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I turned and saw that Collette and Aux Cayes had come out of the cabin to the deck together, he holding her arm while she dabbed the tears away from her wonderful eyes.

At the sight of us talking to Castine and the other woman, she seemed to catch her breath. She did not speak to us, but I saw the two women exchange a glance of appraisal, and I determined that “Madame” Castine was at least worth observing.

By the attitude of the group from which we had drawn them, Castine, it seemed, exercised some kind of influence over all, rich and poor, revolutionist and government supporter.

The appearance of Collette occasioned a buzz of conversation and glances, and it was only a moment before she retreated into the cabin again. Apparently she did not wish to lose anything, as long as Kennedy and Burke were about.

Kennedy did not seem to be so much interested in quizzing Castine just yet, now that he had seen him, as he was in passing the time profitably for a few minutes. He looked at his watch, snapped it back into his pocket, and walked deliberately into the cabin again.

There he drew back the cover over Leon’s face, bent over it, raised the lids of the eyes, and gazed into them.

Collette, who had been standing near him, watching every motion, drew back with an exclamation of horror and surprise.

“The voodoo sign is on him!” she cried. “It must be that!”

Almost in panic she fled, dragging her guardian with her.

I, too, looked. The man’s eyes were actually green, now. What did it mean?

“Burke,” remarked Kennedy decisively, “I shall take the responsibility of having the body transferred to my laboratory where I can observe it. I’ll leave you to attend to the formalities with the coroner. Then I want you to get in touch with Forsythe & Co. Watch them without letting them know you are doing so–and watch their visitors, particularly.”

A private ambulance was called and, with much wagging of heads and tongues, the body of Leon was carried on a stretcher, covered by a sheet, down the gangplank and placed in it. We followed closely in a taxicab, across the bridge and uptown.

For some days, I may say, Kennedy had been at work in his laboratory in a little anteroom, where he was installing some new apparatus for which he had received an appropriation from the trustees of the University.

It was a very complicated affair, one part of which seemed to be a veritable room within the room. Into this chamber, as it were, he now directed the men to carry Leon’s body and lay it on a sort of bed or pallet that was let down from the side wall of the compartment.

I had been quite mystified by the apparatus which Kennedy had set up, but had had no opportunity to discuss it with him and he had been so busy installing it that he had not taken time, often, for meals. In fact, the only way I knew that he had finished was that when Burke had called he had seemed interested in the call.

Outside the small chamber I have spoken of, in the room itself, were several large pieces of machinery, huge cylinders with wheels and belts, run by electric motors. No sooner had the body been placed in the little chamber and the door carefully closed than Kennedy threw a switch, setting the apparatus in motion.

“How could Leon have been killed?” I asked, as he rejoined me in the outside laboratory. “What did Collette mean by her frightened cry of the ‘voodoo sign’?”

The incident had made a marked impression on me and I had been unable quite to arrive at any sensible explanation.

“Of course, you know that voodoo means literally anything that inspires fear,” remarked Kennedy after a moment’s thought. “The god of voodoo is the snake. I cannot say now what it was that she feared. But to see the eyeballs turn green is uncanny, isn’t it?”