are absolutely concealed."

That night six men gathered in Kennedy's laboratory. In my utter
ignorance of what was about to happen I was perfectly calm, and so were
all the rest, except Gregory. He was easily the most nervous of us all,
though his lawyer Asche tried repeatedly to reassure him.

"Mr. Close," began Kennedy, "if you and Mr. Lawrence will sit over here
on this side of the room while Dr. Gregory and Mr. Asche sit on the
opposite side with Mr. Jameson in the middle, I think both of you
opposing parties will be better suited. For I apprehend that at various
stages in what I am about to say both you, Mr. Close, and you, Dr.
Gregory, will want to consult your attorneys. That, of course, would be
embarrassing, if not impossible, should you be sitting near each other.
Now, if we are ready, I shall begin."

Kennedy placed a small leaden casket on the table of his lecture hall.
"In this casket," he commenced solemnly, "there is a certain substance
which I have recovered from the dust swept up by a vacuum cleaner in the
room of Mrs. Close."

One could feel the very air of the room surcharged with excitement.
Craig drew on a pair of gloves and carefully opened the casket. With his
thumb and forefinger he lifted out a glass tube and held it gingerly
at arm's length. My eyes were riveted on it, for the bottom of the tube
glowed with a dazzling point of light.

Both Gregory and his attorney and Close and Lawrence whispered to each
other when the tube was displayed, as indeed they did throughout the
whole exhibition of Kennedy's evidence.

"No infernal machine was ever more subtle," said Craig, "than the tube
which I hold in my hand. The imagination of the most sensational writer
of fiction might well be thrilled with the mysteries of this fatal tube
and its power to work fearful deeds. A larger quantity of this substance
in the tube would produce on me, as I now hold it, incurable burns,
just as it did on its discoverer before his death. A smaller amount,
of course, would not act so quickly. The amount in this tube, if
distributed about, would produce the burns inevitably, providing I
remained near enough for a long-enough time."

Craig paused a moment to emphasise his remarks.

"Here in my hand, gentlemen, I hold the price of a woman's beauty."

He stopped again for several moments, then resumed.

"And now, having shown it to you, for my own safety I will place it back
in its leaden casket."

Drawing off h