A Fantastic Poisoning Mystery.

While Dr. Eric Brannigan knelt down again to examine once more the lifeless body of his old friend, he saw the multiple wounds on his head and shoulders, the clear marks of throttling, the terrible fear which even death had failed to remove from his features, to say nothing of the knife wound to the heart and the appearance of drowning. Mechanically he placed his thumb and forefinger on the wrist to satisfy himself that death was not being feigned, for he knew what a practical joker Pat Lauder always had been.

“Dead, Gentlemen,” he pronounced with that certitude which is possible only in a great scientist. “Quite,” remarked the great detective.

That fact having at last been established to the satisfaction of the small group present, the representative of the law, the local police constable, took charge. From his cavernous hip pocket he extracted a pocket book. This he elevated before him, and then gravely, as befitted the occasion, after carefully placing upon the end of a spatulate thumb a supply of saliva, he laboriously lifted page after page until he reached the first one that was blank. Diving his hand into his right trouser pocket he extracted a short stump of pencil which he first placed upon his tongue and then pointed to the great private investigator, Impskill Lloyd.