"Don't--don't you play any of your infernal tricks on me, you--you villain! Curse it, why can't I get at that bell!" He made as if to rise, but, seemingly, was as incapable of movement as if he had been glued to his seat. As if conscious that his peril was imminent, he raised his voice to a raucous scream.
"Don't--don't you dare to lay your hands on me! Don't--don't you dare to touch me! Help!"
As the uncle opened his mouth to cry for aid the nephew caught him by the throat and slipped between his lips the tiny white lozenge which he had taken from the silver box. Then he struck up his jaw with a click and held it shut, so that he could not put it out again. Forcing back his head, he gripped him tight. His uncle was seized with a convulsion which seemed to Rodney as if it must have shaken the carriage. Almost at the same instant it was as if all vitality had gone clean out of him. The nephew was gripping a limp corpse.
Graham Patterson, in the agony of that last convulsion, had nearly slipped off the seat, so that, with a very little, he would be on the floor. His nephew, who hitherto had not for a moment lost his presence of mind, and who kept it then, was at a loss. Would such an attitude be recognised as proper for a suicide? Would, that is, a doctor--any doctor--be prepared to assert that a man who had killed himself with potassium cyanide might, under the circumstances, quite conceivably die in such an attitude, or assume it after death? To Rodney's supernaturally keen vision there were trifles about his uncle's appearance which scarcely marked this as inevitably a case of suicide. The collar was a little crumpled; the tie a little disarranged; he even fancied that there were prints of his fingers on the skin of the throat. He was conscious that he had gripped him with great force--perhaps a little clumsily; he certainly ought to have avoided contact with the collar and the tie, but no doubt the prints would wear off. Indeed, as he bent closer he was not sure that they did not exist only in his imagination; the light was not good; he could not be certain. With dexterous fingers he smoothed the collar, he rearranged the tie--so deftly that he felt convinced that no one would notice that anything had been wrong with him. He raised the body a little, so that it was in what seemed to him to be a more natural position, on the edge of the seat; he felt that it would look better. He was surprised to find how heavy his uncle was--it required quite an effort on his part to lift him.