The arsenic in her sugar bowl was wealthy widow Eliza Fairbanks\' first clue that somebody wanted her dead.
Hilda Adams is a nurse, not a detective -- at leas.
So instead of calling the exterminator, Eliza calls the cops, who send Hilda Adams -- "Miss Pinkerton" to the folks at the bureau -- to go undercover and investigate.
The nightly plagues of bats, birds, and rats unleashed in her bedroom were the second indication, an obvious attempt to scare the life out of the delicate dowager.
The arsenic in her sugar bowl was wealthy widow Eliza Fairbanks\' first clue that somebody wanted her dead