"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 dressing, when she was
startled by the sound of something heavy falling.