ily detected, I
therefore conclude that both are forgeries, and I am ready to go farther
and say that they are forgeries from the same hand.

"It usually takes a couple of weeks after infection for typhoid to
develop, a time sufficient in itself to remove suspicion from acts which
might otherwise be scrutinised very carefully if happening immediately
before the disease developed. I may add, also, that it is well known
that stout people do very poorly when they contract typhoid, especially
if they are old. Mr. Bisbee was both stout and old. To contract typhoid
was for him a virtual death-warrant. Knowing all these facts, a certain
person purposely sought out a crafty means of introducing typhoid fever
into Mr. Bisbee's family. That person, furthermore, was inoculated
against typhoid three times during the month before the disease was
devilishly and surreptitiously introduced into Bisbee Hall, in order to
protect himself or herself should it become necessary for that person to
visit Bisbee Hall. That person, I believe, is the one who suffered from
an aneurism of the heart, the writer, or rather the forger, of the two
documents I have shown, by one of which he or she was to profit greatly
by the death of Mr. Bisbee and the founding of an alleged school in a
distant part of the country--a subterfuge, if you recall, used in at
least one famous case for which the convicted perpetrator is now under a
life sentence in Sing Sing.

"I will ask Dr. Leslie to take this stethoscope and examine the hearts
of everyone in the room and tell me whether there is anyone here
suffering from an aneurism."

The calcium light ceased to sputter. One person after another was
examined by the health commissioner. Was it merely my imagination, or
did I really hear a heart beating with wild leaps as if it would burst
the bonds of its prison and make its escape if possible? Perhaps it
was only the engine of the commissioner's machine out on the campus
driveway. I don't know. At any rate, he went silently from one to the
other, betraying not even by his actions what he discovered with the
stethoscope. The suspense was terrible. I felt Miss Bisbee's hand
involuntarily grasp my arm convulsively. Without disturbing the silence,
I reached a glass of water standing near me on Craig's lecture-table and
handed it to her.

The commissioner was bending over the lawyer, trying to adjust the
stethoscope better to his ears. The lawyer's head was resting heavi