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Title: The War Terror

Author: Arthur B. Reeve

Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5073]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on April 14, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR TERROR ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.





THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES

THE WAR TERROR

BY ARTHUR B. REEVE


FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

         INTRODUCTION
      I. THE WAR TERROR
     II. THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC GUN
    III. THE MURDER SYNDICATE
     IV. THE AIR PIRATE
      V. THE ULTRA-VIOLET RAY
     VI. THE TRIPLE MIRROR
    VII. THE WIRELESS WIRETAPPERS
   VIII. THE HOUSEBOAT MYSTERY
     IX. THE RADIO DETECTIVE
      X. THE CURIO SHOP
     XI. THE "PILLAR OF DEATH"
    XII. THE ARROW POISON
   XIII. THE RADIUM ROBBER
    XIV. THE SPINTHARISCOPE
     XV. THE ASPHYXIATING SAFE
    XVI. THE DEAD LINE
   XVII. THE PASTE REPLICA
  XVIII. THE BURGLAR'S MICROPHONE
    XIX. THE GERM LETTER
     XX. THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY
    XXI. THE POISON BRACELET
   XXII. THE DEVIL WORSHIPERS
  XXIII. THE PSYCHIC CURSE
   XXIV. THE SERPENT'S TOOTH
    XXV. THE "HAPPY DUST"
   XXVI. THE BINET TEST
  XXVII. THE LIE DETECTOR
 XXVIII. THE FAMILY SKELETON
   XXIX. THE LEAD POISONER
    XXX. THE ELECTROLYTIC MURDER
   XXXI. THE EUGENIC BRIDE
  XXXII. THE GERM PLASM
 XXXIII. THE SEX CONTROL
  XXXIV. THE BILLIONAIRE BABY
   XXXV. THE PSYCHANALYSIS
  XXXVI. THE ENDS OF JUSTICE




INTRODUCTION


As I look back now on the sensational events of the past months
since the great European War began, it seems to me as if there had
never been a period in Craig Kennedy's life more replete with
thrilling adventures than this.

In fact, scarcely had one mysterious event been straightened out
from the tangled skein, when another, even more baffling, crowded
on its very heels.

As was to have been expected with us in America, not all of these
remarkable experiences grew either directly or indirectly out of
the war, but there were several that did, and they proved to be
only the beginning of a succession of events which kept me busy
chronicling for the Star the exploits of my capable and versatile
friend.

Altogether, this period of the war was, I am sure, quite the most
exciting of the many series of episodes through which Craig has
been called upon to go. Yet he seemed to meet each situation as it
arose with a fresh mind, which was amazing even to me who have
known him so long and so intimately.

As was naturally to be supposed, also, at such a time, it was not
long before Craig found himself entangled in the marvelous spy
system of the warring European nations. These systems revealed
their devious and dark ways, ramifying as they did tentacle-like
even across the ocean in their efforts to gain their ends in
neutral America. Not only so, but, as I shall some day endeavor to
show later, when the ban of silence imposed by neutrality is
raised after the war, many of the horrors of the war were brought
home intimately to us.

I have, after mature consideration, decided that even at present
nothing but good can come from the publication at least of some
part of the strange series of adventures through which Kennedy and
I have just gone, especially those which might, if we had not
succeeded, have caused most important changes in current history.
As for the other adventures, no question can be raised about the
propriety of their publication.

At any rate, it came about that early in August, when the war
cloud was just beginning to loom blackest, Kennedy was
unexpectedly called into one of the strangest, most dangerous
situations in which his peculiar and perilous profession had ever
involved him.




CHAPTER I

THE WAR TERROR


"I must see Professor Kennedy--where is he?--I must see him, for
God's sake!"

I was almost carried off my feet by the inrush of a wild-eyed
girl, seemingly half crazed with excitement, as she cried out
Craig's name.

Startled by my own involuntary exclamation of surprise which
followed the vision that shot past me as I opened our door in
response to a sudden, sharp series of pushes at the buzzer,
Kennedy bounded swiftly toward me, and the girl almost flung
herself upon him.

"Why, Miss--er--Miss--my dear young lady--what's the matter?" he
stammered, catching her by the arm gently.

As Kennedy forced our strange visitor into a chair, I observed
that she was all a-tremble. Her teeth fairly chattered.
Alternately her nervous, peaceless hands clutched at an imaginary
something in the air, as if for support, then, finding none, she
would let her wrists fall supine, while she gazed about with
quivering lips and wild, restless eyes. Plainly, there was
something she feared. She was almost over the verge of hysteria.

She was a striking girl, of medium height and slender form, but it
was her face that fascinated me, with its delicately molded
features, intense unfathomable eyes of dark brown, and lips that
showed her idealistic, high-strung temperament.

"Please," he soothed, "get yourself together, please--try! What is
the matter?"

She looked about, as if she feared that the very walls had eyes
and ears. Yet there seemed to be something bursting from her lips
that she could not restrain.

"My life," she cried wildly, "my life is at stake. Oh--help me,
help me! Unless I commit a murder to-night, I shall be killed
myself!"

The words sounded so doubly strange from a girl of her evident
refinement that I watched her narrowly, not sure yet but that we
had a plain case of insanity to deal with.

"A murder?" repeated Kennedy incredulously. "YOU commit a murder?"

Her eyes rested on him, as if fascinated, but she did not flinch
as she replied desperately, "Yes--Baron Kreiger--you know, the
German diplomat and financier, who is in America raising money and
arousing sympathy with his country."

"Baron Kreiger!" exclaimed Kennedy in surprise, looking at her
more keenly.

We had not met the Baron, but we had heard much about him, young,
handsome, of an old family, trusted already in spite of his youth
by many of the more advanced of old world financial and political
leaders, one who had made a most favorable impression on
democratic America at a time when such impressions were valuable.

Glancing from one of us to the other, she seemed suddenly, with a
great effort, to recollect herself, for she reached into her
chatelaine and pulled out a card from a case.

It read simply, "Miss Paula Lowe."

"Yes," she replied, more calmly now to Kennedy's repetition of the
Baron's name, "you see, I belong to a secret group." She appeared
to hesitate, then suddenly added, "I am an anarchist."

She watched the effect of her confession and, finding the look on
Kennedy's face encouraging rather than shocked, went on
breathlessly: "We are fighting war with war--this iron-bound
organization of men and women. We have pledged ourselves to
exterminate all kings, emperors and rulers, ministers of war,
generals--but first of all the financiers who lend money that
makes war possible."

She paused, her eyes gleaming momentarily with something like the
militant enthusiasm that must have enlisted her in the paradoxical
war against war.

"We are at least going to make another war impossible!" she
exclaimed, for the moment evidently forgetting herself.

"And your plan?" prompted Kennedy, in the most matter-of-fact
manner, as though he were discussing an ordinary campaign for
social betterment. "How were you to--reach the Baron?"

"We had a drawing," she answered with amazing calmness, as if the
mere telling relieved her pent-up feelings. "Another woman and I
were chosen. We knew the Baron's weakness for a pretty face. We
planned to become acquainted with him--lure him on."

Her voice trailed off, as if, the first burst of confidence over,
she felt something that would lock her secret tighter in her
breast.

A moment later she resumed, now talking rapidly, disconnectedly,
giving Kennedy no chance to interrupt or guide the conversation.

"You don't know, Professor Kennedy," she began again, "but there
are similar groups to ours in European countries and the plan is
to strike terror and consternation everywhere in the world at
once. Why, at our headquarters there have been drawn up plans and
agreements with other groups and there are set down the time,
place, and manner of all the--the removals."

Momentarily she seemed to be carried away by something like the
fanaticism of the fervor which had at first captured her, even
still held her as she recited her incredible story.

