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46 discarded coat the small case containing the respirator.

Two seconds more, and I was sprinkling the inside of it with the culture-fluid, my heart meanwhile thumping away and my hands shaking.

It was done. I replaced the inoculated death-trap in its case, and then back to the coat pocket, when suddenly a knock came at the door, and in walked a waiter. My heart leaped into my throat, and a curious feeling came into the pit of my stomach.

"Monsieur Featherson?" he queried, looking at me, as I thought, rather strangely.

"He's just gone out," I answered in a shaky voice, and as I spoke the culture-tube in my left hand fell to the ground and broke.

I started back. The waiter jumped forward to see what had happened, and then—a lucky stroke of genius, Laurence—a glass of vermouth and soda which my host had been drinking stood on the table at my elbow, and as the waiter stepped up, I upset this also on the same spot as the broken tube. The man looked at me reproachfully, yet with wonder in his eyes.

"M'sieur has broken something?"