“Can you make a guess as to the nature of the poison?” Hughes inquired.

“Some variant of hydrocyanic acid, I fancy—­the odour indicates that; but it must be about fifty times as deadly as hydrocyanic acid is.”

They wandered away into a discussion of possible variants, so technical and be-sprinkled with abstruse words and formulae that I could not follow them.  Freylinghuisen, of course, had all this sort of thing at his fingers’ ends—­post-mortems were his every-day occupation, and no doubt he had been furbishing himself up, since this last one, in preparation for the inquest, where he would naturally wish to shine.  I could see that he enjoyed displaying his knowledge before Hughes, who, although a family practitioner of high standing, with an income greater than Freylinghuisen’s many times over, had no such expert knowledge of toxicology as a coroner’s physician would naturally possess.

The two detectives and the coroner came back while the discussion was still in progress and listened in silence to Freylinghuisen’s statement of the case.  Grady’s mahogany face told absolutely nothing of what was passing in his brain, but Simmonds was plainly bewildered.  It was evident from his look that nothing had been found to shed any light on the mystery; and now that his suicide theory had fallen to pieces, he was completely at sea.  So, I suspected, was Grady, but he was too self-composed to betray it.

The coroner drew the two physicians aside and talked to them for a few moments in a low tone.  Then he turned to Grady.

“Freylinghuisen thinks there is no necessity for a post-mortem,” he said.  “The symptoms are in every way identical with those of the other man who was killed here this afternoon.  There can be no question that both of them died from the same cause.  He is ready to make his return to that effect.”

“Very well,” assented Grady.  “The body can be turned over to the relatives, then.”

“There aren’t any relatives,” I said; “at least, no near ones.  Vantine was the last of this branch of the family.  I happen to know that our firm has been named as his executors in his will, so, if there is no objection, I’ll take charge of things.”

“Very well, Mr. Lester,” said Grady again; and then he looked at me.  “Do you know the provisions of the will?” he asked.

“I do.”

“In the light of those provisions, do you know of any one who would have an interest in Vantine’s death?”

“I think I may tell you the provisions,” I said, after a moment.  “With the exception of a few legacies to his servants, his whole fortune is left to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

“You have been his attorney for some time?”

“We have been his legal advisers for many years.”

“Have you ever learned that he had an enemy?”

“No,” I answered instantly; “so far as I know, he had not an enemy on earth.”