"Oh, can't you understand?" she went on, as if to justify herself.
"The increase in armies, the frightful implements of slaughter,
the total failure of the peace propaganda--they have all defied
civilization!

"And then, too, the old, red-blooded emotions of battle have all
been eliminated by the mechanical conditions of modern warfare in
which men and women are just so many units, automata. Don't you
see? To fight war with its own weapons--that has become the only
last resort."

Her eager, flushed face betrayed the enthusiasm which had once
carried her into the "Group," as she called it. I wondered what
had brought her now to us.

"We are no longer making war against man," she cried. "We are
making war against picric acid and electric wires!"

I confess that I could not help thinking that there was no doubt
that to a certain type of mind the reasoning might appeal most
strongly.

"And you would do it in war time, too?" asked Kennedy quickly.

She was ready with an answer. "King George of Greece was killed at
the head of his troops. Remember Nazim Pasha, too. Such people are
easily reached in time of peace and in time of war, also, by
sympathizers on their own side. That's it, you see--we have
followers of all nationalities."

She stopped, her burst of enthusiasm spent. A moment later she
leaned forward, her clean-cut profile showing her more earnest
than before. "But, oh, Professor Kennedy," she added, "it is
working itself out to be more terrible than war itself!"

"Have any of the plans been carried out yet?" asked Craig, I
thought a little superciliously, for there had certainly been no
such wholesale assassination yet as she had hinted at.

She seemed to catch her breath. "Yes," she murmured, then checked
herself as if in fear of saying too much. "That is, I--I think
so."

I wondered if she were concealing something, perhaps had already
had a hand in some such enterprise and it had frightened her.

Kennedy leaned forward, observing the girl's discomfiture. "Miss
Lowe," he said, catching her eye and holding it almost
hypnotically, "why have you come to see me?"

The question, pointblank, seemed to startle her. Evidently she had
thought to tell only as little as necessary, and in her own way.
She gave a little nervous laugh, as if to pass it off. But
Kennedy's eyes conquered.

"Oh, can't you understand yet?" she exclaimed, rising passionately
and throwing out her arms in appeal. "I was carried away with my
hatred of war. I hate it yet. But now--the sudden realization of
what this compact all means has--well, caused something in me to--
to snap. I don't care what oath I have taken. Oh, Professor
Kennedy, you--you must save him!"

I looked up at her quickly. What did she mean? At first she had
come to be saved herself. "You must save him!" she implored.

Our door buzzer sounded.

She gazed about with a hunted look, as if she felt that some one
had even now pursued her and found out.

"What shall I do?" she whispered. "Where shall I go?"

"Quick--in here. No one will know," urged Kennedy, opening the
door to his room. He paused for an instant, hurriedly. "Tell me--
have you and this other woman met the Baron yet? How far has it
gone?"

The look she gave him was peculiar. I could not fathom what was
going on in her mind. But there was no hesitation about her
answer. "Yes," she replied, "I--we have met him. He is to come
back to New York from Washington to-day--this afternoon--to
arrange a private loan of five million dollars with some bankers
secretly. We were to see him to-night--a quiet dinner, after an
automobile ride up the Hudson--"

"Both of you?" interrupted Craig.

"Yes--that--that other woman and myself," she repeated, with a
peculiar catch in her voice. "To-night was the time fixed in the
drawing for the--"

The word stuck in her throat. Kennedy understood. "Yes, yes," he
encouraged, "but who is the other woman?"

Before she could reply, the buzzer had sounded again and she had
retreated from the door. Quickly Kennedy closed it and opened the
outside door.

It was our old friend Burke of the Secret Service.

Without a word of greeting, a hasty glance seemed to assure him
that Kennedy and I were alone. He closed the door himself, and,
instead of sitting down, came close to Craig.

"Kennedy," he blurted out in a tone of suppressed excitement, "can
I trust you to keep a big secret?"

Craig looked at him reproachfully, but said nothing.

"I beg your pardon--a thousand times," hastened Burke. "I was so
excited, I wasn't thinking--"

"Once is enough, Burke," laughed Kennedy, his good nature restored
at Burke's crestfallen appearance.

"Well, you see," went on the Secret Service man, "this thing is so
very important that--well, I forgot."

He sat down and hitched his chair close to us, as he went on in a
lowered, almost awestruck tone.

"Kennedy," he whispered, "I'm on the trail, I think, of something
growing out of these terrible conditions in Europe that will tax
the best in the Secret Service. Think of it, man. There's an
organization, right here in this city, a sort of assassin's club,
as it were, aimed at all the powerful men the world over. Why, the
most refined and intellectual reformers have joined with the most
red-handed anarchists and--"

"Sh! not so loud," cautioned Craig. "I think I have one of them in
the next room. Have they done anything yet to the Baron?"

It was Burke's turn now to look from one to the other of us in
unfeigned surprise that we should already know something of his
secret.

"The Baron?" he repeated, lowering his voice. "What Baron?"

It was evident that Burke knew nothing, at least of this new plot
which Miss Lowe had indicated. Kennedy beckoned him over to the
window furthest from the door to his own room.

"What have you discovered?" he asked, forestalling Burke in the
questioning. "What has happened?"

"You haven't heard, then?" replied Burke.

Kennedy nodded negatively.

"Fortescue, the American inventor of fortescite, the new
explosive, died very strangely this morning."

"Yes," encouraged Kennedy, as Burke came to a full stop to observe
the effect of the information.

"Most incomprehensible, too," he pursued. "No cause, apparently.
But it might have been overlooked, perhaps, except for one thing.
It wasn't known generally, but Fortescue had just perfected a
successful electro-magnetic gun--powderless, smokeless, flashless,
noiseless and of tremendous power. To-morrow he was to have signed
the contract to sell it to England. This morning he is found dead
and the final plans of the gun are gone!"

Kennedy and Burke were standing mutely looking at each other.

"Who is in the next room?" whispered Burke hoarsely, recollecting
Kennedy's caution of silence.

Kennedy did not reply immediately. He was evidently much excited
by Burke's news of the wonderful electro-magnetic gun.

"Burke," he exclaimed suddenly, "let's join forces. I think we are
both on the trail of a world-wide conspiracy--a sort of murder
syndicate to wipe out war!"

Burke's only reply was a low whistle that involuntarily escaped
him as he reached over and grasped Craig's hand, which to him
represented the sealing of the compact.

As for me, I could not restrain a mental shudder at the power that
their first murder had evidently placed in the hands of the
anarchists, if they indeed had the electro-magnetic gun which
inventors had been seeking for generations. What might they not do
with it--perhaps even use it themselves and turn the latest
invention against society itself!

Hastily Craig gave a whispered account of our strange visit from
Miss Lowe, while Burke listened, open-mouthed.

He had scarcely finished when he reached for the telephone and
asked for long distance.

"Is this the German embassy in Washington?" asked Craig a few
moments later when he got his number. "This is Craig Kennedy, in
New York. The United States Secret Service will vouch for me--
mention to them Mr. Burke of their New York office who is here
with me now. I understand that Baron Kreiger is leaving for New
York to meet some bankers this afternoon. He must not do so. He is
in the gravest danger if he--What? He left last night at midnight
and is already here?"

Kennedy turned to us blankly.

The door to his room opened suddenly.

There stood Miss Lowe, gazing wild-eyed at us. Evidently her
supernervous condition had heightened the keenness of her senses.
She had heard what we were saying. I tried to read her face. It
was not fear that I saw there. It was rage; it was jealousy.

"The traitress--it is Marie!" she shrieked.

For a moment, obtusely, I did not understand.

"She has made a secret appointment with him," she cried.

At last I saw the truth. Paula Lowe had fallen in love with the
man she had sworn to kill!




CHAPTER II

THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC GUN


"What shall we do?" demanded Burke, instantly taking in the
dangerous situation that the Baron's sudden change of plans had
opened up.

