Every one was now crowding about for a glimpse, as I raised my head.
"What is this germ?" asked a hollow voice from the doorway.
We looked, startled. There stood Saratovsky, more like a ghost than a living being. Kennedy sprang forward and caught him as he swayed, and I moved up an armchair for him.
It is the spirillum Obermeieri," said Kennedy, "the germ of the relapsing fever, but of the most virulent Asiatic strain. Obermeyer, who discovered it, caught the disease and died of it, a martyr to science."
A shriek of consternation rang forth from Samarova. The rest of us paled, but repressed our feelings.
One moment," added Kennedy hastily. "Don't be unnecessarily alarmed.
I have something more to say. Be calm for a moment longer."
He unrolled a blue-print and placed it on the table.
"This," he continued, "is the photographic copy of a message which, I suppose, is now on its way to the Russian minister to France in Paris. Some one in this room besides Mr. Jameson and myself has seen this letter before. I will hold it up as I pass around and let each one see it.
In intense silence Kennedy passed before each of us, holding up the blue-print and searchingly scanning the faces. No one betrayed by any sign that he recognised it. At last it came to Revalenko himself.
"The checkerboard, the checkerboard!" he cried, his eyes half starting from their sockets as he gazed at it.