“But,” remarked Madame de Villefort, “all these circumstances which you link thus to one another may be broken by the least accident; the vulture may not see the fowl, or may fall a hundred yards from the fishpond.”

“Ah, that is where the art comes in. To be a great chemist in the East, one must direct chance; and this is to be achieved.”

Madame de Villefort was in deep thought, yet listened attentively.

“But,” she exclaimed, suddenly, “arsenic is indelible, indestructible; in whatsoever way it is absorbed, it will be found again in the body of the victim from the moment when it has been taken in sufficient quantity to cause death.”