Over a still untasted grapefruit Garrick was considering what his next move should be. As for me, even this temporary return to a normal life caused me to view things in a different light.

There had been, as the Chief and the Boss had hinted at in their conversation, a wave of hysteria which had swept over the city only a short time before regarding what had come to be called the "poisoned needle" cases. Personally I had doubted them and I had known many doctors and scientists as well as vice and graft investigators who had scouted them, too.

"Garrick," I said at length, "do you really think that we have to deal with anything in this case but just plain attempted kidnapping of the old style?"

He shook his head doubtfully. I knew him to be anything but an alarmist and waited impatiently for him to speak.

"I wouldn\'t think so," he said at length slowly, "except for one thing."

"What\'s that?" I asked eagerly.

"His mention of the \'sleepmakers\' and Paris," he replied briefly.

Garrick had risen and walked over to a cabinet in the corner of his room. When he returned it was with something gleaming in the morning sunshine as he rolled it back and forth on a piece of paper, just a shining particle. He picked it up carefully.

I bent over to look at it more closely and there, in Garrick\'s hand, was a tiny bit of steel, scarcely three-eighths of an inch long, a mere speck. It was like nothing of which I had ever heard or read. Yet Garrick himself seemed to regard the minute thing with a sort of awe. As for me, I knew not what to make of it. I wondered whether it might not be some new peril.

"What is it?" I asked at length, seeing that Garrick might be disposed to talk, if I prompted him.

"Well," he answered laconically, holding it up to the light so that I could see that it was in reality a very minute, pointed hollow tube, "what would you say if I told you it was the point of a new—er—poisoned needle?"

He said it in such a simple tone that I reacted from it toward my own preconceived notions of the hysterical newspaper stories.

"I\'ve heard about all the poisoned needle stories," I returned. "I\'ve investigated some of them and written about them for my paper, Guy. And I must say still that I doubt them. Now in the first place, the mere insertion of a hypodermic needle—of course, you\'ve had it done, Guy—is something so painful that anyone in his senses would cry aloud. Then to administer a drug that way requires a great deal of skill and knowledge of anatomy, if it is to be done with full and quick effect."

Garrick said nothing, but continued to regard the hollow point which he had obtained somewhere, perhaps on a previous case.

"Why, such an injection," I continued, recalling the result of my former careful investigations on the subject, "couldn\'t act instantaneously anyhow, as it must if they are to get away with it. After the needle is inserted, the plunger has to be pushed down, and the whole thing would take at least thirty seconds. And then, the action of the drug. That would take time, too. It seems to me that in no case could it be done without the person\'s being instantly aware of it and, before lapsing into unconsciousness, calling for help or—"

"On the contrary," interrupted Garrick quietly, "it is absurdly easy. Waiving the question whether they might not be able to get Violet Winslow in such a situation where even the old hypodermic method which you know would serve as well as any other, why, Marshall, just the hint that fellow dropped tells me that he could walk up to her on the street or anywhere else, and—"

He did not finish the sentence, but left it to my imagination. It was my turn, now, to remain silent.

"You are right, though, Tom, in one respect," he resumed a moment later. "It is not easy by the old methods that everyone now knows. For instance, take the use of chloral-knock-out drops, you know. That is crude, too. Hypodermics and knock-out drops may answer well enough, perhaps, for the criminals whose victims are found in cafes and dives of a low order. But for the operations of an aristocratic criminal of to-day—and our friend the Chief seems to belong to the aristocracy of the underworld—far more subtle methods are required. Let me show you something."

Carefully, from the back of a drawer in the cabinet, where it was concealed in a false partition, he pulled out a little case. He opened it, and in it displayed a number of tiny globes and tubes of thin glass, each with a liquid in it, some lozenges, some bonbons, and several cigars and cigarettes.

"I\'m doing this," he remarked, "to show you, Tom, that I\'m not unduly magnifying the danger that surrounds Violet Winslow, after hearing what I did over that detectaphone. Perhaps it didn\'t impress you, but I think I know something of what we\'re up against."

From another part of the case he drew a peculiar looking affair and handed to me without a word. It consisted of a glass syringe about two inches long, fitted with a glass plunger and an asbestos washer. On the other end of the tube was a hollow point, about three-eighths of an inch long—just a shiny little bit of steel such as he had already showed me.

I looked at it curiously and, in spite of my former assurance, began to wonder whether, after all, the possibility of a girl being struck down suddenly, without warning, in a public place and robbed—or worse—might not take on the guise of ghastly reality.

"What do you make of it?" asked Garrick, evidently now enjoying the puzzled look on my face.

I could merely shrug my shoulders.

"Well," he drawled, "that is a weapon they hinted at last night. The possibilities of it are terrifying. Why, it could easily be plunged through a fur coat, without breaking."

He took the needle and made an imaginary lunge at me.

"When people tell you that the hypodermic needle cannot be employed in a case like this that they are planning," he continued, "they are thinking of ordinary hypodermics. Those things wouldn\'t be very successful usually, anyhow, under such circumstances. But this is different. The very form of this needle makes it particularly effective for anyone who wishes to use it for crime. For instance—take it on a railroad or steamship or in a hotel. Draw back the plunger—so—one quick jab—then drop it on the floor and grind it under your heel. The glass is splintered into a thousand bits. All evidence of guilt is destroyed, unless someone is looking for it practically with a microscope."

"Yes," I persisted, "that is all right—but the pain and the moments before the drug begins to work?"

With one hand Garrick reached into the case, selecting a little thin glass tube, and with the other he pulled out his handkerchief.

"Smell that!" he exclaimed, bending over me so that I could see every move and be prepared for it.

Yet it was done so quickly that I could not protect myself.

"Ugh!" I ejaculated in surprise, as Garrick manipulated the thing with a legerdemain swiftness that quite baffled me, even though he had given me warning to expect something.

Everyone has seen freak moving picture films where the actor suddenly bobs up in another place, without visibly crossing the intervening space. The next thing I knew, Garrick was standing across the room, in just that way. The handkerchief was folded up and in his pocket.

It couldn\'t have been done possibly in less than a minute. What had happened? Where had that minute or so gone? I felt a sickening sensation.

"Smell it again?" Garrick laughed, taking a step toward me.

I put up my hand and shook my head negatively, slowly comprehending.

"You mean to tell me," I gasped, "that I was—out?"

"I could have jabbed a dozen needles into you and you would never have known it," asserted Garrick with a quiet smile p............