"Exactly!" murmured Inspector Val; "prussic acid! She died as though by lightning;--which is a proper way to die if one's mind is made up. Now why couldn't she have sent Storri by the same route? A drop of this"--here he surveyed the tiny vial with interest, almost with approval--"a drop of this in the corner of his eye, or on his lip, would have beaten the pistol. Ah, yes, the pistol!" mused Inspector Val, taking the baby weapon in his hand; "I suppose the storm drowned the report. Well, they're gone! Storri was asleep, and never knew what hit him; which, considering his record,--and I'm something of a judge,--was an easier fate than he had earned." Inspector Val made a close examination of the room, rather from habit than any thought more deep, and straightway discovered the sleepy whisky. He put it to his nose as he had the tiny vial. "Laudanum!" he muttered; "she had mapped it out in every detail. It was the sight of the _Zulu Queen_; she saw that he was about to desert her." Inspector Val heaved a half-sigh, as even men most like chilled steel will when in the near company of death, and then, stiffening professionally, he called in Mr. Warmdollar, still weeping drunken tears at the stair's foot. "I want, for your own sake," explained Inspector Val, "to impress upon you the propriety of silence. These deaths will produce a sensation in both the State Department and the Russian legation. If word get abroad through you, it might be resented in the quarters I've named. I shall give the Russians notice, and you must not let a word creep into the papers until after they have been here. If news of this leak out, it may cost Mrs. Warmdollar her situation." Inspector Val was aware that in Washington the hinted loss of one's position as the penalty of loquacity has ever been the way of ways to lock fast the garrulous tongue. Mr. Warmdollar became a prodigal of promises; neither sign nor sound should escape him of the tragedy. Mrs. Warmdollar, as head scrubwoman, must not be put in jeopardy!