No, some one is slipping these cigarettes
in on them, perhaps substituting the doped brand for those that
are ordered. If you will notice, both Whitney and Lockwood have
cigarettes that are made especially for them. So had Mendoza. It
is a circumstance which some one has turned to account, though how
and by whom the substitution has been made I cannot say yet. I
wish I had time to follow out this one line, to the exclusion of
everything else. But I've got to keep my fingers on every rope at
once, else the thing will pull away from me. It is enough for the
present that we know what the poison is. I shall take up the
tracing of the person who is administering it the moment I get a
hint."
It was almost daylight before Craig and I left the laboratory
after his discovery of the manner of the cigarette poisoning by
stramonium. But that was the only way in which he was able to make
progress--taking time for each separate point by main force.
I was thoroughly tired, though not so much so that my dreams were
not haunted by a succession of baleful eyes peering at me from the
darkness.
I slept late, but was awakened by a knocking on the door. As I
rose to answer it I saw through the open door of Kennedy's room
that he had been about early and must already be at the
laboratory.
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