"Oh, it was pretty clear that Morand was wrong, even then. I just took a chance. It was one of about a hundred little preparations we always make in advance, on the chance of making one of them pay off when we need it badly."
Monk came over and took the twisted cigarette package from Doc and stared at it.
Doc went to Gail Adams. Ham was already there, trying to test her pulse. Ham let her wrist drop, looked up, and confessed, "I"m shaking so I couldn"t tell a pulse if it was a sledgehammer."
"Let"s see," Doc said, and knelt beside the girl. He held her wrist for a time. "She"s all right."
They both jumped then, wheeling. They stared at Monk, who lay flat on his back where he"d toppled.
Dust, stirred by his collision with the floor, lifted uneasily. The smashed cigarette package, now considerably crushed, lay in Monk"s right hand.
"Monk fainted!" Ham exclaimed.
"No. . . . There were five gas globules in the bottom of the cigarette packet," Doc said. "I must have crushed only four. And Monk, wadding up the package, broke the other."
Ham was grinning.
"Let"s tell him he fainted," he urged. "Let the big ape talk himself out of that one."
THE END.