"Well, it's mostly guessing, doctor, but we think he picked it up directly he was let loose last night, just after ten o'clock. I suppose he'd have found it pretty easily if it were thrown, say, on the lawn there?"
"Oh yes, at once. It might have been rubbed, too, with a drop of aniseed to attract him and then he'd have smelt it a mile away."
"Now, suppose he picked it up about ten," went on the inspector; "when would it begin to act?"
"Well that, of course, would depend entirely on the form in which it was given. If it was given him in powder, which was probably the case, he would begin to feel the effect in about an hour, and in three to four hours at most he would be quite unconscious and in a state of absolute coma."
"Then why didn't the dog die?"
"They gave him too much probably,
