"Well, that"s over. With a little care, Mr. Lucas, you"ll forget all about it in a week."
Never! But I did not tell him so. And he went on:
"And this all comes of what I venture to call a trifling indiscretion.
You think it"s jalap, and it"s laudanum."
"Laudanum is not a thing to trifle with," said Dr. Casey.
"It certainly isn"t a thing to drink in pailfuls."
As he said this, Dr. Goldsmith rattled his keys and coppers.
"Nor is it to be recommended as a liqueur with dessert--eh, Mr.
Lucas?" Dunn rubbed his hands, and grinned at me.
"The poor lady," said Dr. Casey, "whom I treated found it a very serious matter."
This was Mrs. Chalmers.
"The sweet young thing," said Goldsmith, "for whom I did my best, did not seem to think that the occasion was altogether a festive one," and this was how he spoke of her.
"I dare say, Mr. Lucas," sn.i.g.g.e.red Dunn, "that you have spent far more agreeable nights."
Dunn was the fiend who had pushed his zeal too far. And now he laughed at me!
"Dr. Lambert," observed Dr. Casey, "who treated the other gentleman, a.s.sured me that his patient asked him to put him out of his misery rather than push his treatment further."
That was Pybus. I could easily believe it. Death was preferable to Dunn"s emetics.
"Now, where is the bottle which contained the cause of all the mischief?"
The fatal bottle had been brought into my snuggery for safety. It was handed to Dunn. He sniffed at it.
"Hum!" He sniffed again. "Hum!" He seemed surprised. "Rather--rather an odd smell for laudanum. Smell that!"
He handed it to Goldsmith.
"Very"--sniff!--"odd"--sniff!--"indeed"--sniff. "You are sure it is the bottle?"
There was not the slightest doubt about its being the bottle. It was pa.s.sed to Casey. He had a smell.
"This isn"t laudanum," he declared.
"_Not_ laudanum!" Back it went to Dunn.
"It doesn"t smell like laudanum."
"It isn"t laudanum," said Goldsmith.
"Not a trace of it," said Casey.
NOT laudanum! I looked at Hughes. He looked at me. Then he staggered towards that fatal bottle.
"Let me--let me smell it."
They let him. An extraordinary change came over his countenance as he applied it to his nose. He staggered against the wall.
"Good--good heavens!"
What was it? Had he mistaken the poison? Was it strychnine, a.r.s.enic, prussic acid? Would the treatment have to be gone through all over again? For me, death rather than that.
"I see it all," cried Hughes, "I see the mistake I made. After all, it was not the bottle I supposed. I remember now that I placed that upon the shelf above."
"What is it?" I screamed.
"It"s--it"s what I thought it was."
"What you thought it was?"
"It"s "Aunt Jane"s Jalap.""
""Aunt Jane"s Jalap!""
The words came from the three medical gentlemen in a sort of chorus.
As for me, in spite of my piteous condition, I felt inclined to tear my hair--and Hughes"s!
"I see, quite clearly, how the mistake arose. It was in this way.
There were two sample bottles of the mixture, only in one of them the quant.i.ties were wrong. I placed it where I generally keep my laudanum--so that I shouldn"t mistake it. And when I found it missing, of course I thought it was the laudanum which had gone."
"Was it--was it poison?"
"Not a bit of it, dear boy! The finest medicine in the world! Only in that particular bottle there was a little too much jalap, and, taking it on the top of such a dinner as you"d been eating, it a little upset you--that was all."
That was all?
I thought of how those doctors had spent the night in practising on us their dreadful arts, of their bills, and----that was all.
w.i.l.l.yUM.
I had been seated in the next chair to hers for at least two minutes.
I felt that it was time to introduce myself.
"It"s a fine evening."