"Call O'Connor," I suggested, thinking of the police bureau of
missing persons, and reaching for the telephone.

"No, no!" almost shouted Craig, seizing my arm. "The police will
inevitably spoil it all. No, we must play a lone hand in this if
we are to work it out. How was Fortescue discovered, Burke?"

"Sitting in a chair in his laboratory. He must have been there all
night. There wasn't a mark on him, not a sign of violence, yet his
face was terribly drawn as though he were gasping for breath or
his heart had suddenly failed him. So far, I believe, the coroner
has no clue and isn't advertising the case."

"Take me there, then," decided Craig quickly. "Walter, I must
trust Miss Lowe to you on the journey. We must all go. That must
be our starting point, if we are to run this thing down."

I caught his significant look to me and interpreted it to mean
that he wanted me to watch Miss Lowe especially. I gathered that
taking her was in the nature of a third degree and as a result he
expected to derive some information from her. Her face was pale
and drawn as we four piled into a taxicab for a quick run downtown
to the laboratory of Fortescue from which Burke had come directly
to us with his story.

"What do you know of these anarchists?" asked Kennedy of Burke as
we sped along. "Why do you suspect them?"

It was evident that he was discussing the case so that Paula could
overhear, for a purpose.

"Why, we received a tip from abroad--I won't say where," replied
Burke guardedly, taking his cue. "They call themselves the
'Group,' I believe, which is a common enough term among
anarchists. It seems they are composed of terrorists of all
nations."

"The leader?" inquired Kennedy, leading him on.

"There is one, I believe, a little florid, stout German. I think
he is a paranoiac who believes there has fallen on himself a
divine mission to end all warfare. Quite likely he is one of those
who have fled to America to avoid military service. Perhaps, why
certainly, you must know him--Annenberg, an instructor in
economics now at the University?"

Craig nodded and raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. We had
indeed heard of Annenberg and some of his radical theories which
had sometimes quite alarmed the conservative faculty. I felt that
this was getting pretty close home to us now.

"How about Mrs. Annenberg?" Craig asked, recalling the clever
young wife of the middle-aged professor.

At the mere mention of the name, I felt a sort of start in Miss
Lowe, who was seated next to me in the taxicab. She had quickly
recovered herself, but not before I saw that Kennedy's plan of
breaking down the last barrier of her reserve was working.

"She is one of them, too," Burke nodded. "I have had my men out
shadowing them and their friends. They tell me that the Annenbergs
hold salons--I suppose you would call them that--attended by
numbers of men and women of high social and intellectual position
who dabble in radicalism and all sorts of things." "Who are the
other leaders?" asked Craig. "Have you any idea?"

"Some idea," returned Burke. "There seems to be a Frenchman, a
tall, wiry man of forty-five or fifty with a black mustache which
once had a military twist. There are a couple of Englishmen. Then
there are five or six Americans who seem to be active. One, I
believe, is a young woman."

Kennedy checked him with a covert glance, but did not betray by a
movement of a muscle to Miss Lowe that either Burke or himself
suspected her of being the young woman in question.

"There are three Russians," continued Burke, "all of whom have
escaped from Siberia. Then there is at least one Austrian, a
Spaniard from the Ferrer school, and Tomasso and Enrico, two
Italians, rather heavily built, swarthy, bearded. They look the
part. Of course there are others. But these in the main, I think,
compose what might be called 'the inner circle' of the 'Group.'"

It was indeed an alarming, terrifying revelation, as we began to
realize that Miss Lowe had undoubtedly been telling the truth. Not
alone was there this American group, evidently, but all over
Europe the lines of the conspiracy had apparently spread. It was
not a casual gathering of ordinary malcontents. It went deeper
than that. It included many who in their disgust at war secretly
were not unwilling to wink at violence to end the curse. I could
not but reflect on the dangerous ground on which most of them were
treading, shaking the basis of all civilization in order to cut
out one modern excrescence.

The big fact to us, just at present, was that this group had made
America its headquarters, that plans had been studiously matured
and even reduced to writing, if Paula were to be believed.
Everything had been carefully staged for a great simultaneous blow
or series of blows that would rouse the whole world.

As I watched I could not escape observing that Miss Lowe followed
Burke furtively now, as though he had some uncanny power.

Fortescue's laboratory was in an old building on a side street
several blocks from the main thoroughfares of Manhattan. He had
evidently chosen it, partly because of its very inaccessibility in
order to secure the quiet necessary for his work.

"If he had any visitors last night," commented Kennedy when our
cab at last pulled up before the place, "they might have come and
gone unnoticed."

We entered. Nothing had been disturbed in the laboratory by the
coroner and Kennedy was able to gain a complete idea of the case
rapidly, almost as well as if we had been called in immediately.

Fortescue's body, it seemed, had been discovered sprawled out in a
big armchair, as Burke had said, by one of his assistants only a
few hours before when he had come to the laboratory in the morning
to open it. Evidently he had been there undisturbed all night,
keeping a gruesome vigil over his looted treasure house.

As we gleaned the meager facts, it became more evident that
whoever had perpetrated the crime must have had the diabolical
cunning to do it in some ordinary way that aroused no suspicion on
the part of the victim, for there was no sign of any violence
anywhere.

As we entered the laboratory, I noted an involuntary shudder on
the part of Paula Lowe, but, as far as I knew, it was no more than
might have been felt by anyone under the circumstances.

Fortescue's body had been removed from the chair in which it had
been found and lay on a couch at the other end of the room,
covered merely by a sheet. Otherwise, everything, even the
armchair, was undisturbed.

Kennedy pulled back a corner of the sheet, disclosing the face,
contorted and of a peculiar, purplish hue from the congested blood
vessels. He bent over and I did so, too. There was an unmistakable
odor of tobacco on him. A moment Kennedy studied the face before
us, then slowly replaced the sheet.

Miss Lowe had paused just inside the door and seemed resolutely
bound not to look at anything. Kennedy meanwhile had begun a most
minute search of the table and floor of the laboratory near the
spot where the armchair had been sitting.

In my effort to glean what I could from her actions and
expressions I did not notice that Craig had dropped to his knees
and was peering into the shadow under the laboratory table. When
at last he rose and straightened himself up, however, I saw that
he was holding in the palm of his hand a half-smoked, gold-tipped
cigarette, which had evidently fallen on the floor beneath the
table where it had burned itself out, leaving a blackened mark on
the wood.

An instant afterward he picked out from the pile of articles found
in Fortescue's pockets and lying on another table a silver
cigarette case. He snapped it open. Fortescue's cigarettes, of
which there were perhaps a half dozen in the case, were cork-
tipped.

Some one had evidently visited the inventor the night before, had
apparently offered him a cigarette, for there were any number of
the cork-tipped stubs lying about. Who was it? I caught Paula
looking with fascinated gaze at the gold-tipped stub, as Kennedy
carefully folded it up in a piece of paper and deposited it in his
pocket. Did she know something about the case, I wondered?

Without a word, Kennedy seemed to take in the scant furniture of
the laboratory at a glance and a quick step or two brought him
before a steel filing cabinet. One drawer, which had not been
closed as tightly as the rest, projected a bit. On its face was a
little typewritten card bearing the inscription: "E-M GUN."

He pulled the drawer open and glanced over the data in it.

"Just what is an electro-magnetic gun?" I asked, interpreting the
initials on the drawer.

"Well," he explained as he turned over the notes and sketches,
"the primary principle involved in the construction of such a gun
consists in impelling the projectile by the magnetic action of a
solenoid, the sectional coils or helices of which are supplied
with current through devices actuated by the projectile itself. In
other words, the sections of helices of the solenoid produce an
accelerated motion of the projectile by acting successively on it,
after a principle involved in the construction of electro-magnetic
rock drills and dispatch tubes.

