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“I want you to look after Miss Moreton, Walter,” he said in a low tone as we three stood in the hall. “And you, Miss Moreton, I want to trust me when I tell you I am going to bring you safely out of this thing. Be a brave girl,” he encouraged, taking her hand. “Remember that Mr. Jameson and I are here solely in your interest.”

“I know it,” she murmured, her lip trembling. “I will try.”

A moment later we entered the Moreton library. Dr. Loeb was glaring impartially at everybody. I am sure that if he had been able to get at any of his formidable electrical apparatus he would have made short work of us “without cautery or knife.” Darius Moreton was indignant, Lionel supercilious, Dr. Goode silent.

Kennedy lost no time in getting down to the business that had brought him out to Norwood, for this was not exactly a sociable gathering.

“Of course,” he began, laying his leather case on the table and unlocking, but not opening it, “references to cancer houses abound in medical literature, but I think I am safe in saying that nothing has been conclusively proved in favor either of the believers or the skeptics. At least, it may be said to be an open question, with the weight of opinion against it. Such physicians as Sir Thomas Oliver have said that the evidence in favor is too strong to be ignored. Others, equally brilliant, have shown why it should be ignored.

“In the absence of better proof–or rather in the presence of other facts–perhaps, in this case, it would be better to see whether there is not some other theory that may fit the facts better.”

“Dr. Goode thought that the cancers might have been caused artificially by X-rays or radium,” I ventured.

Craig shook his head. “I have taken a piece of filter paper saturated with a solution of potassium iodide, starch paste, and ferrosulphate and laid it over a sample of blood, not four millimeters away. The whole I have kept in the dark.

“Now, we know that blood gives off peroxide of hydrogen. Peroxide of hydrogen is capable of attacking photographic plates. The paper can be permeated by a gas. No, that was not a case of photo-activity observed by Dr. Goode. It was the emission of gas from the blood that affected the plates.”

“But suppose that is the case,” objected Dr. Goode hastily. “There are the deaths from cancer. How do you explain them? It is not a cancer house, you say. Is it mere chance?”

“Anyone may be pardoned for believing that cancer houses or even cancer districts exist,” reiterated Craig. “Indeed some observations seem to show it, as I have said, though the opponents of the theory claim to have found other causes. Here, as you hint, five people, living in close association, have died in five years.”

He paused and drew from the satchel the little porcelain cone which he had picked up between the Moreton and Goode houses.

“I have here,” he resumed, “what is known as a Berkefeld filter. Its meshes let through none of the germs that we can see with a microscope. It is bacteria-proof. Only something smaller than these things can pass through it, something that we cannot see, a clear watery fluid. That something in this case is a filterable virus.”

Kennedy paused again, then went on, “Although the filterable viruses have only recently come to attention, it is known that they are of very diverse character. Here we have opened up the world of the infinitely little–the universe that lies beyond the range of the microscope. The study of these tiny particles is now one of the greatest objects in scientific medicine.

“Are they living? It seems so, for a very little of the virus gives rise to growths from which many others start. It may, of course, be chemical, but it looks as if it were organic, since it resists cold, although not heat, and can be destroyed by phenol, toluol, and other antiseptics. Perhaps the virus may be visible, but not by any means yet known. Still, we do know that these things which no eye can see may cause some of the commonest diseases.”