Alleyn rang up the house in Catherine Street and learnt that Lady O’Callaghan would be pleased to receive him at ten to three the following afternoon. He spent half an hour on his file of the case. The analyst’s report on Phillips’s tablets and the hyoscine solution had come in. Both contained the usual dosage. He sent off the “Fulvitavolts” and the scrap of paper that had enclosed Ruth O’Callaghan’s second remedy. It was possible, but extremely unlikely, that there might be a trace of the drug spilt on the wrapper. At one o’clock he went home and lunched. At two o’clock he rang up the Yard and found there was a message from Sir John Phillips to the effect that the reconstruction could be held the following afternoon at the time suggested. He asked them to tell Fox and then rang Phillips up and thanked him.

Alleyn spent the rest of the day adding to the file on the case and in writing a sort of résumé for his own instruction. He sat over it until ten o’clock and then deliberately put it aside, read the second act of Hamlet, and wondered, not for the first time, what sort of a hash the Prince of Denmark would have made of a job at the Yard. Then, being very weary, he went to bed.

The next morning he reviewed his notes, particularly that part of them which referred to hyoscine.

“Possible sources of hyoscine,” he had written:

“1. The bottle of stock solution.

“Probably Banks, Marigold, Harden, Thoms, Phillips, all had opportunity to get at this. All in theatre before operation. Each could have filled anti-gas syringe with hyoscine. If this was done, someone had since filled up bottle with 10 c.c.’s of the correct solution. No one could have done this during the operation. Could it have been done later? No good looking for prints.

“2. The tablets.

“Phillips could have given an overdose when he prepared the syringe. May have to trace his purchases of h.

“3. The patent medicines.

“(a) “Fulvitavolts.” Negligible quantity unless Sage had doctored packet supplied to Ruth. Check up.

“(b) The second p.m. (more p.m.’s!) supplied to Ruth. May have been lethal dose concocted by Sage, hoping to do in O’Callaghan, marry Ruth and the money, and strike a blow for Lenin, Love, and Liberty.”