It was with an air of relief, both for himself and my own peace
and safety, that I saw him take the cat out of the basket and hold
her in his arms, smoothing her fur gently, to quiet the feelings
that I had severely ruffled.
Then with a dropper he sucked up a bit of the liquid from the
test-tube. I watched him intently as he let a small drop fall into
the eye of the cat.
The cat blinked a moment, and I bent over to observe it more
closely.
"It won't hurt the cat," he explained, "and it may help us."
As I looked at the cat's eye it seemed to enlarge, even under the
glare of a light, shining forth, as it were, like the proverbial
cat's eye under a bed.
What did it mean?
Was there such a thing, I wondered hastily, as the drug of the
evil eye?
"What have you found?" I queried.
"Something very much like the so-called 'weed of madness,' I
think," he replied slowly.
"The weed of madness?" I repeated.
"Yes. It is similar to the Mexican toloache and the Hindu datura,
which you must have heard about."
I had heard of these weird drugs, but they had always seemed to be
so far away and to belong rather to the atmosphere of
civilizations different from New York. Yet, I reflected, what was
to prevent the appearance of anything in such a cosmopolitan city,
especially in a case so unusual as that which had so far baffled
even Kennedy's skill?
"You know the jimson weed--the Jamestown weed, as it is so often
called?" he continued, explaining.
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