The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr Page B

probably heard about. It was an ordinary piece of wrapping-string, about a foot long, and tied at equal intervals into nine knots. I didn’t know what it means; I still don’t.”
    “Go on!” Partington prompted, sharply, as he stopped. “What then?”
    “Then? Nothing. We didn’t rouse the rest of the house. It wasn’t necessary: there were only a few more hours until morning. Lucy and Edith tried to go to bed, though they didn’t sleep. I said I would stay up: a gesture of respect or something. That was how I put it, though actually I wanted a chance to get that cup out of the room. Also, Ogden wasn’t in yet. I said I had better stay up on guard, in case he came home with a few under his belt at the wrong time… you know.
    “Lucy locked herself in our room. Edith cried a little. What we were all doing, in a stupefied sort of way, was blaming ourselves for negligence, but I knew it wasn’t that. After they had gone I went back into Miles’s room and put a sheet over his face. I took the silver cup and the glass out of the cupboard, and wrapped them both up in a handkerchief. Don’t ask me about fingerprints! My only instinct… I suppose it’s always like that with me… was to hide the evidence until I could decide what to do.”
    “Didn’t you have any idea of revealing it?” asked Partington.
    “If we could have reached a doctor in time to help Miles—yes, naturally. I’d have said, ‘Never mind this gastritis business; he’s been poisoned.’ But we couldn’t. And so—no.” Mark seemed almost fanatical, and Stevens studied him as he held tight, stiffly, to the arms of the chair. “You ought to understand that, Part. You remember how I almost——”
    “Steady,” said Partington, and cut him off sharply. “Go on with the story.”
    “I took the cup and the glass downstairs, and locked them up in a drawer of my desk in the library. You understand, so far there wasn’t an ounce of proof. And I had to dispose of the cat somehow, so I wrapped it up in my cavalier cloak and took it outside, by the side door, so as not to wake up the Hendersons at the back. There were some newly turned flower beds on the other side of the lawn, across the drive; and I knew that Henderson often kept a spade in the little closet as you go out the side door. I got the cat and buried it very far down. Edith doesn’t know what happened to it yet; they all suppose it wandered away. By the time I was finishing my job, I saw the lights of Ogden’s car coming up; for a second I thought he had seen me, but I got inside ahead.
    “That was all, for the moment. The next day—after I’d heard Mrs. Henderson’s story—I took the glass and the cup to town, to an analytical chemist I could trust absolutely, for a confidential report. It didn’t take long. The glass was harmless. The cup contained the dregs of some concoction made of milk and port wine, with an egg beaten into it; and in the dregs were two grains of white arsenic.”
    “Two grains?” repeated Partington, turning his head.
    “Yes. That’s a lot, isn’t it? I’ve been reading up——”
    “For the dregs,” said the other, grimly, “it’s a devil of a lot. There’s a case recorded of death ensuing from taking two grains. It’s the lowest amount recorded, yes; but if there was so much in the remains of the cup the full drink must have been loaded with it”
    “What’s the ordinary fatal dose?”
    Partington shook his head. “There’s no ‘ordinary’ fatal dose. As I say, death has ensued from taking two grains. On the other hand, a victim has been known to swallow two hundred grains, the largest known dose, and recover afterwards. You’ve got a pretty broad range between. For instance, you’ve heard of the case of Madeleine Smith, the Glasgow beauty who was accused of poisoning her French lover in 1857? Yes. There were eighty-eight grains of arsenic in L’Angelier’s stomach. Counsel at the trial, therefore, argued that the death must