“I will ask Dr. Leslie to take this stethoscope and examine the hearts of everyone in the room and tell me whether there is anyone here suffering from an aneurism.”
The calcium light ceased to sputter. One person after another was examined by the health commissioner. Was it merely my imagination, or did I really hear a heart beating with wild leaps as if it would burst the bonds of its prison and make its escape if possible? Perhaps it was only the engine of the commissioner's machine out on the campus driveway. I don't know. At any rate, he went silently from one to the other, betraying not even by his actions what he discovered with the stethoscope. The suspense was terrible. I felt Miss Bisbee's hand involuntarily grasp my arm convulsively. Without disturbing the silence, I reached a glass of water standing near me on Craig's lecture-table and handed it to her.
The commissioner was bending over the lawyer, trying to adjust the stethoscope better to his ears. The lawyer's head was resting heavily on his hand, and he was heaped up in an awkward position in the cramped lecture-room seat. It seemed an age as Dr. Leslie tried to adjust the stethoscope. Even Craig felt the excitement. While the commissioner hesitated, Kennedy reached over and impatiently switched on the electric light in full force.
As the light flooded the room, blinding us for the instant, the large form of Dr. Leslie stood between us and the lawyer.
“What does the stethoscope tell you, Doctor?” asked Craig, leaning forward expectantly. He was as unprepared for the answer as any of us.
“It tells me that a higher court than those of New York has passed judgment on this astounding criminal. The aneurism has burst.”
I felt a soft weight fall on my shoulder. The Morning Star did not have the story, after all. I missed the greatest “scoop” of my life seeing Eveline Bisbee safely to her home after she had recovered from the shock of Denny's exposure and punishment.
IV. The Deadly Tube
“For Heaven's sake, Gregory, what is the matter?” asked Craig Kennedy as a tall, nervous man stalked into our apartment one evening. “Jameson, shake hands with Dr. Gregory. What's the matter, Doctor? Surely your X-ray work hasn't knocked you out like this?”