d
admits light. There is also a telephone. Everything is arranged so that
all that enters, no matter how minute, is weighed and measured. The same
is true of all that leaves. Nothing is too small to take into account."

He shook the sheaf of papers before us. "Here I have some records which
have been made by myself, and, in my absence, by one of my students. In
them the most surprising thing that I have discovered is that in the
body of Leon metabolism seems still to be going on."

I listened to him in utter amazement, wondering toward what his argument
was tending.

"I got my first clew from an injection of fluoriscine," he resumed. "You
know there are many people who have a horror of being buried alive. It
is a favorite theme of the creepy-creep writers. As you know, the heart
may stop beating, but that does not necessarily mean that the person is
dead. There are on record innumerable cases where the use of stimulants
has started again the beating of a heart that has stopped.

"Still, burial alive is hardly likely among civilized people, for the
simple reason that the practice of embalming makes death practically
certain. At once, when I heard that there had been objections to the
embalming of this body, I began to wonder why they had been made.

"Then it occurred to me that one certain proof of death was the absolute
cessation of circulation. You may not know, but scientists have devised
this fluoriscine test to take advantage of that. I injected about ten
grains. If there is any circulation, there should be an emerald green
discoloration of the cornea of the eye. If not, the eye should remain
perfectly white.

"I tried the test. The green eye-ball gave me a hint. Then I decided to
make sure with a respiration calorimeter that would measure whatever
heat, what breath, no matter how minute they were."

Collette gave a start as she began to realize vaguely what Craig was
driving at.

"It was not the voodoo sign, Mademoiselle," he said, turning to her. "It
was a sign, however, of something that suggested at once to me the
connection of voodoo practices."

There was something so uncanny about it that my own heart almost skipped
beating, while Burke, by my other side, muttered something which was not
meant to be profane.

Collette was now trembling violently and I took her arm so that if she
should faint she would not fall either on my side or on that of her
guardian, who seemed himself on the verge of keeling