e of this
iron will turn it Prussian blue."

He poured in the iron, which was likewise in solution, and instantly
the azure tint was created in all its deadly beauty.

Garrison was watching excitedly.

"No mistake about it," said the chemist triumphantly. "Where did you
find this poison?"

"Why--in a scrap of meat," said Garrison, inventing an answer with
ready ingenuity; "enough to have killed my dog in half a shake!"

CHAPTER VIII

WHERE CLEWS MAY POINT

Startled, thus to discover that, after all, a crime of the most
insidious and diabolical nature had been committed, Garrison wandered
along the street, after quitting the drug-store, with his brain aglow
with excitement and the need for steady thought.

The case that had seemed but a simple affair of a man's very natural
demise had suddenly assumed an aspect black as night.

He felt the need for light--all the light procurable in Hickwood.

Aware of the misleading possibilities of a theory preconceived, he was
not prepared even now to decide that inventor Scott was necessarily
guilty. He found himself obliged to admit that the indications pointed
to the half-crazed man, to whom a machine had become a god, but nothing
as yet had been proved.

To return to Scott this morning would, he felt, be indiscreet. The one
person now to be seen and interviewed was Mrs. Wilson, at whose home
the man Hardy had been lodged. He started at once to the place, his
mind reverting by natural process to the box of cigars he had seen an
hour before, and from which, without a doubt, this poisoned weed had
been taken by Hardy to smoke. He realized that one extremely important
point must be determined by the box itself.

If among the cigars still remaining untouched there were others
similarly poisoned, the case might involve a set of facts quite
different from those which reason would adduce if the one cigar only
had been loaded. It was vital also to the matter in hand to ascertain
the identity of the person who had presented the smokes as a birthday
remembrance to the victim.

He arrived at Mrs. Wilson's home, was met at the door by the lady
herself, and was then obliged to wait interminably while she fled to
some private boudoir at the rear to make herself presentable for
"company."

For the second time, when she at length appeared, Garrison found
himself obliged to invent a plausible excuse for his visit and
curiosity.

"I dropped in to ascertain a few litt