"All projectiles used in this gun of Fortescue's evidently must
have magnetic properties and projectiles of iron or containing
large portions of iron are necessary. You see, many coils are
wound around the barrel of the gun. As the projectile starts it
does so under the attraction of those coils ahead which the
current makes temporary magnets. It automatically cuts off the
current from those coils that it passes, allowing those further on
only to attract it, and preventing those behind from pulling it
back."

He paused to study the scraps of plans. "Fortescue had evidently
also worked out a way of changing the poles of the coils as the
projectile passed, causing them then to repel the projectile,
which must have added to its velocity. He seems to have overcome
the practical difficulty that in order to obtain service
velocities with service projectiles an enormous number of windings
and a tremendously long barrel are necessary as well as an
abnormally heavy current beyond the safe carrying capacity of the
solenoid which would raise the temperature to a point that would
destroy the coils."

He continued turning over the prints and notes in the drawer. When
he finished, he looked up at us with an expression that indicated
that he had merely satisfied himself of something he had already
suspected.

"You were right, Burke," he said. "The final plans are gone."

Burke, who, in the meantime, had been telephoning about the city
in a vain effort to locate Baron Kreiger, both at such banking
offices in Wall Street as he might be likely to visit and at some
of the hotels most frequented by foreigners, merely nodded. He was
evidently at a loss completely how to proceed.

In fact, there seemed to be innumerable problems--to warn Baron
Kreiger, to get the list of the assassinations, to guard Miss Lowe
against falling into the hands of her anarchist friends again, to
find the murderer of Fortescue, to prevent the use of the electro-
magnetic gun, and, if possible, to seize the anarchists before
they had a chance to carry further their plans.

"There is nothing more that we can do here," remarked Craig
briskly, betraying no sign of hesitation. "I think the best thing
we can do is to go to my own laboratory. There at least there is
something I must investigate sooner or later."

No one offering either a suggestion or an objection, we four again
entered our cab. It was quite noticeable now that the visit had
shaken Paula Lowe, but Kennedy still studiously refrained from
questioning her, trusting that what she had seen and heard,
especially Burke's report as to Baron Kreiger, would have its
effect.

Like everyone visiting Craig's laboratory for the first time, Miss
Lowe seemed to feel the spell of the innumerable strange and
uncanny instruments which he had gathered about him in his
scientific warfare against crime. I could see that she was
becoming more and more nervous, perhaps fearing even that in some
incomprehensible way he might read her own thoughts. Yet one thing
I did not detect. She showed no disposition to turn back on the
course on which she had entered by coming to us in the first
place.

Kennedy was quickly and deftly testing the stub of the little
thin, gold-tipped cigarette.

"Excessive smoking," he remarked casually, "causes neuroses of the
heart and tobacco has a specific affinity for the coronary
arteries as well as a tremendous effect on the vagus nerve. But I
don't think this was any ordinary smoke."

He had finished his tests and a quiet smile of satisfaction
flitted momentarily over his face. We had been watching him
anxiously, wondering what he had found.

As he looked up he remarked to us, with his eyes fixed on Miss
Lowe, "That was a ladies' cigarette. Did you notice the size?
There has been a woman in this case--presumably."

The girl, suddenly transformed by the rapid-fire succession of
discoveries, stood before us like a specter.

"The 'Group,' as anarchists call it," pursued Craig, "is the
loosest sort of organization conceivable, I believe, with no set
membership, no officers, no laws--just a place of meeting with no
fixity, where the comrades get together. Could you get us into the
inner circle, Miss Lowe?"

Her only answer was a little suppressed scream. Kennedy had asked
the question merely for its effect, for it was only too evident
that there was no time, even if she could have managed it, for us
to play the "stool pigeon."

Kennedy, who had been clearing up the materials he had used in the
analysis of the cigarette, wheeled about suddenly. "Where is the
headquarters of the inner circle?" he shot out.

Miss Lowe hesitated. That had evidently been one of the things she
had determined not to divulge.

"Tell me," insisted Kennedy. "You must!"

If it had been Burke's bulldozing she would never have yielded.
But as she looked into Kennedy's eyes she read there that he had
long since fathomed the secret of her wildly beating heart, that
if she would accomplish the purpose of saving the Baron she must
stop at nothing.

"At--Maplehurst," she answered in a low tone, dropping her eyes
from his penetrating gaze, "Professor Annenberg's home--out on
Long Island."

"We must act swiftly if we are to succeed," considered Kennedy,
his tone betraying rather sympathy with than triumph over the
wretched girl who had at last cast everything in the balance to
outweigh the terrible situation into which she had been drawn. "To
send Miss Lowe for that fatal list of assassinations is to send
her either back into the power of this murderous group and let
them know that she has told us, or perhaps to involve her again in
the completion of their plans."

She sank back into a chair in complete nervous and physical
collapse, covering her face with her hands at the realization that
in her new-found passion to save the Baron she had bared her
sensitive soul for the dissection of three men whom she had never
seen before.

"We must have that list," pursued Kennedy decisively. "We must
visit Annenberg's headquarters."

"And I?" she asked, trembling now with genuine fear at the thought
that he might ask her to accompany us as he had on our visit to
Fortescue's laboratory that morning.

"Miss Lowe," said Kennedy, bending over her, "you have gone too
far now ever to turn back. You are not equal to the trip. Would
you like to remain here? No one will suspect. Here at least you
will be safe until we return."

Her answer was a mute expression of thanks and confidence.




CHAPTER III

THE MURDER SYNDICATE


Quickly now Craig completed his arrangements for the visit to the
headquarters of the real anarchist leader. Burke telephoned for a
high-powered car, while Miss Lowe told frankly of the habits of
Annenberg and the chances of finding his place unguarded, which
were good in the daytime. Kennedy's only equipment for the
excursion consisted in a small package which he took from a
cabinet at the end of the room, and, with a parting reassurance to
Paula Lowe, we were soon speeding over the bridge to the borough
across the river.

We realized that it might prove a desperate undertaking, but the
crisis was such that it called for any risk.

Our quest took us to a rather dilapidated old house on the
outskirts of the little Long Island town. The house stood alone,
not far from the tracks of a trolley that ran at infrequent
intervals. Even a hasty reconnoitering showed that to stop our
motor at even a reasonable distance from it was in itself to
arouse suspicion.

Although the house seemed deserted, Craig took no chances, but
directed the car to turn at the next crossroad and then run back
along a road back of and parallel to that on which Annenberg's was
situated. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile away, across an open
field, that we stopped and ran the car up along the side of the
road in some bushes. Annenberg's was plainly visible and it was
not at all likely that anyone there would suspect trouble from
that quarter.

A hasty conference with Burke followed, in which Kennedy unwrapped
his small package, leaving part of its contents with him, and
adding careful instructions.

Then Kennedy and I retraced our steps down the road, across by the
crossroad, and at last back to the mysterious house.

To all appearance there had been no need of such excessive
caution. Not a sound or motion greeted us as we entered the gate
and made our way around to the rear of the house. The very
isolation of the house was now our protection, for we had no
inquisitive neighbors to watch us for the instant when Kennedy,
with the dexterity of a yeggman, inserted his knife between the
sashes of the kitchen window and turned the catch which admitted
us.

We made our way on cautious tiptoe through a dining room to a
living room, and, finding nothing, proceeded upstairs. There was
not a soul, apparently, in the house, nor in fact anything to
indicate that it was different from most small suburban homes,
until at last we mounted to the attic.

It was finished off in one large room across the back of the house
and two in front. As we opened the door to the larger room, we
could only gaze about in surprise. This was the rendezvous, the
arsenal, literary, explosive and toxicological of the "Group."
Ranged on a table were all the materials for bomb-making, while in
a cabinet I fancied there were poisons enough to decimate a city.

