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
CHAPTER V.
“IT ISN’T STRYCHNINE, IS IT?”
“Where did you find this?” I asked Poirot, in lively curiosity.
“In the waste-paper basket. You recognise the handwriting?”
“Yes, it is Mrs. Inglethorp’s. But what does it mean?”
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
“I cannot say—but it is suggestive.”
A wild