Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 | Page 4

room I heard some one
moaning. The maid said that it was Mrs. Boncour, and that she was
deathly sick. I ran into her room, and though she was beside herself
with pain I managed to control her, though she struggled desperately
against me. I was rushing her to the bathroom, passing through Miss
Lytton's room. 'What's wrong?' I asked as I carried her along. 'I took
some of that,' she replied, pointing to the bottle, on the dressing-table.
"I put a small quantity of its crystal contents on my tongue. Then I
realized the most tragic truth of my life. I had taken one of the deadliest
poisons in the world. The odor of the released gas of cyanogen was

strong. But more than that, the metallic taste and the horrible burning
sensation told of the presence of some form of mercury, too. In that
terrible moment my brain worked with the incredible swiftness of light.
In a flash I knew that if I added malic acid to the mercury--perchloride
of mercury or corrosive sublimate--I would have calomel or
subchloride of mercury, the only thing that would switch the poison out
of my system and Mrs. Boncour's.
"Seizing her about the waist, I hurried into the dining-room. On a
sideboard was a dish of fruit. I took two apples. I made her eat one,
core and all. I ate the other. The fruit contained the malic acid I needed
to manufacture the calomel, and I made it right there in nature's own
laboratory. But there was no time to stop. I had to act just as quickly to
neutralize that cyanide, too. Remembering the ammonia, I rushed back
with Mrs. Boncour, and we inhaled the fumes. Then I found a bottle of
peroxide of hydrogen. I washed out her stomach with it, and then my
own. Then I injected some of the peroxide into various Parts of her
body. The peroxide of hydrogen and hydrocyanic acid, you know,
make oxamide, which is a harmless compound.
"The maid put Mrs. Boncour to bed, saved. I went to my house, a
wreck. Since then I have not left this bed. With my legs paralyzed I lie
here, expecting each hour to be my last."
"Would you taste an unknown drug again to discover the nature of a
probable poison?" asked Craig.
"I don't know," he answered slowly, "but I suppose I would. In such a
case a conscientious doctor has no thought of self. He is there to do
things, and he does them, according to the best that is in him. In spite of
the fact that I haven't had one hour of unbroken sleep since that fatal
day, I suppose I would do it again."
When we were leaving, I remarked: "That is a martyr to science. Could
anything be more dramatic than his willing penalty for his devotion to
medicine?"
We walked along in silence. "Walter, did you notice he said not a word
of condemnation of Dixon, though the note was before his eyes? Surely
Dixon has some strong supporters in Danbridge, as well as enemies."
The next morning we continued our investigation. We found Dixon's
lawyer, Leland, in consultation with his client in the bare cell of the
county jail. Dixon proved to be a clear-eyed, clean-cut young man. The

thing that impressed me most about him, aside from the prepossession
in his favor due to the faith of Alma Willard, was the nerve he
displayed, whether guilty or innocent. Even an innocent man might
well have been staggered by the circumstantial evidence against him
and the high tide of public feeling, in spite of the support that he was
receiving. Leland, we learned, had been very active. By prompt work at
the time of the young doctor's arrest he had managed to secure the
greater part of Dr. Dixon's personal letters, though the prosecutor
secured some, the contents of which had not been disclosed.
Kennedy spent most of the day in tracing out the movements of
Thurston. Nothing that proved important was turned up and even visits
to near-by towns failed to show any sales of cyanide or sublimate to
any one not entitled to buy them. Meanwhile, in turning over the gossip
of the town, one of the newspapermen ran across the fact that the
Boncour bungalow was owned by the Posts, and that Halsey Post, as
the executor of the estate, was a more frequent visitor than the mere
collection of the rent would warrant. Mrs. Boncour maintained a stolid
silence that covered a seething internal fury when the newspaperman in
question hinted that the landlord and tenant were on exceptionally good
terms.
It was after a fruitless day of such search that we were sitting in the
reading-room of the Fairfield Hotel. Leland entered.