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 amount and the rest in less quantity. The postmortem on Ed and Swan was completed this morning; there was definite, characteristic destruction of motor nerve centers."

"Characteristic of what?" This was old Sencort—yielding, pliable nature, he had, you see—at Teverson again.

"A cheerful little chemical composition which the infernal-machine and poison squad of the secret service call KX."

"What?"

"In your school days, how did you designate algebraically an unknown quantity?" Teverson asked old Sencort, evidently knowing that the way to handle the old boy was by going to the good old Socratic.

"By the later letters of the alphabet," Sencort grunted.

"That is the X in the name of this; it means they haven't an iota of information on one ingredient, except by its effect; by K, they mean they can halfway guess at the other; it seems to be the masterpiece of an Austrian chemist known as Stenewisc who hides himself most successfully somewhere on the East Side here. If he'd been born in the Borgias' time, he'd have been Lucretia's favorite; for his stuff killed Costrelman