LITMIR.BIZ

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the servants asserted that it would be impossible to get it around the turns in the stairs without making a noise. "Where was Benson's room?"

      The chef led the way to the door, that by which we had gone out before when we had seen the rubbish barrels.

      "Up there," he pointed, "on the third floor."

      There was no fire escape, nor were there any outside balconies, and I wondered how Craig would account for it.

      "Someone might have lowered the trunk from the window by a rope, might they not?" he asked simply.

      "Yes," returned the chef, unconvinced. "But his door was locked and he had his keys in his pocket. How about that?"

      "It doesn't follow that he was killed in his room, does it?" asked Craig. "In fact it is altogether impossible that he could have been. Suppose he was killed outside. Might not someone have taken the keys from his pocket, gone up to the room without making any noise and let the trunk down here by a rope? Then if he had dropped the rope, locked the door, and returned the keys to Benson's pockets—how about that?"

      It was so simple and feasible that no one could deny it. Yet I could not see that it furthered us in solving the greater mystery.

      We went up to the steward's room and searched his belongings, without finding anything that merited even that expenditure of time.

      However, Craig was confident now, although he did not say much, and by a late train we returned to the city in preference to using Mrs. Ferris's car.

      All the next day, Kennedy was engaged, either in his laboratory or on an errand that took him downtown during most of the middle of the day.

      When he returned, I could tell by the look on his face that his quest, whatever it had been, had been successful.

      "I found Wyndham—had a long talk with him," was all he would say in answer to my questions, before he went back to whatever he was studying at the laboratory.

      I had made some inquiries myself in the meantime, especially about Wyndham. As nearly as I could make out, the young men at Briar Lake were afflicted with a disease which is very prevalent—the desire to get rich quick. In that respect Fraser Ferris was no better than the rest. Nor was Irving Evans. Allan Wyndham had been a plunger almost from boyhood, and only the tight rein that his conservative father held over him had checked him. Sometimes the young men succeeded, and that had served only to whet their appetites for more easy money. But more often they had failed. In most cases, it seemed, Dean Allison's firm had been the brokers through whom they dealt, particularly Wyndham.

      In fact, with more time on my hands during the day than I knew what to do with, in the absence of Kennedy I had evolved several very pretty little theories of the case which involved the recouping of dissipated fortunes by marriage with the popular young heiress.

      It was late in the afternoon that the telephone rang, and, as Craig was busy, I answered it.

      "Oh, Mr. Jameson," I heard Mrs. Ferris's voice calling over long distance from Briar Lake anxiously, "is Mr. Kennedy there? Please let me speak to him."

      I hastened to hand over the receiver to Kennedy and waited impatiently until he finished.

      "A special grand jury has been empanelled for ten o'clock tomorrow morning," he said as he turned from the wire and faced me, "and unless we can do something immediately, they are sure to find an indictment."

      Kennedy scowled and shook his head. "It looks to me as if someone were mighty anxious to railroad young Ferris along," he remarked, hurrying across to the laboratory table, where he had been at work, and flinging off his stained smock.

      "Well, are you ready for them?" I asked.

      "Yes," he replied quickly. "Call up and find out about the trains to Briar Lake, Walter."

      I found that we could easily get a train that would have us at the Country Club not later than eight o'clock, and as I turned to tell Kennedy, I saw him carefully packing into a case a peculiar shaped flask which he had been using in some of his experiments. Outside it had a felt jacket, and as we hurried over to the station Kennedy carried it carefully in the case by a handle.

      The ride out to Briar Lake seemed interminable, but it was better than going up in a car at night, and Mrs. Ferris met us anxiously at the station.

      Thus, early in the evening, in the little reception room of the Country Club, there gathered a large party, not the largest it had seen, but certainly the most interested. In fact no one, except young Ferris, had any legitimate reason for staying away.

      "Dead men tell no tales," remarked Kennedy sententiously, as he faced us, having whispered to me that he wanted me to take a position near the door and stay there, no matter what happened. "But," he added, "science opens their mute mouths. Science has become the greatest detective in the world.

      "Once upon a time, it is true, many a murderer was acquitted and perhaps many an innocent man hanged because of appearances. But today the assassin has to reckon with the chemist, the physicist, the X-ray expert, and a host of others. They start on his track and force him to face damning, dispassionate scientific facts.

      "And," he went on, raising his voice a trifle, "science, with equal zeal, brings facts to clear an innocent man protesting his innocence, but condemned by circumstantial evidence."

      For a moment he paused, and when he began again it was evident that he was going straight to the point at issue in the case.

      "Various theories have been confidently proposed in this unfortunate affair which resulted in the death of Irving Evans," he proceeded. "One thing I want clear at the start. The fact is, and I am not running counter to it, that we have what might very well be called two brains. One is in the head, does the thinking. The other is a sort of abdominal brain, controls nutrition and a host of other functions, automatically. It is the solar plexus—the epigastric, sympathetic nervous system.

      "It is true that the knot of life is situated at the base of the cranial brain. One jab of a needle and it might be quickly extinguished. Yet derangement of the so-called abdominal brain destroys life as effectually, though perhaps not so quickly. A shock to the abdominal brain of young Evans has been administered—in a most remarkable manner."

      I could see Mrs. Ferris watching him with staring eyes, for Kennedy was doing just what many a lawyer does—stating first the bad side of one's case, and seeming to establish the contention of the opposite side.

      "It was an unfortunate blow," he admitted, "perhaps even dangerous. But it was not deadly. What happened downstairs in the gymnasium must be taken into account with what happened afterwards in the locker and both considered in the light of the death of the steward, Benson, later.

      "The mark on the stomach of Irving Evans was due to something else than the blow. Everyone has noticed that. It was a peculiar mark and no mere blow could have produced it.

      "Weird in conception, horribly cunning in its execution was this attempt at murder," he added, taking from the case the peculiar flask which I had seen him pack up.

      He held it up so that we could see. It was evidently composed of two flasks, one inside the other, the outer encased in felt, as I had seen, the inner coated with quicksilver and a space between the two. Inside was a peculiar liquid which had a bluish tinge, but was odorless. From the surface a thin vapor seemed to rise.

      It was not corked, but from the neck he pulled out a light cotton stopper. As he agitated the liquid slightly, it had the appearance of boiling. He turned over the bottle and spilled some of it on the floor. It evaporated instantly, like water on a hot stove.

      Then he took from his pocket a small tin cup and poured out into it some of the liquid, letting it stand a few moments, smoking.

      He poured back the liquid into the flask and dropped the cup on the hardwood floor. It shattered as if it had been composed of glass.

      One of the men in the front row moved forward to pick up the pieces.

      "Just a minute," interfered Kennedy. "If you think anything of your fingers,

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