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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.
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