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106 remember, Doctor Adams was not called in until the third day and by that time the infection had spread well up into the lower arm. One of his first steps would be to make an incision near the original puncture for drainage. What if after this was accomplished and the first treatment had been finished but before the patient had begun to respond to it, the dressing had been removed and the incision reinfected? What if this were repeated until death ensued? Mrs. Lorne would have died from septicemia, true; but she would have been murdered as surely as if she had been stabbed through the heart."

"By George, I believe you have hit it, Doctor," Odell exclaimed. Then a shade of doubt crossed his face, to be as quickly suppressed, and he added hastily, "I'm going to act upon that theory at once. Thank you for giving me so much of your time."

"You will keep me informed of your progress?" the specialist asked as they shook hands.

"Surely; and you will hear from the medical examiner about the autopsy. Thank you again, sir, and good afternoon."

In the street once more, Odell turned his footsteps in the direction of the Meade house. The specialist's theory was ingenious; but had it been a wholly disinterested one? If it could be proven it would, of course, exculpate himself and his colleagues from all censure in the matter of their diagnosis; but there seemed on the face of it to be insuperable difficulties in the path of such an hypothesis. One or the other of the two nurses must have been constantly on guard, and Miss Meade had scarcely left her sister's bedside. Not even she would have been permitted to change