exercise of which he had set up a simple laboratory. Granice had the
habit of dropping in to smoke a cigar with him on Sunday afternoons,
and the friends generally sat in Venn's work-shop, at the back of
the old family house in Stuyvesant Square. Off this work-shop was
the cupboard of supplies, with its row of deadly bottles. Carrick
Venn was an original, a man of restless curious tastes, and his
place, on a Sunday, was often full of visitors: a cheerful crowd of
journalists, scribblers, painters, experimenters in divers forms of
expression. Coming and going among so many, it was easy enough to
pass unperceived; and one afternoon Granice, arriving before Venn
had returned home, found himself alone in the work-shop, and quickly
slipping into the cupboard, transferred the drug to his pocket.

But that had happened ten years ago; and Venn, poor fellow, was long
since dead of his dragging ailment. His old father was dead, too,
the house in Stuyvesant Square had been turned into a
boarding-house, and the shifting life of New York had passed its
rapid sponge over every trace of their obscure little history. Even
the optimistic McCarren seemed to acknowledge the hopelessness of
seeking for proof in that direction.

"And there's the third door slammed in our faces." He shut his
note-book, and throwing back his head, rested his bright inquisitive
eyes on Granice's furrowed face.

"Look here, Mr. Granice--you see the weak spot, don't you?"

The other made a despairing motion. "I see so many!"

"Yes: but the one that weakens all the others. Why the deuce do you