"For God's sake, don't!" he cried; "I believe it is poisoned--look!" Ellersby looked, and saw Pickles trying to rise to his feet. He evidently knew something was wrong with him, for he commenced to whine, and a glaze came over his eyes. His master knelt down beside him and dried the blood off the wound with his handkerchief, but it was too late. The dog opened his jaws once or twice, tried to rise to his feet, staggered, and fell over on his side, to all appearances dead. On seeing this, Ellersby jumped to his feet and began to rage. "The devil take you and your case!" he said furiously, "you've killed my dog." "I'm very sorry, sir," said Dowker, crossing and picking up the dagger, "it was an accident." "An expensive accident for me," said Ellersby, bitterly; "at all events it proves the dagger was poisoned." "Yes," said Dowker in a delighted tone, "so the crime must have been committed with the other weapon, for if one was poisoned, it's only common sense to assume the other was." He had apparently quite forgotten the loss sustained by Ellersby, for there was no doubt the bulldog was quite dead. That gentleman looked at him in disgust. "Oh, go to the devil," he said, irritably, "and thank your stars I don't make you pay for this." Dowker murmured something about an accident, then, slipping the fatal dagger, once more covered in paper, into his pocket, he took his departure. On his way down he met the doctor coming up, and once outside, he was beside himself with joy at having proved the kriss to be poisonous. "And now," he said, "I'll call and see Mr. Desmond." CHAPTER VII. A LITERARY ASPIRANT. Primrose Crescent lies just off Tottenham Court Road, and though a short distance away the great thoroughfare is full of noise and bustle, everything is comparatively silent in this crescent. Milk-carts are the most frequent vehicles, and occasionally a rakish-looking hansom makes its appearance, while ragged mendicants sometimes pay the neighbourhood a visit, and troll out lively ditties in gin-cracked voices. The organ-grinder is not an unknown personage either, and his infernal machine may frequently be heard playing the latest music-hall melodies as he glances round in search of the humble brown. The houses are somewhat dismal; tall--very tall, built of dull-hued red brick, with staring windows and little iron balconies, meant for show, not use. No Bloomsbury Juliet can lean over the ornamental ironwork and whisper sweet nothings to Romeo; if she did, Juliet would forthwith be precipitated into the basement, where dwells the servant of the house in company with the domestic cat, and the love-scene would end within the prosaic walls of a hospital.