Instantly Dick’s mind travelled back to the strange deaths nearly a year before of two police officials who had been specially astute in the anti-anarchist campaign. Both had been found dead in lonely streets, and in each case the only mark on the body was a tiny scratch on the cheek which no one had dreamed of connecting with their inexplicable death. As Dick gazed at the deadly blow-pipe those scratches assumed a new and sinister significance.
Carefully removing the dart, Dick hurried with it to the laboratory of Doctor Lepine, the well-known toxicologist.
Doctor Lepine smiled.
“Lucky you didn’t scratch yourself with it, Monsieur Manton,” he said in French. “It would mean almost instant death!”
He listened gravely as Dick described the death of the two police agents. The doctor had been away in England at the time and had not even heard of the circumstances. But he hurried round to the Prefecture with Dick and carefully examined the documents which dealt with the two cases and described minutely the appearance of the bodies.
“I have not the slightest doubt,” he declared, “that both men were killed with one of these darts. Every indication points to it. But as the darts were not found we must presume they were removed after death to avoid arousing suspicion. The victim would be paralysed almost instantly, and would fall and die almost on the spot where he was standing when the dart infected him. If there are any more of these accursed things in Paris it will, I fear, be a difficult matter to protect Monsieur le Préfet, for a favourable opportunity must come in the long run.”
Dick hurried back to Kapok’s room, meaning to secure the blow-pipe. To his amazement the deadly weapon had disappeared! The police agents on duty outside the room asserted that no one had entered. But an open window told its tale; some one had crept along the ledge outside, entered the room and possessed himself of the weapon.
Dick spent several anxious hours with the Préfet, Raoul Gregoire, and Inspector Roquet, arranging a plan of campaign.
Next morning found him crouched in an upper window of a locked room in a house facing the old villa in the Place d’Italie. Close at hand lay a powerful pneumatic gun, a weapon perfected by Jules and almost as deadly and efficient as a rifle. He was haunted by a sickening sense of foreboding. Against every evidence of his reason and senses he felt convinced that it was from that old villa that danger threatened Gregoire.
Yet he was bound to admit that his fears seemed absurd. The old house opposite was packed with sightseers, but there was a detective in every room close to the window. Even the garrets had been searched. It was obvious that they had not been entered for months.