CHAPTER XXVII

THE LIE DETECTOR


As the horror of it all dawned on me, I hated Armstrong worse than
ever, hated Whitecap, hated the man higher up, whoever he might
be, who was enriching himself out of the defective, as well as the
weakling, and the vicious--all three typified by Snowbird,
Armstrong and Whitecap.

Having no other place to go, pending further developments of the
publicity we had given the drug war in the Star, Kennedy and I
decided on a walk home in the bracing night air.

We had scarcely entered the apartment when the hall boy called to
us frantically: "Some one's been trying to get you all over town,
Professor Kennedy. Here's the message. I wrote it down. An attempt
has been made to poison Mrs. Sutphen. They said at the other end
of the line that you'd know."

We faced each other aghast.

"My God!" exclaimed Kennedy. "Has that been the effect of our
story, Walter? Instead of smoking out anyone--we've almost killed
some one."

As fast as a cab could whisk us around to Mrs. Sutphen's we
hurried.