“Have you done the trick?”
Stone dropped back on the soft cushions of the car and passed his hands across his eyes. It had been a hasty and disordered flight that had followed his act, and had carried him down the fire escape. On reaching the lower platform, he had crawled through the ladder opening and let himself down and dropped to the pavement of the court. Then he had sped across the courtyard and out into the side street. There he had moderated his pace for fear of attracting attention, if a passing policeman should see him. He had still hurried along, however, blindly and fearfully, until he saw the waiting machine.
Follansbee’s head had been thrust out of the closed car for a moment as Stone approached, then the door had been opened, and the miner had jumped in.
“Where is the syringe?” Follansbee asked.
Stone mechanically thrust his hand into his pocket and withdrew the leather case. There was a look of satisfaction in the physician’s eyes as he took charge of his property again.
“I was worried for fear you might have left that behind,” he said, in his thin voice. “The most careful of us make slips now and then.”
“I made no slip,” came the answer, in a strange voice. “If that thing was charged with death as you told me, then Winthrop Crawford is doomed.”
“You need have no fear of the potency of my preparation,” Follansbee assured him. “From to-night you may look upon yourself as virtually a millionaire.”
“I don’t care so much about that,” the miner began. “It was——”
His tall, raw-boned form stiffened suddenly, and he drew in a deep, noisy breath—just such a breath as a man might take when awakened from a long sleep. He turned swiftly upon the astonished Follansbee, and the latter involuntarily shrank away. He feared that Stone might do him some harm, and knew that he was far from a physical match for the hard-muscled miner.
Nothing was further from Stone’s thoughts, though. His unexpected move had another meaning. “What was it that made me want to kill my best friend?” he demanded, in tragic b............