or.

Of course I heard only one side of the conversation, but as near as I
could gather Kennedy was asking the inspector to obtain several samples
of ink for him. I had not heard the first part of the conversation, and
was considerably surprised when Kennedy hung up the receiver and said:

"Vandam had the prescription filled again early this morning, and it
will soon be in the hands of O'Connor. I hope I haven't spoiled things
by acting too soon, but I don't want to run the risk of a double
tragedy."

"Well," I said, "it is incomprehensible to me. First I suspected
suicide. Then I suspected murder. Now I almost suspect a murder and a
suicide. The fact is, I don't know just what I suspect. I'm like Dr.
Hanson--floored. I wonder if Vandam would voluntarily take all the
capsules at once in order to be with his wife?"

"One of them alone would be quite sufficient if the 'ghost' should take
a notion, as I think it will, to walk in the daytime," replied Craig
enigmatically. "I don't want to run any chances, as I have said. I may
be wrong in my theory of the case, Walter, so let us not discuss this
phase of it until I have gone a step farther and am sure of my ground.
O'Connor's man will get the capsules before Vandam has a chance to take
the first one, anyhow. The 'ghost' had a purpose in that message, for
O'Connor tells me that Vandam's lawyer visited him yesterday and in all
probability a new will is being made, perhaps has already been made."

We breakfasted in silence and later rode down to the office of Dr.
Hanson, who greeted us enthusiastically.

"I've solved it at last," he cried, "and it's easy."

Kennedy looked gravely over the analysis which Dr. Hanson shoved into
his hand, and seemed very much interested in the probable quantity
of morphine that must have been taken to yield such an analysis. The
physician had a text-book open on his desk.

"Our old ideas of the infallible test of morphine poisoning are all
exploded," he said, excitedly beginning to read a passage he had marked
in the book.

"'I have thought that inequality of the pupils, that is to say, where
they are not symmetrically contracted, is proof that a case is not one
of narcotism, or morphine poisoning. But Professor Taylor has recorded
a case of morphine poisoning in which the unsymmetrical contraction
occurred.'

"There, now, until I happened to run across that in one of the
authorities I had supposed the symmetrical contraction of the p