roduce poison into one of those things? They're quite hard, you
know."

"Yes, it could be done," Wise declared. "I've heard of such a thing
before. The little pellet could be soaked in the poison----"

"That would make it taste, and he wouldn't swallow it," Shelby said.

"True. Well, I think, with a hypodermic needle, the poison could be got
into the mint."

"Maybe, but I doubt it. However, I don't know much about such things.
You're doubtless experienced."

"Yes, I've had a lot of poison cases. And, if we give up all thought of
the soda mint, it does come back to a drink of some sort mixed by
Thorpe."

"Or Blair might have mixed his own drink, and Thorpe added the poison,
unnoticed."

"But I want to get away from Thorpe," Zizi said, her eyes anxious and
worried.

"So do we all," returned Shelby gravely. "But where can we look?"

"Where, indeed?" echoed Penny Wise.

CHAPTER XIV

A Prophecy Fulfilled

Among the passengers disembarking from a steamer at a Brooklyn pier was
a tall, gaunt man, who walked with a slight limp.

He was alone, and though he nodded pleasantly to one or two of his
fellow passengers, he walked by himself, and all details of landing
being over, he took a taxicab to a hotel restaurant, glad to eat a
luncheon more to his taste than the ship's fare had been.

He bought several New York papers, and soon became so absorbed in their
contents that his carefully selected food might have been dust and ashes
for all he knew.

Staring at an advertisement, he called a waiter.

"Send out and get me that book," he said, "as quick as you can."

"Yes, sir," returned the man, "it's right here, sir, on the news-stand.
Get it in a minute, sir."

And in about a minute Peter Boots sat, almost unable to believe his own
eyes, as he scanned the chapter headings of his father's book, detailing
the death and the subsequent experiences of him who sat and stared at
the pages.

He looked at the frontispiece, a portrait of himself, but bearing little
resemblance to his present appearance. For, where the pictured face
showed a firm, well-molded chin, the living man wore a brown beard,
trimmed Vandyke fashion, and where the expression on the portrait showed
a merry, carefree smile, the real face was graven with deep lines that
told of severe experiences of some sort.

But the real face grinned a little at the picture, and broke into a
wider smile at some sentences read at random as the pages were