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230 nodded toward the collection. Anyone in the house could have had as easy access to them as to the incubator."

"Where is the incubator now?"

"I returned it to Hampton." Rannie flushed once more. "It makes the whole thing look pretty black against me, doesn't it? The fact is that after mother's death and I got brooding about it and wondering why she hadn't responded to the treatment I got a sort of horror of those wretched, infinitesimal things which could so easily have been the cause of it all. I threw out the bacteria, and sent the incubator back to Hampton; but I couldn't get the thought of them out of my mind.

"I know it was madness to even consider it; but, Sergeant, if anyone got at the incubator and infected that needle, they could as easily have gained access to it at any time during my mother's subsequent illness and reinfected her over and over again by a mere pin-prick." The boy's thin hands clenched. "That is the only possible way to account for her failure to rally under the treatment."

"Doctor McCutchen suggested that the incision made for drainage near the infected spot might have been reinfected by serum"—Odell was beginning, but the boy waved him to silence.

"That form of treatment is a special fad of his, but I know Doctor Adams doesn't subscribe to it. He knows of my interest in medical science, and he kept me informed of every detail of the case. An abscess did form near the puncture of the needle, but it was not necessary for him to lance it, and I know that no incision was made. As to the puncture itself, it would have been impossible to reinfect the blood through it because of the dead cells which the