“On Monday Mrs. Inglethorp will take the last dose of her medicine. On Monday, therefore, at six o’clock, Alfred Inglethorp arranges to be seen by a number of people at a spot far removed from the village. Miss Howard has previously made up a cock-and-bull story about him and Mrs. Raikes to account for his holding his tongue afterwards. At six o’clock, Miss Howard, disguised as Alfred Inglethorp, enters the chemist’s shop, with her story about a dog, obtains the strychnine, and writes the name of Alfred Inglethorp in John’s handwriting, which she had previously studied carefully.

“But, as it will never do if John, too, can prove an alibi, she writes him an anonymous note⁠—still copying his handwriting⁠—which takes him to a remote spot where it is exceedingly unlikely that anyone will see him.