By sheer habit she looked at the label. It was the same, and not the same. Hetty stifled a cry of surprise. She had made no mistake before--of that she was certain. Then what could possibly have happened? Somebody had crept into the room in her absence and changed the bottles!
There could be no doubt about that. The label had the same chemist's name on it, with the red caution of "Poison" underneath. The girl put the bottle to her nostrils and noticed the difference in the smell.
The discovery turned her sick and faint. That any one should deliberately try and take an innocent life like this filled her with loathing.
Mamie had dropped into what looked like a sound sleep. Hetty lay on the bed with the light out. She had the switch to her hand, she could lie there with the chance that the fiend who had done this thing would come back. More than one person in the house had known that that medicine was an experiment. If Mamie died it would do Bruce incalculable harm. And she herself might suffer. A thousand horrors rose out of the darkness and mocked at Hetty.
She lay there waiting patiently. Soon it seemed to her that somebody was in the room. She could hear breathing that was not her own, and the creep, creep of drapery. There was a faint rattle on the stand where the medicine stood, so faint that it would not have been heard by any but strained ears.
Hetty could stand it no longer. Her fingers went out to the electric switch, there was a sudden snap, and the room was bathed in light. There was a startling cry from a woman who stood just under the light with a bottle in her hand--the real bottle, as Hetty could see quite plainly.
"Now I have got you, murderess!" Hetty cried.
The woman reached up a long white hand, and taking the bulb of the swinging electric light in her grasp desperately, crushed it to pieces. Then there was swift darkness again and the rush of flying feet.
If there was a dark mystery any longer it was confined to the Corner House now. Hetty was not likely to see any more of Lytton Avenue. It was fortunate for her that Mamie was so much better in the morning, for as soon as the business of the day had commenced there was a rush of people to Lytton Avenue.