nights in it was too vivid. That served to fix the impression
that I had already formed from reading this clipping. Either the
X-ray or radium had caused her dermatitis and nervousness. Which
was it? I wished to be sure that I would make no mistake. Of
course I knew it was useless to look for an X-ray machine in or
near Mrs. Close's room. Such a thing could never have been
concealed. The alternative? Radium! Ah! that was different. I
determined on an experiment. Mrs. Close's maid was prevailed on
to sleep in her mistress's room. Of course radiations of brief
duration would do her no permanent harm, although they would
produce their effect, nevertheless. In one night the maid became
extremely nervous. If she had stayed under them several nights no
doubt the beginning of a dermatitis would have affected her, if
not more serious trouble. A systematic application, covering
weeks and months, might in the end even have led to death.

"The next day I managed, as I have said, to go over the room
thoroughly with a vacuum cleaner--a new one of my own which I had
bought myself. But tests of the dust which I got from the floors,
curtains, and furniture showed nothing at all. As a last thought
I had, however, cleaned the mattress of the bed and the cracks
and crevices in the brass bars. Tests of that dust showed it to
be extremely radioactive. I had the dust dissolved, by a chemist
who understands that sort of thing, recrystallised, and the
radium salts were extracted from the refuse. Thus I found that I
had recovered all but a very few milligrams of the radium that
had been originally purchased in London. Here it is in this
deadly tube in the leaden casket.

"It is needless to add that the night after I had cleaned out