion
of the newspapers, I hastily turned the conversation back again by
asking, "How about the note from Dr. Dixon?"

"Ah, there is the crux of the whole case - that note from Dixon.
Let us see. Dr. Dixon is, if I am informed correctly, of a fine
and aristocratic family, though not wealthy. I believe it has
been established that while he was an interne in a city hospital
he became acquainted with Vera Lytton, after her divorce from that
artist Thurston. Then comes his removal to Danbridge and his
meeting and later his engagement with Miss Willard. On the whole,
Walter, judging from the newspaper pictures, Alma Willard is
quite the equal of Vera Lytton for looks, only of a different