On the walls were pictures, mostly newspaper prints, of the
assassins of McKinley, of King Humbert, of the King of Greece, of
King Carlos and others, interspersed with portraits of anarchist
and anti-militarist leaders of all lands.

Kennedy sniffed. Over all I, too, could catch the faint odor of
stale tobacco. No time was to be lost, however, and while Craig
set to work rapidly going through the contents of a desk in the
corner, I glanced over the contents of a drawer of a heavy mission
table.

"Here's some of Annenberg's literature," I remarked, coming across
a small pile of manuscript, entitled "The Human Slaughter House."

"Read it," panted Kennedy, seeing that I had about completed my
part of the job. "It may give a clue."

Hastily I scanned the mad, frantic indictment of war, while Craig
continued in his search:

"I see wild beasts all around me, distorted unnaturally, in a life
and death struggle, with bloodshot eyes, with foaming, gnashing
mouths. They attack and kill one another and try to mangle each
other. I leap to my feet. I race out into the night and tread on
quaking flesh, step on hard heads, and stumble over weapons and
helmets. Something is clutching at my feet like hands, so that I
race away like a hunted deer with the hounds at his heels--and
ever over more bodies--breathless... out of one field into
another. Horror is crooning over my head. Horror is crooning
beneath my feet. And nothing but dying, mangled flesh!

"Of a sudden I see nothing but blood before me. The heavens have
opened and the red blood pours in through the windows. Blood wells
up on an altar. The walls run blood from the ceiling to the floor
and... a giant of blood stands before me. His beard and his hair
drip blood. He seats himself on the altar and laughs from thick
lips. The black executioner raises his sword and whirls it above
my head. Another moment and my head will roll down on the floor.
Another moment and the red jet will spurt from my neck.

"Murderers! Murderers! None other than murderers!"

I paused in the reading. "There's nothing here," I remarked,
glancing over the curious document for a clue, but finding none.

"Well," remarked Craig contemplatively, "one can at least easily
understand how sensitive and imaginative people who have fallen
under the influence of one who writes in that way can feel
justified in killing those responsible for bringing such horrors
on the human race. Hello--what's this?"

He had discovered a false back of one of the drawers in the desk
and had jimmied it open. On the top of innumerable papers lay a
large linen envelope. On its face it bore in typewriting, just
like the card on the drawer at Fortescue's, "E-M GUN."

"It is the original envelope that contained the final plans of the
electro-magnetic gun," he explained, opening it.

The envelope was empty. We looked at each other a moment in
silence. What had been done with the plans?

Suddenly a bell rang, startling me beyond measure. It was,
however, only the telephone, of which an extension reached up into
the attic-arsenal. Some one, who did not know that we were there,
was evidently calling up.

Kennedy quickly unhooked the receiver with a hasty motion to me to
be silent.

"Hello," I heard him answer. "Yes, this is it."

He had disguised his voice. I waited anxiously and watched his
face to gather what response he received.

"The deuce!" he exclaimed, with his hand over the transmitter so
that his voice would not be heard at the other end of the line.

"What's the matter?" I asked eagerly.

"It was Mrs. Annenberg--I am sure. But she was too keen for me.
She caught on. There must be some password or form of expression
that they use, which we don't know, for she hung up the receiver
almost as soon as she heard me."

Kennedy waited a minute or so. Then he whistled into the
transmitter. It was done apparently to see whether there was
anyone listening. But there was no answer.

"Operator, operator!" he called insistently, moving the hook up
and down. "Yes, operator. Can you tell me what number that was
which just called?"

He waited impatiently.

"Bleecker--7l80," he repeated after the girl. "Thank you.
Information, please."

Again we waited, as Craig tried to trace the call up.

"What is the street address of Bleecker, 7180?" he asked. "Five
hundred and one East Fifth--a tenement. Thank you."

"A tenement?" I repeated blankly.

"Yes," he cried, now for the first time excited. "Don't you begin
to see the scheme? I'll wager that Baron Kreiger has been lured to
New York to purchase the electro-magnetic gun which they have
stolen from Fortescue and the British. That is the bait that is
held out to him by the woman. Call up Miss Lowe at the laboratory
and see if she knows the place."

I gave central the number, while he fell to at the little secret
drawer of the desk again. The grinding of the wheels of a passing
trolley interfered somewhat with giving the number and I had to
wait a moment.

"Ah--Walter--here's the list!" almost shouted Kennedy, as he broke
open a black-japanned dispatch box in the desk.

I bent over it, as far as the slack of the telephone wire of the
receiver at my ear would permit. Annenberg had worked with amazing
care and neatness on the list, even going so far as to draw at the
top, in black, a death's head. The rest of it was elaborately
prepared in flaming red ink.

Craig gasped to observe the list of world-famous men marked for
destruction in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Vienna, St.
Petersburg, and even in New York and Washington.

"What is the date set?" I asked, still with my ear glued to the
receiver.

"To-night and to-morrow," he replied, stuffing the fateful sheet
into his pocket.

Rummaging about in the drawer of the table, I had come to a
package of gold-tipped cigarettes which had interested me and I
had left them out. Kennedy was now looking at them curiously.

"What is to be the method, do you suppose?" I asked.

"By a poison that is among the most powerful, approaching even
cyanogen," he replied confidently, tapping the cigarettes. "Do you
smell the odor in this room? What is it like?"

"Stale tobacco," I replied.

"Exactly--nicotine. Two or three drops on the mouth-end of a cigar
or cigarette. The intended victim thinks it is only natural. But
it is the purest form of the deadly alkaloid--fatal in a few
minutes, too."

He examined the thin little cigarettes more carefully. "Nicotine,"
he went on, "was about the first alkaloid that was recovered from
the body by chemical analysis in a homicide case. That is the
penetrating, persistent odor you smelled at Fortescue's and also
here. It's a very good poison--if you are not particular about
being discovered. A pound of ordinary smoking tobacco contains
from a half to an ounce of it. It is almost entirely consumed by
combustion; otherwise a pipeful would be fatal. Of course they may
have thought that investigators would believe that their victims
were inveterate smokers. But even the worst tobacco fiend wouldn't
show traces of the weed to such an extent."

Miss Lowe answered at last and Kennedy took the telephone.

"What is at five hundred and one East Fifth?" he asked.

"A headquarters of the Group in the city," she answered. "Why?"

"Well, I believe that the plans of that gun are there and that the
Baron--"

"You damned spies!" came a voice from behind us.

Kennedy dropped the receiver, turning quickly, his automatic
gleaming in his hand.

There was just a glimpse of a man with glittering bright blue eyes
that had an almost fiendish, baleful glare. An instant later the
door which had so unexpectedly opened banged shut, we heard a key
turn in the lock--and the man dropped to the floor before even
Kennedy's automatic could test its ability to penetrate wood on a
chance at hitting something the other side of it.

We were prisoners!

My mind worked automatically. At this very moment, perhaps, Baron
Kreiger might be negotiating for the electro-magnetic gun. We had
found out where he was, in all probability, but we were powerless
to help him. I thought of Miss Lowe, and picked up the receiver
which Kennedy had dropped.

She did not answer. The wire had been cut. We were isolated!

Kennedy had jumped to the window. I followed to restrain him,
fearing that he had some mad scheme for climbing out. Instead,
quickly he placed a peculiar arrangement, from the little package
he had brought, holding it to his eye as if sighting it, his right
hand grasping a handle as one holds a stereoscope. A moment later,
as I examined it more closely, I saw that instead of looking at
anything he had before him a small parabolic mirror turned away
from him.

His finger pressed alternately on a button on the handle and I
could see that there flashed in the little mirror a minute
incandescent lamp which seemed to have a special filament
arrangement.

The glaring sun was streaming in at the window and I wondered what
could possibly be accomplished by the little light in competition
with the sun itself.

