“Ah!” The exclamation slipped from Mrs. Brewster. “Is the drug administered in water?”
“No, it is inhaled—take care, you have dropped your handkerchief.” Stone pulled himself up short in his speech, and bent over but the young girl was too quick for him, and stooped first to pick up her handkerchief.
As she raised her head Stone caught sight of the tiny mole under the lobe of her left ear. It was the one mark which distinguished Barbara from her twin sister. Colonel McIntyre had addressed his daughter as Helen, and she had not undeceived him—Why? The perplexed physician gave up the problem.
“The drug,” he went on to explain, “amyl nitrite comes in pearl capsules and is crushed in a handkerchief and the fumes inhaled.”
Mrs. Brewster leaned forward suddenly. “Would that cause death?” she asked.
Stone shook his head in denial. “Not the customary dose of three minims,” he answered, and turning, found that Barbara had stolen from the room.
CHAPTER IV. BARBARA ENGAGES COUNSEL
Bidding a hasty good morning to the elevator girl, Harry Kent, suit-case in hand, entered the cage and was carried up to the fourth floor of the Wilkins Building. Several business acquaintances stopped to chat with him as he walked down the corridor to his office, and it was fully fifteen minutes before he turned the knob of the door bearing the firm name—ROCHESTER AND KENT, ATTORNEYS—on its glass panel. As he stepped inside the anteroom which separated the two offices occupied respectively by him and his senior partner, Philip Rochester, a stranger rose from the clerk's desk.
“Yes, sir?” he asked interrogatively.