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Page 30
It was two o'clock before Adam Adams found himself free once more. He
procured a lunch and then took a subway train halfway uptown. He
walked two blocks westward and ascended the steps of a fine brown-stone
residence. He asked for Doctor Calkey and was ushered into a private
den, where the doctor, a tall, spare man of sixty, soon joined him.
"My good friend Adams!" cried the doctor, shaking hands warmly. "Where
have you kept yourself? Surely you have not been to see me for a year,
or is it longer? I have missed you so much--and the comforting smokes
we had together? Why did you desert me? You knew I could not come to
you--that I never go out. And you do not bring any business to me--"
"I had none to bring, and I have been very busy. But I have missed our
meetings, I must confess."
"Ah, I am glad to learn I was not entirely forgotten. And you have
been busy, and still nothing for Rudolph Calkey to do, nothing to
analyze, nothing to dissect--"
"I've got a knot now for you."
"Good! good! I trust it is a good complication--I love them so--there
is such a satisfaction when the end is reached. But not yet--no, not
yet. A glass of wine first--something prime--I imported it myself, so
that I would know what I am getting."
The wine was soon forthcoming and then a cigar for the detective and a
pipe for the doctor. At last the latter threw himself into an old easy
chair and gazed at his caller expectantly.
"I am ready to untie the knot," he said. "What is it?"
CHAPTER X
AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART
There was a moment of silence.
"Briefly put, doctor, the case is this," said Adam Adams. "I want to
know if there is anything known to the medical world, a powder or
something of that sort, strong enough to kill a person if he should
breathe of it."
"A powder strong enough to kill a person?" The brow of the old
physician contracted. "It would have to be very powerful to do that.
You mean if a person was boxed up with it--like one killed by gas?"
"No, not at all. I mean a powder that could be held to a person's nose
and mouth in the open, when it would make that person sick and give him
cramps perhaps."
"And kill him?"
"Yes."
The old doctor rubbed his hands in thought. "That is a subject for
speculation. Certain cyanide compounds might be powerful enough to do
so under certain conditions. Any real dry powder would choke a person
if he got a big dose of it. I heard of a boy who came near dying as
the result of breathing in a quantity of extra dry licorice powder.
But he was smothered and did not have cramps."
"Nothing in the shape of any foreign compound? You once showed me a
Turkish liquid that burnt when water was poured on it, and dyed
everything blood red."
"Ah, yes, the _fozeska_, something truly dangerous. But I know of
nothing-- But hold!" The doctor clapped his hands together. "Yes!
yes! That would do it, that and that only."
"What?"
"I had a sample of it given to me some six months ago. It was called
_yamlang-peholo_, and was made in China, from the roots of the
_yamlang_ bush--a rare growth found only in the western part of the
country. By many Chinamen the _yamlang_ bush is supposed to be
accursed, and whenever they come near one they utter a prayer for
deliverance from its evils. If you sleep near the _yamlang_ bush it
will make you very sick."
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