"Some one cried!"
"Oh, Miss Florence!" exclaimed the maid, terror-stricken as she recalled Susan's act. "Miss Susan took a peach from the basket and was eating it on the way to her room!"
"Good heavens!" gasped Jim. "I was right. The fruit was poisoned."
Jim had heard enough to send for a specialist he knew. The specialist arrived about twenty minutes after Susan's first cry. To his keen eye it looked like a certain poison which had for its basis the venom of the cobra.
"Will she live?"
"Oh, yes. But she'll be a wreck for some months. Send her to the hospital where I can visit her frequently. And I'll take that peach along for analysis. No police affair?"
"No. We dare not call them in," said Jim.
"That's your affair. I'll send down the ambulance. Keep her quiet. She'll have a species of paralysis; but that'll work off under treatment. A strange business."
"So it is," agreed Jim grimly.
Florence knelt beside her friend's bed and cried softly.