"Really," he remarked, laying down his fountain-pen and lighting
his cigar for the hundredth time, "the more one thinks of how the
modern criminal misses his opportunities the more astonishing it
seems. Why do they stick to pistols, chloroform, and prussic acid
when there is such a splendid assortment of refined methods they
might employ?"
"Give it up, old man," I replied helplessly, "unless it is
because they haven't any imagination. I hope they don't use them.
What would become of my business if they did? How would you ever
get a really dramatic news feature for the Star out of such a
thing? 'Dotted line marks route taken by fatal germ; cross
indicates spot where antitoxin attacked it'--ha! ha! not much for
the yellow journals in that, Craig."
"To my mind, Walter, it would be the height of the dramatic--far
more dramatic than sending a bullet into a man. Any fool can
shoot a pistol or cut a throat, but it takes brains to be
up-to-date."
"It may be so;" I admitted, and went on reading, while Kennedy
scratched away diligently on his lecture. I mention this
conversation both because it bears on my story, by a rather
peculiar coincidence, and because it showed me a new side of
Kennedy's amazing researches. He was as much interested in
bacteria as in chemistry, and the story is one of bacteria.
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