"
The dart seemed to have been made of a quill with a very sharp
point, hollow, and containing the deadly poison in the sharpened
end.
"Look out!" I cautioned as he handled it.
"Oh, that's all right," he answered casually. "If I don't scratch
myself, I am safe enough. I could swallow the stuff and it
wouldn't hurt me--unless I had an abrasion of the lips or some
internal cut."
Kennedy continued to examine the dart until suddenly I heard a low
exclamation of surprise from him. Inside the hollow quill was a
thin sheet of tissue paper, tightly rolled. He drew it out and
read:
"To know me is DEATH Kennedy--Take Warning!"
Underneath was the inevitable Clutching Hand sign.
We jumped to our feet. Kennedy rushed to the window and slammed it
shut, while I seized the key from Michael's pocket, opened the
door and called for help.
A moment before, on the roof of a building across the street, one
might have seen a bent, skulking figure. His face was copper
colored and on his head was a thick thatch of matted hair. He
looked like a South American Indian, in a very dilapidated suit of
castoff American clothes.
He had slipped out through a doorway leading to a flight of steps
from the roof to the hallway of the tenement. His fatal dart sent
on its unerring mission with a precision born of long years in the
South American jungle, he concealed the deadly blow-gun in his
breast pocket, with a cruel smile, and, like one of his native
venomous serpents, wormed his way down the stairs again.
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