"
Kennedy placed a small leaden casket on the table of his lecture
hall. "In this casket," he commenced solemnly, "there is a
certain substance which I have recovered from the dust swept up
by a vacuum cleaner in the room of Mrs. Close."
One could feel the very air of the room surcharged with
excitement. Craig drew on a pair of gloves and carefully opened
the casket. With his thumb and forefinger he lifted out a glass
tube and held it gingerly at arm's length. My eyes were riveted
on it, for the bottom of the tube glowed with a dazzling point of
light.
Both Gregory and his attorney and Close and Lawrence whispered to
each other when the tube was displayed, as indeed they did
throughout the whole exhibition of Kennedy's evidence.
"No infernal machine was ever more subtle," said Craig, "than the
tube which I hold in my hand. The imagination of the most
sensational writer of fiction might well be thrilled with the
mysteries of this fatal tube and its power to work fearful deeds.
A larger quantity of this substance in the tube would produce on
me, as I now hold it, incurable burns, just as it did on its
discoverer before his death. A smaller amount, of course, would
not act so quickly. The amount in this tube, if distributed
about, would produce the burns inevitably, providing I remained
near enough for a long-enough time.
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