He held up two tiny yellow glass tubes, each labelled “Hypodermic tabloids. Aconitine Nitrate gr. ¹⁄₆₄₀.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Thorndyke, “this fellow was well up in alkaloidal poisons, it seems; and they appear to have gone about prepared for emergencies. These tubes each contained twenty tabloids, a thirty-second of a grain altogether, so we may assume that about twelve times the medicinal dose was swallowed. Death must have occurred in a few minutes, and a merciful death too.”

“A more merciful death than they deserved,” exclaimed Stephen, “when one thinks of the misery and suffering that they inflicted on poor old uncle Jeffrey. I would sooner have had them hanged.”