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262 employed to encompass the death of that poor fellow upon whom I made a post-mortem."

"You know—the truth!" she gasped, her bony cheeks blanched, her hands trembling as she clutched the edge of the table, her dark eyes staring at me in horror.

"I do," was my cold response, as I gazed in triumph full in her face. "I will be quite frank with you, and so you must be frank with me." I went on. "I have myself had some little experience with the drug used. I know its dose, and also its effect. The expression upon the dead man's face alone told to me the plain truth. Who was he? What was his name?"

She refused to answer; my words seemed to hold her paralysed in fear.

"Come," I said. "We are alone here. And—well, I may, I suppose, be perfectly open with you—I'm prepared to assist you if it is made worth my while. If not—then we may as well remain strangers."

I had seen that bundle of notes in her hands, and sight of them had aroused within me that fatal avarice which has, alas! more than once been so nearly the cause of my undoing.

"Come," I repeated. "What was his name?"