His thoughts come back to Johnny. Cleveland remembers Maggie dropping her cup at breakfast when Johnnie mentioned his interest in chemistry. Mr Dinsmead did not sip his tea. Charlotte arrested her cup the previous evening. Though the tea was hot, Mr Dinsmead emptied the cups saying it was cold. Cleveland recalls reading a paper about a whole family being poisoned by a lad’s carelessness. A packet of arsenic left in the larder had dripped through on the bread below. It is possible that Mr Dinsmead read the same paper. Cleveland rises to his feet and heads for the cottage.