monarch

There was a sound of hurried footsteps at the end of the corridor. Dr. Hoyt, who had just left, wiped the sweat from his brow, and ran back panting.

"What's the matter, ma'am? What's the matter?" When he ran to the door of the room, he happened to catch up with the first queen, as if her soul had been sucked out, her legs gave way and she was about to fall to the ground.

He hastily stretched out his arms, letting the first queen fall into his arms.

The queen's face was full of panic, her complexion was in a mixed state of sallow and pale, and her trembling lips, which were somewhat blue, obviously indicated that some kind of disaster had once again befallen this unfortunate mansion.

As if a weight was tied to her arm, she raised her arm with difficulty, pointing her trembling fingers into the room, "My sister, she suddenly passed out... I don't know what happened... Please save her."

The doctor quickly helped the queen to stand up and went back to the room.He helped the first queen to sit on the couch, and then hurriedly walked to Mrs. Herbert's side.

Mrs. Herbert lay on the ground, twitching like a fish out of water.The horrible expression on her face made the doctor shiver involuntarily.

"Ma'am? Mrs. Herbert?" He half knelt before the poor patient, shaking her shoulders lightly.

Mrs. Herbert's teeth were clenched, and her pale lips looked lifeless.

At last the servants came, and stood at the door of the room with wide-eyed horror at the dreadful sight.

"Why are you still standing there!" the doctor roared, "Go and get the emetics!"

A servant turned around quickly and ran to the kitchen.

"And you, come quickly and move Mrs. Herbert to the sofa!"

Mrs. Herbert was moved to the sofa, she began to regain consciousness, the clenched jaw finally released, she moaned, and raised a hand.

The doctor reached out and took the hand, and put it back on the couch.

"How are you feeling, ma'am?" asked the doctor.

Mrs. Herbert's voice was hoarse, as if she had a cold, "Please, please give me some water..."

The doctor walked quickly to a small coffee table opposite. On the coffee table was a crystal bottle filled with half a bottle of clean water.

He picked up a glass, filled it with water, took a sip and tasted it, and then returned to Mrs. Herbert with the glass in his hand.

Mrs. Herbert snatched the glass impatiently and drank the liquid inside.

"I feel so dizzy... God, my eyes are dark..." Mrs. Herbert moaned, "It's like someone is firing a cannon in my ears... God, what's wrong with me..."

"Did you have any discomfort before?"

"No... nothing, everything started just now."

"What did you just do?"

"Just now... I drank a glass of wine, you remember, that bottle of Malmsey..." Mrs. Herbert stretched her finger to the bottle on the small tea table opposite with difficulty.

The doctor's eyes flashed. He walked up to the wine bottle, sniffed it, and then returned to Mrs. Herbert with the bottle and three glasses, and put them all within sight of his eyes. place.

Queen Xian struggled to stand up, walked over, sat beside her sister, and stroked her stiff shoulders, "What's the matter?" She was also trembling all over, and big tears flowed from her eyes.

"Mrs. Herbert's symptoms look like a stroke." The doctor's voice was unusually low.

"Stroke?" Queen Xian asked in surprise, "But she doesn't look like someone who would have a stroke at all, unlike..."

Her words stopped abruptly, as if she had been turned into a stone statue by Medusa's head.If her expression just now could be regarded as fear, then her current appearance can be regarded as despair.

Mrs. Herbert started having fits again, "God... it's started again..." She held the doctor's arm tightly and pinched it until it was bruised, "Please, please... help me Bar."

"Emetic! Bring the emetic!" The doctor yelled at the door.

The emetic was finally brought.

The doctor brought the cup containing the emetic to Mrs. Herbert's purple lips, "Drink it quickly."

"I can't drink it... I can't breathe... please... help me..." Mrs. Herbert's voice was getting weaker and weaker.

The doctor found a quill from his knapsack and tried to stuff it into Mrs. Herbert's mouth to make her vomit, but he couldn't get it in.

