He glanced about
the room, and all the details of it smote him with a strange sense of
familiarity. It was as though he had just returned from a long journey.
He looked across the table at his partner. Matt was watching him and
smiling. An expression of horror spread over Jim's face.
"Matt!" he screamed. "You ain't doped me?"
Matt smiled and continued to watch him. In the paroxysm that followed,
Jim did not become unconscious. His muscles tensed and twitched and
knotted, hurting him and crushing him in their savage grip. And in the
midst of it all, it came to him that Matt was acting queerly. He was
traveling the same road. The smile had gone from his face, and there was
on it an intense expression, as if he were listening to some inner tale
of himself and trying to divine the message. Matt got up and walked
across the room and back again, then sat down.
"You did this, Jim," he said quietly.
"But I didn't think you'd try to fix _me_," Jim answered reproachfully.
"Oh, I fixed you all right," Matt said, with teeth close together and
shivering body. "What did you give me?"
"Strychnine."
"Same as I gave you," Matt volunteered. "It's some mess, ain't it!"
"You're lyin', Matt," Jim pleaded.
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