fortunes by marriage with the popular young heiress.

It was late in the afternoon that the telephone rang, and, as Craig was
busy, I answered it.

"Oh, Mr. Jameson," I heard Mrs. Ferris's voice calling over long
distance from Briar Lake anxiously, "is Mr. Kennedy there? Please let me
speak to him."

I hastened to hand over the receiver to Kennedy and waited impatiently
until he finished.

"A special grand jury has been empanelled for ten o'clock tomorrow
morning," he said as he turned from the wire and faced me, "and unless
we can do something immediately, they are sure to find an indictment."

Kennedy scowled and shook his head. "It looks to me as if someone were
mighty anxious to railroad young Ferris along," he remarked, hurrying
across to the laboratory table, where he had been at work, and flinging
off his stained smock.

"Well, are you ready for them?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied quickly. "Call up and find out about the trains to
Briar Lake, Walter."

I found that we could easily get a train that would have us at the
Country Club not later than eight o'clock, and as I turned to tell
Kennedy, I saw him carefully packing into a case a peculiar shaped flask
which he had been using in some of his experiments. Outside it had a
felt jacket, and as we hurried over to the station Kennedy carried it
carefully in the case by a handle.

The ride out to Briar Lake seemed interminable, but it was better than
going up in a car at night, and Mrs. Ferris met us anxiously at the
station.

Thus, early in the evening, in the little reception room of the Country
Club, there gathered a large party, not the largest it had seen, but
certainly the most interested. In fact no one, except young Ferris, had
any legitimate reason for staying away.

"Dead men tell no tales," remarked Kennedy sententiously, as he faced
us, having whispered to me that he wanted me to take a position near the
door and stay there, no matter what happened. "But," he added, "science
opens their mute mouths. Science has become the greatest detective in
the world.

"Once upon a time, it is true, many a murderer was acquitted and perhaps
many an innocent man hanged because of appearances. But today the
assassin has to reckon with the chemist, the physicist, the X-ray
expert, and a host of others. They start on his track and force him to
face damning, dispassionate scientific facts.

"And," he went on, raising his voice a trifle, "science, with equal