She communicated her suspicions to the doctor.  The latter knew his patient had not died of anything he had prescribed, but concluded that Lady Shillito, wishing to be through with the business, had prepared a fulminating dose obtained elsewhere; and insisted on autopsy with a colleague, to whom he more than hinted his suspicions.  Together they found the strychnine they were looking for—­not very much, but the proportion that was combined by Shillito with less traceable drugs to make the death process more rapid—­and quite overlooked the signs of cancer in the liver.

The outcome was that Lady Shillito at the inquest found herself “in a very unpleasant position” and was placed under arrest, and later charged with the murder of her husband.

Believing herself guilty she summoned all her resolution to her aid, admitted nothing, appealed to Michael Rossiter and others for advice.  Thus David was drawn into the business.

[But this doesn’t sound very credible, you will say.  “If the husband felt he could not face the agony of death by cancer, why didn’t he leave a note saying so, and every one would have understood and been quite ‘nice’ about it?” I really can’t say.  Perhaps he wished to leave trouble for her behind him; perhaps he divined the reason why she thought a day nurse unnecessary, and insisted on giving him his day medicines with her own fair hands.  Perhaps he hoped for an open verdict.  Perhaps he wasn’t quite right in his mind.  I have told you the story as I remember it and my memory is not perfect.  Personally I’ve always been a bit sorry for Grimthorpe.  It is quite possible that all those hints as to his “queerness” were invented by his wife to excuse herself.  I only know that Science benefited greatly from his researches, and that he bequeathed some priceless collections to both branches of the British Museum.  Some one once told me he had a heart somewhere and had loved intensely a sister much younger than himself and had only begun to be “queer” and secretive and bald after her premature death.  I think also that in the last year of his life he was greatly embittered at not getting the expected peerage; after the trouble and disagreeableness he had gone through to obtain heirs for this distinction this poor little attempt at immortality which it is in the power of a Prime Minister to bestow.]

The Grand Jury returned a true bill against Lady Shillito.  David had been studying the case from the morrow of the inquest, that is as soon as Rossiter had learnt of the coming trouble.  The latter though he regarded Cousin Arbella as a rather amusing minx, an interesting type in modern psychology (though really her type is as old as—­say—­the Hallstadt period) had no wish to see her convicted of murder.  Furthermore he was getting so increasingly interested in this clever David Williams that he would have liked to make his fortune by helping him to a sensational success as a pleader, to one of those cases which