“You reel it all off as if you’d learnt it out of a textbook. ‘First Steps in Sex.’ ‘O Brave New World,’ as Miranda and Mr. Huxley would say! And it didn’t work out according to the receipt?”

“Yes, it did.”

“Then why did you write those letters?”

Her mouth opened. She looked pitifully ludicrous and, for a moment, not at all pretty.

“You’ve seen them—you’ve—”

“I’m afraid so,” said Alleyn.

She gave a curious dry sob and put her hands up to the neck of her uniform as though it choked her.

“You see,” Alleyn continued, “it would be better to tell me the truth, really it would.”

She began to weep very bitterly.

“I can’t help it. I’m sorry. It’s been so awful—I can’t help it.”

Alleyn swung round to the light again.

“It’s all right,” he said to the window-pane. “Don’t mind about me—only an automaton, remember.”

She seemed to pull herself together quickly. He heard a stifled sob or two and a rustle as if she had made a violent movement of some sort.

“Better,” she murmured presently. When he turned back to the room she was sitting there, staring at him, as though there had been no break in their conversation.

“There’s not much more,” he began—very businesslike and pleasant. “Nobody accuses you of anything. I simply want to check up on the operation. You did not see Sir Derek from June until he was brought into the theatre. Very well. Beyond these two letters you did not communicate with him in any way whatever? All right. Now the only place where you step into the picture is where you fetched the syringe containing the anti-gas concoction. You delayed. You were faint. You are positive you brought the right syringe?”

“Oh, yes. It was much bigger than the others.”

“Good enough. I’ll look at it presently if I may. Now I understand that the jar, bottle, or pot containing the serum—”

“It was an ampoule,” said Jane.

“So it was—and the pipkin, cruse, or pottle containing hyoscine were on the table. Could you, feeling all faint and bothered, have possibly sucked up hyoscine by mistake?”

“But, don’t you understand, it was ready!” she said impatiently.

“So I am told, but I’ve got to make sure, you know. You are positive, for instance, that you didn’t squirt out the contents and refill the syringe?”

“Of course—positive.” She spoke with more assurance and less agitation than he had expected.

“You remember getting the syringe? You were not so groggy that you did it more or less blindly?”

That seemed to get home. She looked frightened again.

“I—I was very faint, but I know—oh, I know I made no mistake.”

“Right. Anyone watch you?”