on the floor to this I haven't had a sane
thought. I forgot to take the cash, I forgot everything but that will.
My only thought was that I must get it and destroy it. I doubt if I
could have altered it with my nerves so upset. There, now you have my
whole story. I am at your mercy."

"No," said Kennedy, "believe me, there is a mental statute of
limitations that as far as Jameson and myself are concerned has already
erased this affair. Walter, will you find Fletcher?"

I found the professor pacing up and down the gravel walk impatiently.

"Fletcher," said Kennedy, "a night's rest is all Miss Bond really needs.
It is simply a case of overwrought nerves, and it will pass off of
itself. Still, I would advise a change of scene as soon as possible.
Good afternoon, Miss Bond, and my best wishes for your health."

"Good afternoon, Dr. Kennedy. Good afternoon, Dr. Jameson."

I for one was glad to make my escape.

A half-hour later, Kennedy, with well-simulated excitement, was racing
me in the car up to the Greenes' again. We literally burst unannounced
into the tete-a-tete on the porch.

"Fletcher, Fletcher," cried Kennedy, "look what Walter and I have just
discovered in a tin strong-box poked off in the back of your uncle's
desk!"

Fletcher seized the will and by the dim light that shone through from
the hall read it hastily. "Thank God," he cried; "the school is provided
for as I thought."

"Isn't it glorious!" murmured Helen.

True to my instinct I muttered, "Another good newspaper yarn killed."

III. The Bacteriological Detective

Kennedy was deeply immersed in writing a lecture on the chemical
compositions of various bacterial toxins and antitoxins, a thing which
was as unfamiliar to me as Kamchatka, but as familiar to Kennedy as
Broadway and Forty-second Street.

"Really," he remarked, laying down his fountain-pen and lighting his
cigar for the hundredth time, "the more one thinks of how the modern
criminal misses his opportunities the more astonishing it seems. Why do
they stick to pistols, chloroform, and prussic acid when there is such a
splendid assortment of refined methods they might employ?"

"Give it up, old man," I replied helplessly, "unless it is because they
haven't any imagination. I hope they don't use them. What would become
of my business if they did? How would you ever get a really dramatic
news feature for the Star out of such a thing? 'Dotted line marks route
taken by fatal germ;