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296 That afternoon I called on a man whom I sometimes employed to make private inquiries for me, and I instructed him to find out something further regarding Davies. Two days later I had a report in my hands which showed that the person in question was well-known in a certain circle in the City, but he had the reputation of being addicted to sharp practice. He was a director of two distinctly shady concerns. The whole report, indeed, went to show that, while posing as an influential man, he was, on the contrary, little better than an adventurer. He had led an eventful life in South Africa before the war, and had made several remarkable coups in finance in consequence.

For a long while I pondered over what I read.

Then, passing into that bare upstairs room which I used as a laboratory, and to which nobody was ever admitted, I went to the window and examined my tiny tubes of various cultures in the small, square incubator. They were innocent-looking little tubes, in all conscience, but contained in them were sufficient germs of deadly diseases to decimate a town.

The particular tube to which I turned my