"Tell me what you know."
"Now you're talking!" said the newspaper man. "It's little enough. But we've got it straight that they've been covering up some disease for weeks."
"What do the certificates call it?"
"Malaria and septic something, I believe."
"Septicæmia hemorrhagica?"
"That's it."
"An alias. That's what they called bubonic plague in San Francisco and yellow fever in Texas in the old days of concealment."
"It couldn't be either of those, could it?"
"No. But it might be any reportable disease: diphtheria, smallpox, any of 'em. Even that hardly explains the quicklime."
"Could you look into it for us; for the 'Clarion'?"