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“What do you think it is?” I asked. “Dope? That’s what they all do if they get a chance when they are pinched–throw it away.”

“Perhaps,” answered Kennedy. “But it’s worth studying to see what drug she is really using.”

Late as it was, Craig insisted on going directly to the laboratory to plunge into work. First, he took the little hypodermic needle with which he had drawn several drops of blood from the race-horse, and emptied the contents into a test tube.

Finding that I was probably of more use at home in our apartment asleep than bothering Kennedy in the laboratory, I said good-night. But when I awoke in the morning, I found that Kennedy had not been in bed at all.

It was as I expected. He had worked all night, and, as I entered the laboratory, I saw him engaged in checking up two series of tests which he had been making.

“Have you found anything yet?” I asked.

He pointed to a corner where he kept a couple of guinea-pigs. They were sound asleep, rolled up in little fluffy balls of down. Ordinarily, in the morning, I found the little fellows very frisky.

“Yes,” he said; “I think I have found something. I have injected just a drop of blood from Lady Lee into one of them, and I think he’s good for a long sleep.”

“But how about the other one?” I asked.

“That’s what puzzles me,” ruminated Kennedy. “Do you remember that bottle I picked up last night? I haven’t finished the analysis of the blood or of the contents of the bottle, but they seem to contain at least some of the same substances. Among the things I find are monopotassium phosphate and sarcolactic acid, with just a trace of carbon dioxide. I injected some of the liquid from the bottle into the other fellow, and you see what the effect is–the same in both cases.”

The telephone bell rang excitedly.

“Is there a Mr. Kennedy there?” asked Long Distance, adding, without waiting for an answer, “Hold the wire, please.”

I handed the receiver to Kennedy. The conversation was short, and as he hung up the receiver, Craig turned to me.

“It was Broadhurst at the Idlewild Hotel,” he said quickly. “Today is the day of the great Interurban Handicap at Belmore Park with stakes of twenty-five thousand dollars. Usually they take the horse over to the track at least a week or two before the race, but as Broadhurst’s stable is so near, he didn’t do it–hoping he might keep a better watch over Lady Lee. But she’s no better. If the horse is being tampered with, he wants to know who is doing it and how.”

Kennedy paused a moment, then went over to a cabinet and took from it a bottle and a very large-sized hypodermic.

We must have been among the first on the field at Belmore Park that day. Lady Lee had been sent over there after we left Northbury the day before, under the care of Murchie and McGee, and had been stabled in the quarters on the track which had been assigned to Broadhurst.

With Broadhurst, who was waiting for us, we lounged across the field in the direction of the stables. There was no doubt about it, Lady Lee was not in prime condition. It was not that there was anything markedly wrong, but to the trained observer the famous race-horse seemed to lack just a trifle of the elan which meant a win.

While Murchie and the jockey were talking outside to Broadhurst, Kennedy slipped into the stall to look at the racer.

“Stand over by that side of the door, Walter,” he muttered. “I’ll be through in just a minute. I want you to act as a cover.”

Quickly he jabbed the hypodermic into the horse and pressed down the plunger.

Lady Lee reared and snorted as she had done before when he extracted the blood, and instantly Murchie and McGee were crowding past me. But the instant had been long enough for Kennedy. He had dropped the hypodermic into his pocket and was endeavoring to soothe the horse.