"Signaling by electric light in the daytime may sound to you
ridiculous," explained Craig, still industriously flashing the
light, "but this arrangement with Professor Donath's signal mirror
makes it possible, all right.

"I hadn't expected this, but I thought I might want to communicate
with Burke quickly. You see, I sight the lamp and then press the
button which causes the light in the mirror to flash. It seems a
paradox that a light like this can be seen from a distance of even
five miles and yet be invisible to one for whom it was not
intended, but it is so. I use the ordinary Morse code--two seconds
for a dot, six for a dash with a four-second interval."

"What message did you send?" I asked.

"I told him that Baron Kreiger was at five hundred and one East
Fifth, probably; to get the secret service office in New York by
wire and have them raid the place, then to come and rescue us.
That was Annenberg. He must have come up by that trolley we heard
passing just before."

The minutes seemed ages as we waited for Burke to start the
machinery of the raid and then come for us.

"No--you can't have a cigarette--and if I had a pair of bracelets
with me, I'd search you myself," we heard a welcome voice growl
outside the door a few minutes later. "Look in that other pocket,
Tom."

The lock grated back and there stood Burke holding in a grip of
steel the undersized Annenberg, while the chauffeur who had driven
our car swung open the door.

"I'd have been up sooner," apologized Burke, giving the anarchist
an extra twist just to let him know that he was at last in the
hands of the law, "only I figured that this fellow couldn't have
got far away in this God-forsaken Ducktown and I might as well
pick him up while I had a chance. That's a great little instrument
of yours, Kennedy. I got you, fine."

Annenberg, seeing we were now four to one, concluded that
discretion was the better part of valor and ceased to struggle,
though now and then I could see he glanced at Kennedy out of the
corner of his eye. To every question he maintained a stolid
silence.

A few minutes later, with the arch anarchist safely pinioned
between us, we were speeding back toward New York, laying plans
for Burke to dispatch warnings abroad to those whose names
appeared on the fatal list, and at the same time to round up as
many of the conspirators as possible in America.

As for Kennedy, his main interest now lay in Baron Kreiger and
Paula. While she had been driven frantic by the outcome of the
terrible pact into which she had been drawn, some one,
undoubtedly, had been trying to sell Baron Kreiger the gun that
had been stolen from the American inventor. Once they had his
money and he had received the plans of the gun, a fatal cigarette
would be smoked. Could we prevent it?

On we tore back to the city, across the bridge and down through
the canyons of East Side streets.

At last we pulled up before the tenement at five hundred and one.
As we did so, one of Burke's men jumped out of the doorway.

"Are we in time?" shouted Burke.

"It's an awful mix-up," returned the man. "I can't make anything
out of it, so I ordered 'em all held here till you came."

We pushed past without a word of criticism of his wonderful
acumen.

On the top floor we came upon a young man, bending over the form
of a girl who had fainted. On the floor of the middle of the room
was a mass of charred papers which had evidently burned a hole in
the carpet before they had been stamped out. Near by was an
unlighted cigarette, crushed flat on the floor.

"How is she?" asked Kennedy anxiously of the young man, as he
dropped down on the other side of the girl.

It was Paula. She had fainted, but was just now coming out of the
borderland of unconsciousness.

"Was I in time? Had he smoked it?" she moaned weakly, as there
swam before her eyes, evidently, a hazy vision of our faces.

Kennedy turned to the young man.

"Baron Kreiger, I presume?" he inquired.

The young man nodded.

"Burke of the Secret Service," introduced Craig, indicating our
friend. "My name is Kennedy. Tell what happened."

"I had just concluded a transaction," returned Kreiger in good but
carefully guarded English. "Suddenly the door burst open. She
seized these papers and dashed a cigarette out of my hands. The
next instant she had touched a match to them and had fallen in a
faint almost in the blaze. Strangest experience I ever had in my
life. Then all these other fellows came bursting in--said they
were Secret Service men, too."

Kennedy had no time to reply, for a cry from Annenberg directed
our attention to the next room where on a couch lay a figure all
huddled up.

As we looked we saw it was a woman, her head sweating profusely,
and her hands cold and clammy. There was a strange twitching of
the muscles of the face, the pupils of her eyes were widely
dilated, her pulse weak and irregular. Evidently her circulation
had failed so that it responded only feebly to stimulants, for her
respiration was slow and labored, with loud inspiratory gasps.

Annenberg had burst with superhuman strength from Burke's grasp
and was kneeling by the side of his wife's deathbed.

"It--was all Paula's fault--" gasped the woman. "I--knew I had
better--carry it through--like the Fortescue visit--alone."

I felt a sense of reassurance at the words. At least my suspicions
had been unfounded. Paula was innocent of the murder of Fortescue.

"Severe, acute nicotine poisoning," remarked Kennedy, as he
rejoined us a moment later. "There is nothing we can do--now."

Paula moved at the words, as though they had awakened a new energy
in her. With a supreme effort she raised herself.

"Then I--I failed?" she cried, catching sight of Kennedy.

"No, Miss Lowe," he answered gently. "You won. The plans of the
terrible gun are destroyed. The Baron is safe. Mrs. Annenberg has
herself smoked one of the fatal cigarettes intended for him."

Kreiger looked at us, uncomprehending. Kennedy picked up the
crushed, unlighted cigarette and laid it in the palm of his hand
beside another, half smoked, which he had found beside Mrs.
Annenberg.

"They are deadly," he said simply to Kreiger. "A few drops of pure
nicotine hidden by that pretty gilt tip would have accomplished
all that the bitterest anarchist could desire."

All at once Kreiger seemed to realize what he had escaped so
narrowly. He turned toward Paula. The revulsion of her feelings at
seeing him safe was too much for her shattered nerves.

With a faint little cry, she tottered.

Before any of us could reach her, he had caught her in his arms
and imprinted a warm kiss on the insensible lips.

"Some water--quick!" he cried, still holding her close.




CHAPTER IV

THE AIR PIRATE


Rounding up the "Group" took several days, and it proved to be a
great story for the Star. I was pretty fagged when it was all
over, but there was a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that
we had frustrated one of the most daring anarchist plots of recent
years.

"Can you arrange to spend the week-end with me at Stuyvesant
Verplanck's at Bluffwood?" asked Kennedy over the telephone, the
afternoon that I had completed my work on the newspaper of undoing
what Annenberg and the rest had attempted.

"How long since society took you up?" I asked airily, adding, "Is
it a large house party you are getting up?"

"You have heard of the so-called 'phantom bandit' of Bluffwood,
haven't you?" he returned rather brusquely, as though there was no
time now for bantering.

I confess that in the excitement of the anarchists I had forgotten
it, but now I recalled that for several days I had been reading
little paragraphs about robberies on the big estates on the Long
Island shore of the Sound. One of the local correspondents had
called the robber a "phantom bandit," but I had thought it nothing
more than an attempt to make good copy out of a rather ordinary
occurrence.

"Well," he hurried on, "that's the reason why I have been 'taken
up by society,' as you so elegantly phrase it. From the secret
hiding-places of the boudoirs and safes of fashionable women at
Bluffwood, thousands of dollars' worth of jewels and other
trinkets have mysteriously vanished. Of course you'll come along.
Why, it will be just the story to tone up that alleged page of
society news you hand out in the Sunday Star. There--we're quits
now. Seriously, though, Walter, it really seems to be a very
baffling case, or rather series of cases. The whole colony out
there is terrorized. They don't know who the robber is, or how he
operates, or who will be the next victim, but his skill and
success seem almost uncanny. Mr. Verplanck has put one of his cars
at my disposal and I'm up here at the laboratory gathering some
apparatus that may be useful. I'll pick you up anywhere between
this and the Bridge--how about Columbus Circle in half an hour?"

"Good," I agreed, deciding quickly from his tone and manner of
assurance that it would be a case I could not afford to miss.

