the case. Are you ready? Come on, then. We've simply
got to make that train."

As we settled ourselves in the smoking-compartment of the Pullman,
which for some reason or other we had to ourselves, Kennedy spoke
again for the first time since our frantic dash across the city to
catch the train.

"Now let us see, Walter," he began. "We've both read a good deal about
this case in the papers. Let's try to get our knowledge in an orderly
shape before we tackle the actual case itself."

"Ever been in Danbridge?" I asked.

"Never," he replied. "What sort of place is it?"

"Mighty interesting," I answered; "a combination of old New England
and new, of ancestors and factories, of wealth and poverty, and above
all it is interesting for its colony of New-Yorkers--what shall I call
it?--a literary-artistic-musical combination, I guess."

"Yes," he resumed. "I thought as much. Vera Lytton belonged to the
colony. A very talented girl, too--you remember her in 'The Taming of
the New Woman' last season? Well, to get back to the facts as we know
them at present.

"Here is a girl with a brilliant future on the stage discovered by her
friend, Mrs. Boncour, in convulsions--practically insensible--with a
bottle of headache-powder and a jar of ammonia on her dressing-table.
Mrs. Boncour sends the maid for the nearest doctor, who happens to be
a Dr. Waterworth. Meanwhile she tries to restore Miss Lytton, but
with no result. She smells the ammonia and then just tastes the
headache-powder, a very foolish thing to do, for by the time Dr.
Waterworth arrives he has two patients."

"No," I corrected, "only one, for Miss Lytton was dead when he
arrived, according to his latest statement."

"Very well, then--one. He arrives, Mrs. Boncour is ill, the maid knows
nothing at all about it, and Vera Lytton is dead. He, too, smells the
ammonia, tastes the headache-powder--just the merest trace--and then
he has two patients, one of them himself. We must see him, for his
experience must have been appalling. How he ever did it I
can't imagine, but he saved both himself and Mrs. Boncour from
poisoning--cyanide, the papers say, but of course we can't accept that
until we see. It seems to me, Walter, that lately the papers have made
the rule in murder cases: When in doubt, call it cyanide."

Not relishing Kennedy in the humor of expressing his real opinion
of the newspapers, I hastily turned the conversation back again by
asking, "How about the not