Now I have done my duty, and ----"
"Stop her!" cried Holmes. He had bounded across the room
and had wrenched a small phial from her hand.
"Too late!" she said, sinking back on the bed. "Too late!
I took the poison before I left my hiding-place. My head swims!
I am going! I charge you, sir, to remember the packet."
"A simple case, and yet in some ways an instructive one,"
Holmes remarked, as we travelled back to town. "It hinged from
the outset upon the pince-nez. But for the fortunate chance of
the dying man having seized these I am not sure that we could
ever have reached our solution. It was clear to me from the
strength of the glasses that the wearer must have been very
blind and helpless when deprived of them. When you asked me to
believe that she walked along a narrow strip of grass without
once making a false step I remarked, as you may remember, that
it was a noteworthy performance. In my mind I set it down as an
impossible performance, save in the unlikely case that she had a
second pair of glasses. I was forced, therefore, to seriously
consider the hypothesis that she had remained within the house.
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