iting car.

Delaney had picked out a fashionable neighborhood in which to live. As
we entered the bronze grilled door and rode up in the elevator, Kennedy
handed each of us a cigar and lighted one himself. I lighted up, too,
thinking that perhaps there might be some virtue in tobacco to ward off
the unseen perils into which we were going.

The wealthy ranchman, evidently, on his arrival in New York had rented
an apartment, furnished, from a lawyer, Ashby Ames, who had gone south
on account of his health.

We entered and found that it was a very attractive place that Ames had
fitted up. At one side of a library or drawing-room opened out a little
glass sun-parlor or conservatory on a balcony. Into it a dining-room
opened also. In fact, the living rooms of the whole suite could be
thrown into one, with this sun-parlor as a center.

Everything about the apartment was quite up-to-date, also. For instance,
I noticed that the little conservatory was lighted brilliantly by a
mercury vapor tube that ran around it in a huge rectangle of light.

Dr. Leslie and the police had already ransacked the place and there did
not seem to be much likelihood that anything could have escaped them.
Still, Kennedy began a searching examination after his own methods,
while we waited, gazing at him curiously.

By the frown on his forehead I gathered that he was not meeting with
much encouragement, when, suddenly, he withdrew the cigar from his
mouth, looked at it critically, puffed again, then moved his lips and
tongue as if trying to taste something.

Mechanically I did the same. The cigar had a peculiar flavor. I should
have flung it away if Kennedy himself had not given it to me. It was not
mere imagination, either. Surely there had been none of that
sweetishness about the fragrant Havana when I lighted it on the way up.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"There's cyanogen in this room," Craig remarked keenly, still tasting,
as he stood near the sun-parlor.

"Cyanogen?" I repeated.

"Yes, there are artificial aids to the senses that make them much keener
than nature has done for us. For instance, if air contains the merest
traces of the deadly cyanogen gas--prussic acid, you know--cigar smoke
acquires a peculiar taste which furnishes an efficient alarm signal."

Dr. Leslie's face brightened as Kennedy proceeded.

"That is something like my idea," he exclaimed. "I have thought all
along that it looked very much like a poisoning cas