"
She noticed at this time that Grimthorpe Shillito went on several
occasions to London to consult a specialist. He complained of
indigestion, was rather thin, and balder than ever, and difficult to
please in his food and appetite.
This was her opportunity. She would have said, had she been
convicted, that he had driven her to it by his cruelties: that's as
may be.--She consulted the family doctor who attended to the
household of Bluebeard's Castle; suggested that Sir Grimthorpe (they
had just knighted him) might be the better for a strychnine tonic;
she had read somewhere that strychnine did wonders for middle-aged
men who had led rather a rackety life in their early manhood.
The family doctor who disliked her and suspected her, as you or I
wouldn't have done, but doctors think of everything, feigned to
agree; and supplied her with little phials of _aqua distillata_
flavoured with quinine. He himself was puzzled over Sir Grimthorpe's
condition but was a little offended at not being personally
consulted.
The fact was that Sir G. had a very poor opinion of his abilities in
diagnosis and being naturally secretive and generally cussed,
preferred consulting a London specialist. He wasn't then Sir
Grimthorpe, the specialist wasn't very certain that it _was_ cancer
on the liver, and amid his multitude of consulters did not, unless
aroused, remember very clearly the case of a Mr.
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