“Please hurry,” repeated the doctor.

She turned from the table and handed it to him.  He adjusted it and already held it poised for the thrust which was not to cure but to poison us further.

“Weepy Mary!” cried a frightened voice at our door.

Elaine had been deeply alarmed by the sudden illness of Kennedy and the message from Jameson.  No sooner had Kennedy gone, than it flashed over her that Wu Fang had predicted something like this.

“The threat!” she exclaimed, seeking her cousin.  “Mary, I must go to the city—­right away.”

On the next train, then, she had been speeding back to New York, and, arriving at the station, she realized that there was not a moment to lose.  She called a cab, drove directly to our apartment, and hurried in, without even ringing the bell.

One glance at the improvised hospital was enough to alarm her.  But the sight that had transfixed her was of a woman whose face she remembered only too well, though Kennedy and I had never seen her.

“Please, Miss,” began Godowski’s assistant, trying to quiet Elaine, while Godowski turned in vexation to his work.

“No, no!” repeated Elaine.  “This woman is no nurse.  She is a criminal!”

Godowski paused.  It was true he did not know the woman.  He gazed from Elaine to Weepy Mary in doubt.

The game was up.  Weepy Mary dropped a piece of gauze which she had soaked in the solution from the vial which Wu had given her and bolted for the door.

So sudden was her flight that no one was quick enough to stop her.  She managed to reach the hall and slam the door.  Down she rushed to the street, Godowski’s assistant after her.

There, awaiting, was Long Sin’s car.  She leaped in and was off in a moment.  The assistant had just time to dive at the running-board.  But his grip was poor and Long Sin easily threw him off.

“You—­you fool!” he hissed at Mary, as soon as the danger of pursuit was over and the assistant had gone back into the apartment.

“Oh, sir,” she begged, “it was not my fault.  Miss Dodge came in—­ unexpectedly—­she recognized me.  If I had not fled, they would have caught me—­perhaps you, too.”

Long Sin was furious.  He threatened her and she cowered back.  However, there was nothing to be gained by that and he subsided and drove quickly down-town.

The excitement more than ever alarmed Elaine now.  “Tell me,” she appealed to Dr. Godowski, “what is the matter?”

“In some way,” he replied quickly, “they have become infected by the bite of an African tick which carries spirillum fever.”

“She got away, in a cab,” panted the assistant, returning.

Godowski raised his hands in despair.  “I was just about to start,” he cried.  “Everything is ready.  I can’t send for another nurse.  Every minute counts.”

Elaine had thrown off her coat and hat.  Her sleeves were up in a moment and before the doctor knew what she was about she was scrubbing her hands in the antiseptic wash.