y case.

'By the way,' he said, 'if the doctor should happen to come in and
notice the smell of the smoke, don't tell him that you had one of
mine. My tobacco is rather strong, and he might think it would do you
harm, you know. I see that you have some light ones there, on the
table. Just let him think that you smoked one of them. I promise to
bring some more to-morrow, and we'll have a couple together.'

That was what Logotheti said, and it comforted Mr. Feist, who
recognised the opium at once; all that afternoon and through all the
next morning he told himself that he was to have another of those
cigarettes, and perhaps two, at three o'clock in the afternoon, when
Logotheti had said that he would come again.

Before leaving his own rooms on the following day, the Greek put four
cigarettes into his case, for he had not forgotten his promise; he
took two from a box that lay on the table, and placed them so that
they would be nearest to his own hand when he offered his case, but he
took the other two from a drawer which was always locked, and of which
the key was at one end of his superornate watch-chain, and he placed
them on the other side of the case, conveniently for a friend to take.
All four cigarettes looked exactly alike.

If any one had pointed out to him that an Englishman would not think
it fair play to drug a man deliberately, Logotheti would have smiled
and would have replied by asking whether it was fair play to accuse an
innocent man of murder, a retort which would only become unanswerable
if it could be proved that Van Torp was suspected unjustly. But to
this objection, again, the Greek would have replied that he had been
brought up in Constantinople, where they did things in that way;
and that, except for the trifling obstacle of the law, there was
no particular reason for not strangling Mr. Feist with the English
equivalent for a bowstring, since he had printed a disagreeable story
about Miss Donne, and was, besides, a very offensive sort of person
in appearance and manner. There had always been a certain directness
about Logotheti's view of man's rights.

He went to see Mr. Feist every day at three o'clock, in the most kind
way possible, made himself as agreeable as he could, and gave him
cigarettes with a good deal of opium in them. He also presented Feist
with a pretty little asbestos lamp which was constructed to purify
the air, and had a really wonderful capacity for absorbing the rather
pecu