Arthur B. Reeve

“ Yet for the moment there was just the flicker of a smile that played over his features at the sight of one of the hated Federals brought low, for whatever reason.
“Morelos,” shot out Kennedy, without waiting a moment for the first surprise to wear off, “I have discovered what it was that caused the death of Madame Valcour.”
Kennedy had thrust him at the only vulnerable spot. Instinctively the man’s muscles tightened, he clenched his fists, two bright spots of passion blazed in his sallow cheeks, and he had to bite his lips to restrain the exclamation that nearly escaped him. ”

“ Kennedy paused as he raised this faint spark of hope, then went on:
“I suppose you never dreamed that starch granules might afford a method of tracing out the nature of a poison quite the equal of the blood-crystal tests by which we can now tell both the species of the animal from which blood comes and even the various races among men, perhaps soon the very individual from which certain drops of blood came.”
“No,” replied Dr. Leslie, “I have always considered that all starch was alike, in fact.” ”

“ Was there indeed no way, short of the actual fact of sudden death, to prove that they had died of poisoning, no test, no manner in which the poisonings could be fixed on some one? Had the murderer used the safest of poisons? ”