III

"OPEN!"

PRINCE.--Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

FRIAR.--I am the greatest, as the time and place Doth make against me, of
this direful murder; And here I stand, both to impeach and purge. Myself
condemned and myself excused.

_Romeo and Juliet_.


I have mentioned poison as my first thought. It was a natural one, the
result undoubtedly of having noticed two small cordial glasses standing
on a little table over against the fireplace. When I was conscious again
of my own fears, I crossed to the table and peered into these glasses.
They were both empty. However, they had not been so long. In each I found
traces of anisette cordial, and though no bottle stood near I was very
confident that it could readily be found somewhere in the room. What had
preceded and followed the drinking of this cordial?

As I raised my head from bending over these glasses--not club glasses,
by the way--I caught sight of my face in the mantel mirror. It gave me
maddening thoughts. In this same mirror there had been reflected but a
little while before, two other faces, for a sight of whose expression at
that fatal moment I would gladly risk my soul.

How had _she_ looked--how that other? Would not the story of those