ut it
wasn't that that killed Mr. Blair."

"Curious, to have poison around at all," said Shelby, musingly.

"Gives a hint of intended suicide," suggested Weston. "Though not
necessarily----"

"I should say not!" broke in Benjamin Crane. "Gilbert Blair wasn't
coward enough to take his own life for any reason. Why, he was my son's
friend. It was an accident,--and the fact of finding that other poison
about, points toward accident, to my mind."

"Just how do you make that out, Mr. Crane?" asked Weston, with a slight
smile.

"Why"--began Crane, a little lamely--"I'm not sure that I can explain,
but it appeared to me that if Blair had one poison in his possession, he
might have had the other, and----"

"How do you know this laudanum was Mr. Blair's possession?" asked
Weston. "Might it not have been Mr. Thorpe's?"

"How you hark back to Thorpe!" exclaimed Crane, with real petulance. "I
wish you'd stop it, Weston. If you've a definite suspicion that he
killed Gilbert Blair, say so, but don't throw out these silly hints."

"Nothing especially silly about them, Mr. Crane," the detective was
quite unruffled, "only I hold that the poison we've just found is quite
as likely to be Mr. Thorpe's as Mr. Blair's. That's all."

"Of course it is," Shelby said, placatingly, "but that's neither here
nor there. If you have reason to think Mr. Blair was murdered, you've
reason to look for the criminal. But I don't think you've proved it was
not an accident, and until you do, it's well to be careful how you throw
suspicion about."

"It's not so easy to prove an accident,--or a murder, either,--when
there's practically no clew to be found. Therefore, it's our duty to
question any one who can give any material evidence, especially one who
was presumably the last one to see Mr. Blair alive."

"Except the murderer,--if there was one," said Shelby.

"Yes, and if he was not the murderer himself," grunted Weston.

"Send for that doorman," said Middleton, a bit curtly. "Let's get
somewhere."

Hastings, being summoned, appeared, and told all he knew, which was
little, and all he surmised, which was more.

"Yes," he said, "Mr. Thorpe called me, this morning, and when I came, he
was all of a shiver. He sat on the edge of that chair there, and his
teeth chattered and his voice shook----"

"Small wonder!" said Crane. "Mac is a very nervous man, and a shock such
as he must have had----"

"Go on, Hastings," ordered Doctor Middleton.