ready to break forth at any moment. The agents of the government
know it. They are desperate. There is no means they would not use
to crush us. Their long arm reaches even to New York, in this land
of freedom."

He rose and excitedly paced the room. Somehow or other, this man
did not prepossess me. Was it that I was prejudiced by a puritanical
disapproval of the things that pass current in Old World morality?
Or was it merely that I found the great writer of fiction seeking
the dramatic effect always at the cost of sincerity?

"Just what is it that you suspect?" asked Craig, anxious to dispense
with the rhetoric and to get down to facts. " Surely, when three
persons are stricken, you must suspect something."

"Poison," replied Kazanovitch quickly. "Poison, and of a kind that
even the poison doctors of St. Petersburg have never employed. Dr.
Kharkoff is completely baffled. Your American doctors - two were
called in to see Saratovsky - say it is the typhus fever. But
Kharkoff knows better. There is no typhus rash. Besides" - and he
leaned forward to emphasise his words - " one does not get over
typhus in a week and have it again as Saratovsky has." I could see
that Kennedy was growing impatient. An idea had occurred to him,
and only politeness kept him listening to Kazanovitch longer.

"Doctor," he said, as Kharkoff entered the room again, "do you
suppose you could get some perfectly clean test-tubes and sterile
bouillon from Miss Nevsky's laboratory? I think I saw a rack of
tubes on the table."