Philip Bawdrey? Thought you could lead me by the
nose, and push me into finding those phials just where you wanted them
found, didn't you? Well, you've got a few more thoughts coming. Look
here, Captain Travers: what do you think of this fellow's little game?
Tried to take me in about you and Mrs. Bawdrey being lovers, and trying
to do away with him and his father to get the old man's money."

"Why, the contemptible little hound! Bless my soul, man, I'm engaged to
Mrs. Bawdrey's cousin. And as for his stepmother--why, she threw the
little worm over as soon as he began making love to her, and tried to
make her take up with him by telling her how much he'd be worth when his
father died."

"I guessed as much. I didn't fancy him from the first moment; and he was
so blessed eager to have me begin by suspecting you two, that I smelt a
rat at once. Oh, but he's been crafty enough in other things. Putting
that devilish stuff on the ninth finger of the skeleton, and never
losing an opportunity to get his poor old father to handle it and show
it to people. It's a strong, irritant poison--sap of the upas-tree is
the base of it--producing first an irritation of the skin, then a
blister, and, when that broke, communicating the poison directly to the
blood every time the skeleton hand touched it. A weak solution at first,
so that the decline would be natural, the growth of the malady gradual.
But if I'd found that phial in your room last night, as he hoped and
believed I had done--well, look for yourself. The finger of the skeleton
is thick with the beastly, gummy stuff to-night. Double strength, of
course. The next time his father touched it he'd have died before
morning. And the old chap fairly worshipping him. I suspected him, and
suspected what the stuff that was being used really was from the
beginning. Last night I drugged him, and then--I knew."

"Knew, Mr. Cleek? Why, how could you?"

"The most virulent poisons have their remedial uses, Captain," he made
reply. "You can kill a man with strychnine; you can put him in his
grave with arsenic; you can also use both these powerful agents to cure
and to save, in their proper proportions and in the proper way. The same
rule applies to Ayupee. Properly diluted and properly used, it is one of
the most powerful agents for the relief, and, in some cases, the cure,
of Bright's disease of the kidneys. But the Government guards this
unholy drug most carefully. You can't get a drop of it