The Notting Hill Mystery Page 15

  My task is done. In possession of the evidence thus placed before you,your judgment of its result will be as good as mine. Link by link youhave now been put in possession of the entire chain. Is that chainone of purely accidental coincidences, or does it point with terriblecertainty to a series of crimes, in their nature and execution almosttoo horrible to contemplate? That is the first question to be asked,and it is one to which I confess myself unable to reply. The secondis more strange, and perhaps even more difficult still. Supposing thelatter to be the case, are crimes thus committed susceptible of proof,or even if proved, are they of a kind for which the criminal can bebrought to punishment?

  [Footnote 1: "Taylor on Poisons." 2nd edition, p. 98, _et inf._]