The surprise of the two girls increased as he continued, after a pause:
"Ever since the day when I was first requested to act as the General's resident medical man I have devoted a considerable time to the study of books in which, here and there, could be found accounts of the action of the herbs in use among the Obi women, fetich men, and so-called wizards on the West Coast of Africa, also in India, and among the savage tribes of the Malay Archipelago and the Pacific Islands. What drugs they use has never been discovered, although many efforts have been made to obtain a knowledge of them, both in India and on the West Coast; but doctors have found it necessary to abandon the attempt, several of them having fallen victims of the jealousy of these people because of the researches they were making. But at the least the effects of the administration of these drugs have been frequently described, and in some respects these correspond so closely to those noticeable in the General's case that I say now, as I said at first, I believe the General's illness was caused by the administration of some drug absolutely unknown to European science."
"You think that my uncle was poisoned?" Hilda exclaimed in a tone of horror, while Netta started to her feet with clenched hands and flushed face.
"I have not used the word 'poisoned,' Miss Covington, though in fact it comes to that. It may not have been administered with the intention of killing; it may have been intended only to bring on a fit, which, in due time, might have been attended by others; but the dose may have been stronger than its administrator intended."
"And you think, Dr. Leeds--you think that it was administered by----"
"No, Miss Covington; I accuse no one. I have no shadow of proof against anyone; but taking this illness, with the abduction of the child, it cannot be denied that one's suspicions must, in the first case, fall upon the man who has profited by the crime, if crime it was. On May 16 this will was drawn up, bequeathing the property to a certain person. The circumstances of the will were curious, but from what I learned from you of the explanation given by the lawyers who drew it up, it seems fair and above-board enough. The General was certainly greatly under the influence of this man, who had rendered him the greatest service one man can render another, and that at the risk of his own life. Therefore I do not consider that this will, which was, so to speak, sprung upon you, is in itself an important link in the chain. But when we find that twelve or fourteen days afterwards the General was, when at table, seized with a terrible fit of an extraordinary and mysterious nature, and that the man who had an interest in his death was sitting next to him, the coincidence is at least a strange one. When, however, the General's heir is abducted, when the General is at the point of death, the matter for the first time assumes a position of the most extreme gravity.
