The String of Pearls (1850), p. 459

By this time they were in the room, and the lady half drew the knife she had before exhibited from the bosom of her dress, as she said—
"Look at this—look at this! I distrust you all the more when you talk as you do now, and I tell you that if I have any of your nonsense, I will pretty soon settle you. You mean something, I know, by the twinkle of your eye. I have watched you before, and I know you."
"Now, really, this is too bad," said Lupin, as he wiped his face with a remarkably old handkerchief; "this is too bad, Jane. If I am kind and civil to you, that don't suit; and if I am rough and rather stern, you fly out at that too. What am I to do? Will nothing please you?"
"Bah!" said Jane. "Hold your nonsence. How much money am I to have
when I have finished the brandy? That is the question now."
"Will three guineas be enough, Jane, just for the present occasion?"
"No, I must have five, or if you don't produce them, I'll make you."
"You shall have them, Jane. You see how complying I am to you. But won't you give me a drop of the brandy? You don't mean to take it all?"
"Yes I do. It's only half a pint, and what's that? You can drink some of what you said you had in the place. I didn't go out to buy for you. Besides, I won't trust it a moment out of my hands. You would put something in it before I could wink."
"Really, really! What a strange woman. But won't you have a glass, Jane, to drink it out of? Let me get you a glass now?"
"No, you would put something in that too. Oh, I am up to your tricks, I am, old boy. You won't get the better of me. Very good brandy it is, too. Ah! strong rather."
Jane took a hearty pull at the bottle, so hearty a one that two thirds of the mixture vanished, and then with her hand on the neck of it, she sat glaring at Lupin, who was on the opposite side of the table, with an awfully satanic grin upon his ugly features.
"It has an odd taste."
"An odd taste?" cried Lupin. t It's a capital thing that you bought it yourself, and kept your hand over the bottle. I'm very glad of that, old woman."
"But I feel odd—I—I—ain't the thing. I don't feel very well, Lupin."
"Ha, ha, ha!"
"I—I feel as if I were dying. I—I don't see things very clearly. I am ill—ill. Oh, what is this? Something is amiss. Mercy, mercy!"
"Ha, ha, ha!"
"I—I—shall fall. Help! The room swims round with me. I am poisoned. I know I am. Mercy! help! murder! Oh, spare me."
"Ha, ha, ha!"
Lupin rose and went round the table. He caught hold of the wretched woman
by the head, and applying his mouth close to her ear, he said—
"Jane! There was something in the bottle, and I intend to cut your throat. I hope the knife you have got with you has a good edge to it?"
She tried to scream, but an indistinct, strange, stifled cry only came from her lips. She tried to get up, but her limbs refused their office. The powerful
narcotic had taken effect, and she fell forward, her head striking the table
heavily, and upsetting the bottle with the remainder of the drugged brandy in
it as she did so.
"Done!" said Lupin. "Done at last. Oh, how I have watched for such an opportunity as this. How often I have pleased myself with the idea of meeting her in some lonely place when she was off her guard, and killing her, but I never thought that anything could happen half so lucky as this. Let me think. I am quite alone in this building, or as good as alone, for Mrs. Oakely sleeps soundly. I can easily drag the dead body down stairs, and place it in one of the vaults underneath the chapel, to which I have the key. I will wrench open some coffin if that be all, and cram her in on the top of the dead there previously.