Miss Spence was not at all well. She had found her public appearances in
the witness-box very trying, and when it was all over she had something
that was very nearly a breakdown. She slept badly, and suffered from
nervous indigestion. Dr. Libbard used to call every other day. She
talked to him a great deal--mostly about the Hutton case.... Her moral
indignation was always on the boil. Wasn't it appalling to think that
one had had a murderer in one's house. Wasn't it extraordinary that one
could have been for so long mistaken about the man's character? (But she
had had an inkling from the first.) And then the girl he had gone off
with--so low class, so little better than a prostitute. The news that
the second Mrs. Hutton was expecting a baby the posthumous child of a
condemned and executed criminal--revolted her; the thing was shocking an
obscenity. Dr. Libbard answered her gently and vaguely, and prescribed
bromide.
One morning he interrupted her in the midst of her customary tirade.
"By the way," he said in his soft, melancholy voice, "I suppose it was
really you who poisoned Mrs. Hutton."
Miss Spence stared at him for two or three seconds with enormous eyes,
and then quietly said, "Yes." After that she started to cry.
"In the coffee, I suppose."
She seemed to nod assent. Dr. Libbard took out his fountain-pen, and in
his neat, meticulous calligraphy wrote out a prescription for a sleeping
draught.