AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART
There was a moment of silence.
"Briefly put, doctor, the case is this," said Adam Adams. "I want to know if there is anything known to the medical world, a powder or something of that sort, strong enough to kill a person if he should breathe of it."
"A powder strong enough to kill a person?" The brow of the old physician contracted. "It would have to be very powerful to do that. You mean if a person was boxed up with it—like one killed by gas?"
"No, not at all. I mean a powder that could be held to a person's nose and mouth in the open, when it would make that person sick and give him cramps perhaps."
"And kill him?"
"Yes."
The old doctor rubbed his hands in thought. "That is a subject for speculation. Certain cyanide compounds might be powerful enough to do so under certain conditions. Any real dry powder would choke a person if he got a big dose of it. I heard of a boy who came near dying as the result of breathing in a quantity of extra dry licorice powder. But he was smothered and did not have cramps."
"Nothing in the shape of any foreign compound? You once showed me a Turkish liquid that burnt when water was poured on it, and dyed everything blood red."
"Ah, yes, the fozeska, something truly dangerous. But I know of nothing— But hold!" The doctor clapped his hands together. "Yes! yes! That would do it, that and that only."