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One could almost feel the net closing.

“Delaney has fallen a victim to a new germ of which someone learned in Paris,” Craig raced on, inexorably, “a germ that would never, in all probability, be discovered by American doctors, a germ that poisoned safely, surely, and swiftly by its deadly super-toxin.”

A few moments before there had been a noise of a car outside the laboratory window, but in the excitement of Craig’s startling revelation we had paid no attention.

A hasty tap at the door interrupted him. Before he could open it a very beautiful woman burst in, followed by a thick-set Irishman.

It was the Baroness Von Dorf and our friend Burke.

For a moment the two women fairly glared at each other.

“I’ve heard what Professor Kennedy just said,” cried the Baroness, her eyes snapping fire. “Fortunately, I had to go to Washington and was able to protect myself by seeming to disappear. If I had stayed in New York another day, there is no telling what might have happened to me. Probably I should have got this disease internally instead of externally. As it was, I thought it would come near ruining my beauty.”

Burke tossed a yellow slip of paper on the table near Kennedy. “That is something one of our special agents found and brought me today,” he exclaimed.

Kennedy picked it up and read it, while Burke faced us.

The Secret Service man fixed his eyes on Madame Dupres. “As for you, my dear lady,” he challenged, “how do you happen to be in New York with one of the greatest international crooks that ever troubled the police of five continents?”

“I–in New York?” she shrugged coolly. “Monte Carlo, Paris, Vienna, London–all were dead. I had to come here to make a living.”

The Baroness drew herself up as if to speak.

“You scoundrel–you will give my apartment a bad name with your dirty cattle plague–will you!” ground out a voice harshly at my side.

I turned quickly. Ames had clutched Haynes by the throat. We were all on our feet in a moment, but there was no need of separating them. The veterinary was more than a match for the hot-headed little lawyer.

“Someone,” shot out Kennedy, wheeling quickly, “figured that the cattle deal could be brought about quite naturally if Delaney were dead and the Baroness out of the way. Later he could reap the profit and carry off Madame Dupres into the bargain. And if anything were ever discovered, what more natural than to throw the suspicion on a veterinary who was supposed to know all about anthrax?”

Just then a half circle of nickled steel gleamed momentarily in Kennedy’s hands. I recognized it as a pair of the new handcuffs that uncoiled automatically, gripping at a mere touch.

I saw it all in a flash, as I picked up the paper that Burke had tossed to Kennedy.

It was a telegram, and read:

A. A., The New Stratfield, Washington.
Return immediately. Coroner has Craig Kennedy on case.
D. D.

“It was a devilish scheme,” snapped Kennedy, as the handcuffs circled the fake lawyer’s wrists, “but it didn’t work, Ames.”