oses its own illnesses automatically. It is
infinitely more exact, more rapid, and more certain than all that human
art can attain. Each organ contains special ferments in its cells in the
most subtle way attuned to the molecular condition of the particular
cell substance and with complete indifference to other cells.

"Don't you see? It diagnoses at the very first stage. You take a small
quantity of blood, derive the serum, then introduce a piece of tissue
such as you wish to find out whether it is diseased or not. The thing is
of overwhelming importance. One can discover a condition even before the
organ itself shows it outwardly. It means a new epoch in medicine. As
for me, I call it the new 'police service' of the organism--working with
perfect, scientific accuracy."

"Wh-what do you find?" reiterated Seabury.

"I have made tests for about everything I can suspect," returned
Kennedy, taking the tubes and pouring the liquid from number two into
number one until they were equalized in color, thus testing them, while
we watched every action closely.

"You see," he digressed, "to get the two the same shade I have to dilute
the first by the second. Now, the dialyzers are not permeable to
albumin. Therefore the violet color indicates that the blood serum in
this case contains ferments which the body is making to split up some
foreign substance in the blood, such as I suspected and obtained from
the hospital. The test is positive. Mr. Seabury, how long have you felt
as you say that you do?"

"Several weeks," the man returned weakly.

"That is fortunate," cried Kennedy, "fortunate that it has not been
several months."

He paused, then added the startling statement, "Mr. Seabury, I can find
no evidence here of poison. As a matter of fact, the wonderful
Abderhalden test shows me that you have one of the most common forms of
internal disease that occur for the most part in persons at or after
middle life, about the age of fifty, more common in men than in women--a
disease which taken in time, as it has been revealed by this wonderful
test, may be cured and you may be saved--an incipient cancer of the
stomach."

Kennedy paused a moment and listened. I fancied I heard someone in the
hall. But he went on, "The person whom you suspect of poisoning you--"

There came a suppressed scream from the door, as it was flung open and
Agatha Seabury stood there, staring with fixed, set eyes at Kennedy,
then at her husband. Mechan