The Stuyvesant Verplancks, I knew, were among the leaders of the
rather recherche society at Bluffwood, and the pace at which
Bluffwood moved and had its being was such as to guarantee a good
story in one way or another.

"Why," remarked Kennedy, as we sped out over the picturesque roads
of the north shore of Long Island, "this fellow, or fellows, seems
to have taken the measure of all the wealthy members of the
exclusive organizations out there--the Westport Yacht Club, the
Bluffwood Country Club, the North Shore Hunt, and all of them.
It's a positive scandal, the ease with which he seems to come and
go without detection, striking now here, now there, often at
places that it seems physically impossible to get at, and yet
always with the same diabolical skill and success. One night he
will take some baubles worth thousands, the next pass them by for
something apparently of no value at all, a piece of bric-a-brac, a
bundle of letters, anything."

"Seems purposeless, insane, doesn't it?" I put in.

"Not when he always takes something--often more valuable than
money," returned Craig.

He leaned back in the car and surveyed the glimpses of bay and
countryside as we were whisked by the breaks in the trees.

"Walter," he remarked meditatively, "have you ever considered the
possibilities of blackmail if the right sort of evidence were
obtained under this new 'white-slavery act'? Scandals that some of
the fast set may be inclined to wink at, that at worst used to end
in Reno, become felonies with federal prison sentences looming up
in the background. Think it over."

Stuyvesant Verplanck had telephoned rather hurriedly to Craig
earlier in the day, retaining his services, but telling only in
the briefest way of the extent of the depredations, and hinting
that more than jewelry might be at stake.

It was a pleasant ride, but we finished it in silence. Verplanck
was, as I recalled, a large masterful man, one of those who
demanded and liked large things--such as the estate of several
hundred acres which we at last entered.

It was on a neck of land with the restless waters of the Sound on
one side and the calmer waters of the bay on the other. Westport
Bay lay in a beautifully wooded, hilly country, and the house
itself was on an elevation, with a huge sweep of terraced lawn
before it down to the water's edge. All around, for miles, were
other large estates, a veritable colony of wealth.

As we pulled up under the broad stone porte-cochere, Verplanck,
who had been expecting us, led the way into his library, a great
room, literally crowded with curios and objects of art which he
had collected on his travels. It was a superb mental workshop,
overlooking the bay, with a stretch of several miles of sheltered
water.

"You will recall," began Verplanck, wasting no time over
preliminaries, but plunging directly into the subject, "that the
prominent robberies of late have been at seacoast resorts,
especially on the shores of Long Island Sound, within, say, a
hundred miles of New York. There has been a great deal of talk
about dark and muffled automobiles that have conveyed mysterious
parties swiftly and silently across country.

"My theory," he went on self-assertively, "is that the attack has
been made always along water routes. Under shadow of darkness, it
is easy to slip into one of the sheltered coves or miniature
fiords with which the north coast of the Island abounds, land a
cut-throat crew primed with exact information of the treasure on
some of these estates. Once the booty is secured, the criminal
could put out again into the Sound without leaving a clue."

He seemed to be considering his theory. "Perhaps the robberies
last summer at Narragansett, Newport, and a dozen other New
England places were perpetrated by the same cracksman. I believe,"
he concluded, lowering his voice, "that there plies to-day on the
wide waters of the Sound a slim, swift motor boat which wears the
air of a pleasure craft, yet is as black a pirate as ever flew the
Jolly Roger. She may at this moment be anchored off some exclusive
yacht club, flying the respectable burgee of the club--who knows?"

He paused as if his deductions settled the case so far. He would
have resumed in the same vein, if the door had not opened. A lady
in a cobwebby gown entered the room. She was of middle age, but
had retained her youth with a skill that her sisters of less
leisure always envy. Evidently she had not expected to find
anyone, yet nothing seemed to disconcert her.

"Mrs. Verplanck," her husband introduced, "Professor Kennedy and
his associate, Mr. Jameson--those detectives we have heard about.
We were discussing the robberies."

"Oh, yes," she said, smiling, "my husband has been thinking of
forming himself into a vigilance committee. The local authorities
are all at sea."

I thought there was a trace of something veiled in the remark and
fancied, not only then but later, that there was an air of
constraint between the couple.

"You have not been robbed yourself?" queried Craig tentatively.

"Indeed we have," exclaimed Verplanck quickly. "The other night I
was awakened by the noise of some one down here in this very
library. I fired a shot, wild, and shouted, but before I could get
down here the intruder had fled through a window, and half rolling
down the terraces. Mrs. Verplanck was awakened by the rumpus and
both of us heard a peculiar whirring noise."

"Like an automobile muffled down," she put in.

"No," he asserted vigorously, "more like a powerful motor boat,
one with the exhaust under water."

"Well," she shrugged, "at any rate, we saw no one."

"Did the intruder get anything?"

"That's the lucky part. He had just opened this safe apparently
and begun to ransack it. This is my private safe. Mrs. Verplanck
has another built into her own room upstairs where she keeps her
jewels."

"It is not a very modern safe, is it?" ventured Kennedy. "The
fellow ripped off the outer casing with what they call a 'can-
opener.'"

"No. I keep it against fire rather than burglars. But he
overlooked a box of valuable heirlooms, some silver with the
Verplanck arms. I think I must have scared him off just in time.
He seized a package in the safe, but it was only some business
correspondence. I don't relish having lost it, particularly. It
related to a gentlemen's agreement a number of us had in the
recent cotton corner. I suppose the Government would like to have
it. But--here's the point. If it is so easy to get in and get
away, no one in Bluffwood is safe."

"Why, he robbed the Montgomery Carter place the other night,"
remarked Mrs. Verplanck, "and almost got a lot of old Mrs.
Carter's jewels as well as stuff belonging to her son, Montgomery,
Junior. That was the first robbery. Mr. Carter, that is Junior--
Monty, everyone calls him--and his chauffeur almost captured the
fellow, but he managed to escape in the woods."

"In the woods?" repeated Craig.

Mrs. Verplanck nodded. "But they saved the loot he was about to
take."

"Oh, no one is safe any more," reiterated Verplanck. "Carter seems
to be the only one who has had a real chance at him, and he was
able to get away neatly."

"But he's not the only one who got off without a loss," she put in
significantly. "The last visit--" Then she paused.

"Where was the last attempt?" asked Kennedy.

"At the house of Mrs. Hollingsworth--around the point on this side
of the bay. You can't see it from here."

"I'd like to go there," remarked Kennedy.

"Very well. Car or boat?"

"Boat, I think."

"Suppose we go in my little runabout, the Streamline II? She's as
fast as any ordinary automobile."

"Very good. Then we can get an idea of the harbor."

"I'll telephone first that we are coming," said Verplanck.

"I think I'll go, too," considered Mrs. Verplanck, ringing for a
heavy wrap.

"Just as you please," said Verplanck.

The Streamline was a three-stepped boat which. Verplanck had built
for racing, a beautiful craft, managed much like a racing
automobile. As she started from the dock, the purring drone of her
eight cylinders sent her feathering over the waves like a skipping
stone. She sank back into the water, her bow leaping upward, a
cloud of spray in her wake, like a waterspout.

Mrs. Hollingsworth was a wealthy divorcee, living rather quietly
with her two children, of whom the courts had awarded her the
care. She was a striking woman, one of those for whom the new
styles of dress seem especially to have been designed. I gathered,
however, that she was not on very good terms with the little
Westport clique in which the Verplancks moved, or at least not
with Mrs. Verplanck. The two women seemed to regard each other
rather coldly, I thought, although Mr. Verplanck, man-like, seemed
to scorn any distinctions and was more than cordial. I wondered
why Mrs. Verplanck had come.

