“Do you remember the scent of that rose? It was a Gloire de Dijon. You touched it with your fingers as you spoke.”
“Yes,” he replied again, and now he stretched out his hands and clasped one of hers, holding it in a warm pressure. “I am the luckiest fellow in the world,” he said, “but I wish to heaven I could——”
“Get rid of that suspicion or—or verify it.”
“Dick dear!” said Barbara in her most soothing voice. She slipped nearer to him. “I have changed my mind. We had better have this thing out. What do you want to verify?”
“Do you really wish to know at last?” he said.
“It will be a relief to tell you. You remember that Piers always slept in the nursery. The dressing-room was just beyond, and the nurse kept the medicine and all bottles in the dressing-room. The first night I visited him I went with her to the door of the dressing-room. She gave me the medicine, and I took it into the room alone. I gave the child the medicine, and just when he had finished it the nurse came back. The boy complained that the medicine tasted queer and sweet, not like that which he had been taking.
“The nurse took the glass and tasted what was left, and said that she thought the child must have had the wrong medicine. She went out of the room as she spoke and shut the door after her. I forgot about this at the time, but it came back to me afterwards.
“Ever since the death I have been putting two and two together. I have been anxious to meet Mrs. Tarbot to ask her if she ever had the medicine analyzed to find out why she called it wrong. Then, Barbara dear, I don’t believe that Piers had heart disease. Don’t you remember how he used to run and race, and play tennis and croquet, and ride his pony and his bicycle?
“He could not have done all these things if he had organic disease of the heart—I don’t believe it. He was taken ill very suddenly, and a favorite nurse of Tarbot’s was engaged to look after him. She herself confessed in my presence that there was something wrong with the medicine which she handed to me to give him. All these things might have been of course merely incidents leading to nothing, but on the night the child died a strange thing happened. I was called to the door of the dressing-room and given the boy’s medicine again. The nurse said it would have a very stimulating effect, and would take off the weakness from which the child was suffering. It did not do so—on the contrary, the boy died a few moments afterwards.”