“Yes, I see too plainly that it does exist. But it seems that it is intended to affect me personally. I fear an attack myself, after all these disasters.”
“Oh, man!” murmured d’Avrigny, “the most selfish of all animals, the most personal of all creatures, who believes the earth turns, the sun shines, and death strikes for him alone,—an ant cursing God from the top of a blade of grass! And have those who have lost their lives lost nothing?—M. de Saint-Méran, Madame de Saint-Méran, M. Noirtier——”
“How? M. Noirtier?”
“Yes; think you it was the poor servant’s life was coveted? No, no; like Shakespeare’s Polonius, he died for another. It was Noirtier the lemonade was intended for—it is Noirtier, logically speaking, who drank it. The other drank it only by accident, and, although Barrois is dead, it was Noirtier whose death was wished for.”
“But why did it not kill my father?”
“I told you one evening in the garden after Madame de Saint-Méran’s death—because his system is accustomed to that very poison, and the dose was trifling to him, which would be fatal to another; because no one knows, not even the assassin, that, for the last twelve months, I have given M. Noirtier brucine for his paralytic affection, while the assassin is not ignorant, for he has proved that brucine is a violent poison.”
“Oh, have pity—have pity!” murmured Villefort, wringing his hands.
“Follow the culprit’s steps; he first kills M. de Saint-Méran——”