“Yes.”
“And it’s a fact, isn’t it, that anybody in the house could have got at that morphia if they’d wanted to?”
“I suppose so.”
“No suppose about it. It is so, isn’t it?”
“Well—yes.”
“It wasn’t only Miss Carlisle who could have got at it? Any of the servants could. Or Dr. Lord. Or Mr. Roderick Welman. Or Nurse O’Brien. Or Mary Gerrard herself.”
“I suppose so—yes.”
“It is so, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Was anyone aware you’d got morphia in that case?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, did you talk about it to anyone?”
“No.”
“So, as a matter of fact, Miss Carlisle couldn’t have known that there was any morphia there?”
“She might have looked to see.”
“That’s very unlikely, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“There were people who’d be more likely to know about the morphia than Miss Carlisle. Dr. Lord, for instance. He’d know. You were administering this morphia under his orders, weren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Mary Gerrard knew you had it there, too?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“She was often in your cottage, wasn’t she?”
“Not very often.”
“I suggest to you that she was there very frequently, and that she, of all the people in the house, would be the most likely to guess that there was morphia in your case.”
“I don’t agree.”
Sir Edwin paused a minute.
“You told Nurse O’Brien in the morning that the morphia was missing?”
“Yes.”
“I put it to you that what you really said was: ‘I have left the morphia at home. I shall have to go back for it.’”
“No, I didn’t.”