Then I handed him the needle, telling him in a few brief words of my visit to Werner's apartment, of the hallboy's confirmation of a nocturnal trip of some sort, of my search of the desk and some other parts of the suite. "I fixed it so that he won't hear of my visit, at least for some time. He won't suspect who it was, in any case."

Kennedy examined the hypodermic.

"Not like the one used," he murmured.

"I thought that," I explained. "It simply indicates he is a dope fiend and is familiar with the use of a needle. Here!" I produced the ink filler which I had used to bring a sample of the contents of the bottle. "This seems to be what he uses. What is it?"

Kennedy sniffed, then looked closely at the liquid through the gla.s.s of the tube. "It's a coca preparation," he explained. "If Werner uses this, he's unquestionably a regular drug addict."

"Well," I paused, triumphantly, "the case against the chief director of Manton Pictures grows stronger all the time."

"Not necessarily," contradicted Kennedy, perhaps to draw me out.

"He's familiar with hypodermic syringes," I repeated.

"Which doesn't prove that no one else would use one."

"Anyhow, he was out until four A.M. last night and some one broke into Phelps's house to--"

"You can't establish the fact that he went out there. There are plenty of other places he could have been until four in the morning."

"But I can a.s.sume--"

"If you are going to a.s.sume anything, Walter, why not a.s.sume he was the second man, the man who watched the actual intruder?"

I turned away, despairing of my ability to convince Kennedy. As a matter of fact I had forgotten the other prowler at Tarrytown.

Then I noticed that the one guinea pig in the separate cage was dead.

In an instant I was all curiosity to know the results of Kennedy's investigations.

"Did you make any progress?" I asked.

"Yes!" Now I noticed for the first time that he was in fine humor. "I had quite finished the first stage of my a.n.a.lysis when you came in."

"Then what was it? What was the poison that killed Stella Lamar?" I glanced at the stiff, p.r.o.ne figure of the little animal.

Kennedy cleared his throat. "Well," he replied, "I began the study with the discovery I made, which I told you, that strange proteins were present." He picked up the ampulla and regarded it thoughtfully. Then he fingered the bit of silk cut from the portieres. "It is a poison more deadly, more subtle, than any ever concocted by man, Walter."

"Yes?" I was painfully eager.

"It is snake venom!"

XVI

ENID a.s.sISTS

"A poison more subtle than any concocted by man!" repeated Kennedy.

It was a startling declaration and left me quite speechless for the moment.

"We know next to nothing of the composition of the protein bodies in the snake venoms which have such terrific and quick physiological effects on man," Kennedy went on. "They have been studied, it is true, and studied a great deal, but we cannot say that there are any adequate tests by which the presence of these proteins can be recognized.

"However, everything points to the conclusion now that it was snake venom, and my physiological tests on the guinea pig seem to confirm it.

I see no reason now to doubt that it was snake venom. The fact of the matter is that the snake venoms are about the safest of poisons for the criminal to use, for the reason of the difficulty they give in any chemical a.n.a.lysis. That is only another proof of the diabolical cleverness of our guilty person, whoever it may be.

"Later I'll identify the particular kind of venom used. Just now I feel it is more important to discover the actual motive for the crime. In the morning I have a plan which may save me further work here in the laboratory, but for to-night I feel I have earned a rest and"--a smile--"I shall rest by searching out the motives of these temperamental movie folk a little more." As he spoke he slipped out of his acid-stained smock.

"What do you mean?" As often, he rather baffled me.

"It's nearly dinner time and we're going out together, Walter, down to Jacques'."

"Why Jacques'?"

"Because I phoned your friend Belle Balcom and she informed me that that was the place where we would be apt to find the elite of the film world dining."

I acquiesced, of course. We hurried to the apartment first for a few necessary changes and preparations, then we started for the Times Square section in a taxi.

"I never heard of the use of snake venom before," I remarked, settling back in the cushions--"that is, deliberately, by a criminal, to poison anyone."

"There are cases," replied Craig, absently.

"Just how does the venom act?"

"I believe it is generally accepted that there are two agents present in the secretion. One is a peptone and the other a globulin. One is neurotoxic, the other hemolytic. Not only is the general nervous system attacked instantly, but the coagulability of the blood is destroyed.

One agent in the venom attacks the nerve cells; the other destroys the red corpuscles."

"You suspected something of this kind, then, when you first examined Stella Lamar?"

"Exactly! You see, the victim of a snake bite often is unable to move or speak. Doctor Blake observed that in the case of the stricken star.

Her nerves were affected, resulting in paralysis of the muscles of the heart and lungs and giving us some symptoms of suffocation. Then the blood, as a result of the attack of the venom, is always left dark and liquid. That, too, I observed in the sample sent me from Tarrytown.

"The snake," Kennedy continued, "administers the poison by fangs more delicate than any hypodermic. Nature's apparatus is more precise than the finest appliances devised for the use of a surgeon by our instrument makers. The fangs are like needles with obliquely cut points and slit-like outlets. The poison glands correspond to the bulb of a syringe. They are, in reality, highly modified salivary glands. From them, when the serpent strikes, is ejected a pale straw-colored half-oleaginous fluid. You might swallow it with impunity. But once in the blood, through a cut or wound, it is deadly."

"There could be no snake in this case," I remarked. "The fangs of a serpent make two punctures, don't they; while here there was just the one scratch--"

"Of course there were no fangs when the deed was actually done," he rejoined, impatiently. "We've traced everything to the needle in the portieres and it is my belief that it was part of an all-gla.s.s hypodermic with a platinum-iridium point. It could hardly have been anything like the coa.r.s.er syringe used by Werner, nor do I think it possible that the point of an ordinary needle would hold sufficient venom, since it would dry and form a coating like the incrustation on the inside of the ampulla McGroarty found."

"That was the venom?" I asked.

"Yes, I found it in the ampulla and in the stain on the portiere where the needle had pierced through."

"The towel, though--"

"Is something else. First thing in the morning we'll follow that up, as I promised you. Meanwhile let's concentrate on motives."