derivative of opium—morphine. There's another poison here, too," he added.
"What is it?"
"Scopolamine," he answered tersely, "scopolamine hydrobromide."
"Why," I exclaimed, "that is the drug they use in this new 'twilight sleep,' as they call it."
"Exactly," he replied, "the dämmerschlaf. I suspected something of the kind when I saw those little punctures on her back. Some people show a marked susceptibility to it; others just the reverse. Evidently she was one of those who go under it quietly and quickly."
I looked at Kennedy in amazement.
"You can see," he went on, catching the expression on my face, "if it could be used for medical science, it could also be used for crime. That's the way I reasoned, the way someone else must have reasoned."
He paused, then went on. "Someone thought out this plan of using narcophin and scopolamine to cause the twilight sleep, to keep Rawaruska just on the borderland of unconsciousness, destroying her memory and producing forgetfulness. That is the dämmerschlaf; perception is retained but memory lost. You are acquainted with the test? They show an object to a patient and ask her if she sees it. Say, half an hour later, it is shown again. If she remembers it, it is a sign that a new injection is necessary.
"Only in this case the criminal went too far, disregarded the danger of the thing. Scopolamine in too great a quantity causes death by paralysis of respiration—a paralysis, by the way, against which artificial respiration and all means of stimulating are ineffective because of the rigidity of the muscles. And so, you see, in this case Rawaruska died."
I could not help thinking of Preston, the young doctor who had been studying in Germany. More than likely he had heard of and had investigated the Frieberg "twilight sleep" treatment. We had made some progress, even though we did not know why or by whom the drugs had been administered.
Wade, of the Customs Service, had, as I have said, told us that he had several secret agents about in the trade, constantly picking up bits of information that might interest the Treasury Department. It did not surprise Kennedy, therefore, late in the forenoon, to have Wade call up and tell him that among the early callers at Margot's, the jeweler, was the maid Cecilie.
"That was where she must have been before I reached the Vanderveer," I exclaimed.
Kennedy nodded. "But why did she go there?" he asked. "And why was she talking with Preston?"
Inasmuch as I couldn't answer the questions I didn't try, but waited while Craig reasoned out some method of attack on them.
"Since it's known that we're working on the case of Rawaruska," he ruminated half an hour later over an untasted lunch, "we might just as well take the risk of seeing Margot himself. Let's go down and look his shop over."
So in the middle of the afternoon, when Fifth Avenue was crowded with shoppers, we paused before Margot's window, looking over the entrancing display of precious stones gleaming out from the rich black velvet background, and then sauntered in, like any other customers.
Kennedy engaged the salesman in talk about necklaces and lavallieres, always leading the conversation around to the largest stones that he saw, and dwelling particularly on those that were colored. As I listened, trying to throw in a word now and then that would not sound absolutely foolish, I was impressed by a feeling that Margot's, even though it was such a fashionable place, was what might be called only a high-class shyster's. In fact, I recalled having heard that Margot had engineered several rather questionable transactions in gems.
"I'm much interested in orange stones," remarked Kennedy, casually turning up a flawless white diamond and discarding it as if it did not interest him. "Once when I was abroad I saw the famous Invincible, and a handsomer gem than it is I never hope to see."
The clerk, ever obliging, replaced the tray before us in the safe and retired toward the back of the shop.
"He suspects nothing, at least," whispered Kennedy.
A moment later he returned. "I'm sorry," he reported, "but we haven't any such stones in the house. But I believe we expect some in a few days. If you could—"
"I shall remember it; thank you," interrupted Kennedy brusquely, as I caught a momentary gleam of satisfaction in his eye. "That's most fortunate. I'll be in again. Thank you."
We turned toward the door. In an instant it flashed over me that perhaps they were recutting the big Invincible.
"Just a moment, please, gentlemen," interrupted a voice behind us.
A short, stocky man had come up behind us.
"I thought you did not look like purchasers, nor yet like crooks," he said defiantly. "Did I hear you refer to the Invincible?"
It was Margot himself, who had been hovering about behind us. Kennedy said nothing.
"Yes," he went on, "I am cutting a large diamond, but it is not like the Invincible. It is much handsomer—one that was discovered right here in this country in the new diamond fields of Arkansas. The diamond itself is already sold. And you would nevair guess the buyer, oh, nevair!"
"No?" queried Kennedy.
"Nevair!" reiterated Margot.
"It could not be delivered to a woman who was once the maid of Rawaruska, the Russian dancer?" Craig asked abruptly.
Margot shot a quick and suspicious glance at us.
"Then you are, as I suspected, a detectif?" he cried.
Kennedy eyed him sharply without admitting the heinous charge. Margot returned his look and I felt that of all sayings that about a dishonest man not being able to look you in the eye was itself the least credible. He laughed daringly. "Well, perhaps you are right," he said. "But whoever it is, he is lucky to have bought a stone like it so cheaply!"
The man was baffling. I could not figure it out. Had Margot been simply a high-class "fence" for the disposal and convenient reappearance of stolen goods?
We returned uptown to our apartment to find that in the meantime Wade had called up again. Kennedy got him on the wire. It seemed that shortly after we left Margot's Cecilie had called again and had gone off with a small, carefully wrapped package.
"A strange case," pondered Kennedy, as he hung up the receiver. "First there is a murder that looks like a suicide, then the sale of a diamond that looks like a fake." He paused a moment. "They have worked quickly to cover it up; we must work with equal quickness if we are to uncover them."
With almost lightning rapidity he had seized the telephone again and had our old friend First Deputy O'Connor on the wire. Briefly he explained the case, and arranged for the necessary arrests that would bring the principal actors in the little drama to the laboratory that night. Then he fell to work on a little delicate electrical instrument consisting, outwardly at least, of a dial with a pointer and several little carbon handles attached to wires, as well as a switchboard.
I know that Kennedy did not relish having his hand forced in this manner, but nevertheless he was equal to the emergency and when, after dinner, those whom O'Connor had rounded up began to appear at the laboratory, no one would ever have imagined that he had not the entire case on the very tip of his tongue, almost bursting forth