"I'm going to bleed you, please bear with me, will you?" said the doctor to Mrs. Herbert.

However, there was no response from the other party, and the light in Mrs. Herbert's eyes was rapidly fading.

The doctor took out a small golden smelling salt bottle from his handbag, he opened the bottle cap, put the mouth of the bottle close to Mrs. Herbert's nostrils, let the breath of acidic smelling salts enter Mrs. Herbert as much as possible in the nasal cavity.

Mrs. Herbert, however, remained unresponsive.

The doctor took Mrs. Herbert's wrist lightly, felt her pulse, and then put his finger in front of her nose.

"How is it?" asked the first queen.

"Mrs. Herbert has passed away," sighed the doctor. "I am very sorry."

The first queen fell on the sofa stiffly, "God...God..." She murmured, "Is this God's will?" She raised her head and looked at the ceiling with a look of fear.

The doctor looked at the terrified servants all around, "Go out, I want to talk to the queen alone." He suddenly seemed to think of something, "Is there any sweet viola in the kitchen?"

"Yes, sir," replied a servant timidly.

"Go squeeze some sweet violet juice for me." The doctor thought for a moment, "One cup is enough."

The servants left the room as if fleeing for their lives.

The doctor looked at the first queen who was staring blankly at his sister's body, "I don't know if you have noticed the symptoms of Mrs. Herbert I just mentioned."

"You said she had a stroke." The first queen replied mechanically as if she was sleepwalking.

"You didn't catch me, I said 'looks like a stroke.'"

"Is there any difference?" The Queen's voice sounded as if she had already expected what kind of answer she would get.

"As a doctor, I unfortunately need to see many dark sides of human nature." The doctor sighed, "Human beings are the spirits of all things and possess infinite creativity, but human will is fragile, and they often cannot stand Temptation, to use their creativity to make something horrific."

"What... are you talking about?" The queen caressed her sister's body which was cooling down. She looked no different from this body except that she was still breathing.

"What I want to talk about is a kind of potion. Its efficacy can be described as miraculous. When it is dripped in wine or water, there will only be a trace of bitterness, which is almost undetectable. This is the nectar held by the god of death , Just a few drops can put a person into eternal sleep. If King Mithridates was facing this kind of potion, then his body, which is said to be invulnerable to all poisons, might not be able to survive."

"And what I want to say is that the effect of this potion looks similar to a stroke to outsiders."

The doctor finished what he wanted to say, and watched the reaction of the first queen quietly.

"You mean that someone poisoned me, and unfortunately my sister was killed." Queen Xian's voice sounded full of fear, but to the doctor's surprise, she didn't look so surprised.

"Yes, ma'am." He nodded slightly.

"Do you have evidence?" He struggled to straighten up.

There was a knock on the door, "Here is the evidence I want," said the doctor.

He yelled out the door, "Come in!"

A servant walked into the room with his head bowed and a tray in his hand.The cups on the tray contained some juice.He put the tray on the end table and quickly exited the room.

"This potion has a characteristic: it will turn the sweet violet juice green." The doctor went to the coffee table, picked up the cup and a silver spoon, "Now, with your permission, we can do a little experiment .”

The queen nodded weakly.

The doctor took the jug from before, filled an empty glass with water, then took the wine bottle, and poured some wine into the water.The wine melted in the water, staining the water a little purplish red.

He picked up the silver spoon again, scooped up a spoonful of pansy juice, and poured it into the cup.

Nothing happened.

The first queen let out a long sigh of relief, "Oh, sir, you made a mistake, God, fortunately you made a mistake." She made a sign of the cross on her chest.

The doctor looked puzzled, frowning at the unchanged liquid in the glass.

After a while, he seemed to think of something. He picked up the unused one of the three wine glasses brought by Mrs. Herbert, and filled it with water.

He dripped in a spoonful of pansy juice again.

A cloud of white mist quickly rose from the bottom of the cup, and the white mist immediately turned sky blue, then milky white, and finally green, just like the color of a fine emerald.

