s. Boncour's.

"Seizing her about the waist, I hurried into the dining-room. On a
sideboard was a dish of fruit. I took two apples. I made her eat one,
core and all. I ate the other. The fruit contained the malic acid
I needed to manufacture the calomel, and I made it right there in
nature's own laboratory. But there was no time to stop. I had to act
just as quickly to neutralize that cyanide, too. Remembering the
ammonia, I rushed back with Mrs. Boncour, and we inhaled the fumes.
Then I found a bottle of peroxide of hydrogen. I washed out her
stomach with it, and then my own. Then I injected some of the
peroxide into various Parts of her body. The peroxide of hydrogen
and hydrocyanic acid, you know, make oxamide, which is a harmless
compound.

"The maid put Mrs. Boncour to bed, saved. I went to my house, a wreck.
Since then I have not left this bed. With my legs paralyzed I lie
here, expecting each hour to be my last."

"Would you taste an unknown drug again to discover the nature of a
probable poison?" asked Craig.

"I don't know," he answered slowly, "but I suppose I would. In such a
case a conscientious doctor has no thought of self. He is there to do
things, and he does them, according to the best that is in him. In
spite of the fact that I haven't had one hour of unbroken sleep since
that fatal day, I suppose I would do it again."

When we were leaving, I remarked: "That is a martyr to science. Could
anything be more dramatic than his willing penalty for his devotion to
medicine?"

We walked along in silence. "Walter, did you notice he said not a word
of condemnation of Dixon, though the note was before his eyes? Surely
Dixon has some strong supporters in Danbridge, as well as enemies."

The next morning we continued our investigation. We found Dixon's
lawyer, Leland, in consultation with his client in the bare cell of
the county jail. Dixon proved to be a clear-eyed, clean-cut young
man. The thing that impressed me most about him, aside from the
prepossession in his favor due to the faith of Alma Willard, was the
nerve he displayed, whether guilty or innocent. Even an innocent man
might well have been staggered by the circumstantial evidence against
him and the high tide of public feeling, in spite of the support that
he was receiving. Leland, we learned, had been very active. By prompt
work at the time of the young doctor's arrest he had managed to
secure the greater part of Dr. Dixon's personal letters