y. "I remember when I saw
her once before that she had on a wedding ring. Doesn't her husband
support her?"

Jacot shrugged his shoulders. "She is looking for another position--that
is all I know," he said simply.

Kennedy picked up his apparatus.

"You will think over my proposition?" asked Jacot, as we left.

"And let you know in a day or two," nodded Kennedy.

As we walked up Fifth Avenue, I confess to have felt all at sea. Who had
the real masterpiece? Was it Faber, or Jacot, or was it someone else? If
Rita had warned Faber against us, and Leila had warned Jacot, which had
copy and which original? Or were they both copies and had the original
been hidden? Had it been stolen for money or had some fiend with a
knowledge of this mysterious ergot stolen it simply for love of art,
stopping not even at murder to get it?

CHAPTER XXI

THE RADIOGRAPH WITNESS

It was apparent that quick action was necessary if the mystery was ever
to be solved. Kennedy evidently thought so, too, for he did not wait
even until he returned to his laboratory to set in motion, through our
old friend, Commissioner O'Connor, the machinery that would result in
warrants to compel the attendance at the laboratory of all those
interested in the case. Then he called up Dr. Leslie and finally Dr.
Blythe himself.

Back again in the laboratory, Kennedy employed the time in developing
some plates of the pictures he had taken, and by early evening, after a
brief study of them, his manner indicated that he was ready.

Dr. Leslie, whom he had asked to come a little before the rest, arrived
early, and a few moments later Dr. Blythe, very much excited by the
message he had received.

"Have you found anything?" he asked eagerly. "I've been trying all sorts
of tests myself, and I can't prove the presence of a thing--not a
thing."

"Not ergot?" asked Kennedy quietly.

"No," he cried, "you can't prove anything--you can't prove that she was
poisoned by ergot."

Dr. Leslie looked helplessly at Kennedy, but said nothing.

"Not until recently, perhaps, could I have proved anything," returned
Kennedy calmly. "Evidently you didn't know, Dr. Blythe, that the first
successful isolation of an alkaloid of ergot from the organs in a case
of acute ergotism had been made by two Pittsburgh scientists. True, up
to the present toxicologists had to rely on the physical properties of
this fungus of rye for its identification. That may have made it seem
l