"It's not in the wine, it's in the glass," said the doctor. "Someone has put the potion on the inside of the glass." He put down the glass and looked at the first queen. "Mrs. Alkaline poisoning, this is a plant toxin that comes from the nuxychon fruit." He pointed to the cup containing the green liquid, "This is the evidence you want."

The queen raised her head again, staring at the ceiling in fear.

After a while, she finally came back to her senses, "If you don't mind, can you wait outside the door for a while?"

The doctor was a little surprised, but he still obeyed the queen's order.He saluted and walked out of the room without saying a word.

When the heavy door was closed, the first queen jumped up as if a spring had been placed under her buttocks. She ran to a corner of the room and lightly pressed the thin wooden wall panel.

The wall panel was opened to reveal a small locked cabinet.The cabinet was made out of projectiles, and it had carvings on it, it looked like a lady's jewelry box.

Queen Xian took off the necklace she often wore from her neck, and she opened the pendant on the necklace, and inside lay a small silver key.

She picked up the key, inserted it into the keyhole of the small cabinet, and turned it slightly.

The lock was opened.

There is a small crystal bottle in the cabinet, with a gold lid on the top of the bottle, and half of the bottle is filled with red liquid, which looks like fresh blood.

Queen Xian reached out to take the bottle, she looked at the bottle as if she saw a poisonous snake.She carefully picked up the bottle, walked to the coffee table, and poured water into a new cup.

She unscrewed the golden cap of the small crystal bottle, and dropped a few drops of the red liquid into the clear water.Those spots of red quickly disappeared, and the clear water in the glass seemed unchanged.

The first queen picked up the silver spoon and scooped a small spoonful from the pansy juice left by the doctor.Her hands trembled, and the spoon collided with the wall of the cup, making crisp sounds.

The Queen tried her best not to let the liquid in the spoon spill out. She stood as far as possible from the cup of clear water, and stretched her arms straight, as if the liquid in the cup would bite.

She poured in the pansy juice from the spoon.

There was no movement in the cup for a few seconds, just when the queen thought nothing would happen, the same white mist rose from the bottom of the cup again.The white mist was the same as before, first turning blue, then milky white, and finally emerald green.

The spoon fell from the hands of the first queen, and the remaining cilantro juice seeped into the soft Persian carpet, leaving a few stains.

Queen Xian's complexion turned deathly gray, and there was some kind of inhuman sob coming from her chest and throat.

"It's him...it's them..." She trembled and fell on the sofa cushions, "I should have expected..."

Queen Xian felt a severe pain in her stomach, she lowered her head, and was horrified to see the blood dripping from her skirt.

She was shaking like chaff all over her body, but still struggled to stand up, moved to the coffee table, picked up the liquid, and walked towards the fireplace.

When she was about to pour those liquids into the ashes, a thought flashed through her mind like lightning.If there were other people in the room at this time, he must have noticed that the expression on the queen's face gradually changed from fear to fierceness, and then to a creepy smile.

She put the cups containing these liquids back on the coffee table. At this time, she was out of breath and had to sit in an armchair and rest for 2 minutes.Then she stood up again, struggled to walk to the desk, and wrote a letter.

She took out an envelope from the drawer, folded the letter a few times, stuffed it into the envelope, sealed the seal with wax paint, and wrote the words "From the King" on it with a quill.

"Come here!" After all this was done, she finally shouted.

The servants opened the door, and Dr. Hoyt walked into the room, looked at the queen, and was shocked.

"Madam is about to give birth, send Madam to bed immediately!" He commanded the servants loudly.

"Wait a minute!" The first queen interrupted the doctor. She picked up the letter and acted as if the envelope weighed a thousand pounds. "Send it to the king immediately! Go now!"

A servant hurried forward to take the envelope and ran out of the room.

The first queen finally couldn't hold it anymore, she sighed softly, and finally passed out.

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All the things about pharmacology in this chapter come from Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo", and the author does not know whether it is true or not:)