"I don't want to run any
chances, as I have said. I may be wrong in my theory of the case,
Walter, so let us not discuss this phase of it until I have gone
a step farther and am sure of my ground. O'Connor's man will get
the capsules before Vandam has a chance to take the first one,
anyhow. The 'ghost' had a purpose in that message, for O'Connor
tells me that Vandam's lawyer visited him yesterday and in all
probability a new will is being made, perhaps has already been
made."
We breakfasted in silence and later rode down to the office of
Dr. Hanson, who greeted us enthusiastically.
"I've solved it at last," he cried, "and it's easy."
Kennedy looked gravely over the analysis which Dr. Hanson shoved
into his hand, and seemed very much interested in the probable
quantity of morphine that must have been taken to yield such an
analysis. The physician had a text-book open on his desk.
"Our old ideas of the infallible test of morphine poisoning are
all exploded," he said, excitedly beginning to read a passage he
had marked in the book.
"'I have thought that inequality of the pupils, that is to say,
where they are not symmetrically contracted, is proof that a case
is not one of narcotism, or morphine poisoning. But Professor
Taylor has recorded a case of morphine poisoning in which the
unsymmetrical contraction occurred.
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