Thorndyke took out one of each kind and gently pinched their ends.

The gold-tipped one he returned; the plain one he tore through, about a quarter of an inch from the end; when two little white tabloids dropped out on the table.

Badger eagerly picked one up and was about to smell it when Thorndyke grasped his wrist.

"Be careful," said he; and when he had cautiously sniffed at the tabloid--held at a safe distance from his nose--he added: "Yes, potassium cyanide.

I thought so when his lips turned that queer colour.
It was in that last cigarette; you can see that he has bitten off the end." For some time we stood silently looking down at the still form stretched on the floor.