The Hollingsworth house was a beautiful little place down the bay
from the Yacht Club, but not as far as Verplanck's, or the Carter
estate, which was opposite.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Hollingsworth when the reason for our visit
had been explained, "the attempt was a failure. I happened to be
awake, rather late, or perhaps you would call it early. I thought
I heard a noise as if some one was trying to break into the
drawing-room through the window. I switched on all the lights. I
have them arranged so for just that purpose of scaring off
intruders. Then, as I looked out of my window on the second floor,
I fancied I could see a dark figure slink into the shadow of the
shrubbery at the side of the house. Then there was a whirr. It
might have been an automobile, although it sounded differently
from that--more like a motor boat. At any rate, there was no trace
of a car that we could discover in the morning. The road had been
oiled, too, and a car would have left marks. And yet some one was
here. There were marks on the drawing-room window just where I
heard the sounds."

Who could it be? I asked myself as we left. I knew that the great
army of chauffeurs was infested with thieves, thugs and gunmen.
Then, too, there were maids, always useful as scouts for these
corsairs who prey on the rich. Yet so adroitly had everything been
done in these cases that not a clue seemed to have been left
behind by which to trace the thief.

We returned to Verplanck's in the Streamline in record time,
dined, and then found McNeill, a local detective, waiting to add
his quota of information. McNeill was of the square-toed, double-
chinned, bull-necked variety, just the man to take along if there
was any fighting. He had, however, very little to add to the
solution of the mystery, apparently believing in the chauffeur-
and-maid theory.

It was too late to do anything more that night, and we sat on the
Verplanck porch, overlooking the beautiful harbor. It was a black,
inky night, with no moon, one of those nights when the myriad
lights on the boats were mere points in the darkness. As we looked
out over the water, considering the case which as yet we had
hardly started on, Kennedy seemed engrossed in the study in black.

"I thought I saw a moving light for an instant across the bay,
above the boats, and as though it were in the darkness of the
hills on the other side. Is there a road over there, above the
Carter house?" he asked suddenly.

"There is a road part of the way on the crest of the hill,"
replied Mrs. Verplanck. "You can see a car on it, now and then,
through the trees, like a moving light."

"Over there, I mean," reiterated Kennedy, indicating the light as
it flashed now faintly, then disappeared, to reappear further
along, like a gigantic firefly in the night.

"N-no," said Verplanck. "I don't think the road runs down as far
as that. It is further up the bay."

"What is it then?" asked Kennedy, half to himself. "It seems to be
traveling rapidly. Now it must be about opposite the Carter house.
There--it has gone."

We continued to watch for several minutes, but it did not
reappear. Could it have been a light on the mast of a boat moving
rapidly up the bay and perhaps nearer to us than we suspected?
Nothing further happened, however, and we retired early, expecting
to start with fresh minds on the case in the morning. Several
watchmen whom Verplanck employed both on the shore and along the
driveways were left guarding every possible entrance to the
estate.

Yet the next morning as we met in the cheery east breakfast room,
Verplanck's gardener came in, hat in hand, with much suppressed
excitement.

In his hand he held an orange which he had found in the shrubbery
underneath the windows of the house. In it was stuck a long nail
and to the nail was fastened a tag.

Kennedy read it quickly.

"If this had been a bomb, you and your detectives would never have
known what struck you.

"AQUAERO."




CHAPTER V

THE ULTRA-VIOLET RAY


"Good Gad, man!" exclaimed Verplanck, who had read it over Craig's
shoulder. "What do you make of THAT?"

Kennedy merely shook his head. Mrs. Verplanck was the calmest of
all.

"The light," I cried. "You remember the light? Could it have been
a signal to some one on this side of the bay, a signal light in
the woods?"

"Possibly," commented Kennedy absently, adding, "Robbery with this
fellow seems to be an art as carefully strategized as a promoter's
plan or a merchant's trade campaign. I think I'll run over this
morning and see if there is any trace of anything on the Carter
estate."

Just then the telephone rang insistently. It was McNeill, much
excited, though he had not heard of the orange incident. Verplanck
answered the call.

"Have you heard the news?" asked McNeill. "They report this
morning that that fellow must have turned up last night at Belle
Aire."

"Belle Aire? Why, man, that's fifty miles away and on the other
side of the island. He was here last night," and Verplanck related
briefly the find of the morning. "No boat could get around the
island in that time and as for a car--those roads are almost
impossible at night."

"Can't help it," returned McNeill doggedly. "The Halstead estate
out at Belle Aire was robbed last night. It's spooky all right."

"Tell McNeill I want to see him--will meet him in the village
directly," cut in Craig before Verplanck had finished.

We bolted a hasty breakfast and in one of Verplanck's cars hurried
to meet McNeill.

"What do you intend doing?" he asked helplessly, as Kennedy
finished his recital of the queer doings of the night before.

"I'm going out now to look around the Carter place. Can you come
along?"

"Surely," agreed McNeill, climbing into the car. "You know him?"

"No."

"Then I'll introduce you. Queer chap, Carter. He's a lawyer,
although I don't think he has much practice, except managing his
mother's estate."

McNeill settled back in the luxurious car with an exclamation of
satisfaction.

"What do you think of Verplanck?" he asked.

"He seems to me to be a very public-spirited man," answered
Kennedy discreetly.

That, however, was not what McNeill meant and he ignored it. And
so for the next ten minutes we were entertained with a little
retail scandal of Westport and Bluffwood, including a tale that
seemed to have gained currency that Verplanck and Mrs.
Hollingsworth were too friendly to please Mrs. Verplanck. I set
the whole thing down to the hostility and jealousy of the towns
people who misinterpret everything possible in the smart set,
although I could not help recalling how quickly she had spoken
when we had visited the Hollingsworth house in the Streamline the
day before.

Montgomery Carter happened to be at home and, at least openly,
interposed no objection to our going about the grounds.

"You see," explained Kennedy, watching the effect of his words as
if to note whether Carter himself had noticed anything unusual the
night before, "we saw a light moving over here last night. To tell
the truth, I half expected you would have a story to add to ours,
of a second visit."

Carter smiled. "No objection at all. I'm simply nonplussed at the
nerve of this fellow, coming back again. I guess you've heard what
a narrow squeak he had with me. You're welcome to go anywhere,
just so long as you don't disturb my study down there in the
boathouse. I use that because it overlooks the bay--just the place
to study over knotty legal problems."

Back of, or in front of the Carter house, according as you fancied
it faced the bay or not, was the boathouse, built by Carter's
father, who had been a great yachtsman in his day and commodore of
the club. His son had not gone in much for water sports and had
converted the corner underneath a sort of observation tower into a
sort of country law office.

"There has always seemed to me to be something strange about that
boathouse since the old man died," remarked McNeill in a half
whisper as we left Carter. "He always keeps it locked and never
lets anyone go in there, although they say he has it fitted
beautifully with hundreds of volumes of law books, too."

Kennedy had been climbing the hill back of the house and now
paused to look about. Below was the Carter garage.

"By the way," exclaimed McNeill, as if he had at last hit on a
great discovery, "Carter has a new chauffeur, a fellow named
Wickham. I just saw him driving down to the village. He's a chap
that it might pay us to watch--a newcomer, smart as a steel trap,
they say, but not much of a talker." "Suppose you take that job--
watch him," encouraged Kennedy. "We can't know too much about
strangers here, McNeill."

"That's right," agreed the detective. "I'll follow him back to the
village and get a line on him."

"Don't be easily discouraged," added Kennedy, as McNeill started
down the hill to the garage. "If he is a fox he'll try to throw
you off the trail. Hang on."

"What was that for?" I asked as the detective disappeared. "Did
you want to get rid of him?"

"Partly," replied Craig, descending slowly, after a long survey of
the surrounding country.

We had reached the garage, deserted now except for our own car.

"I'd like to investigate that tower," remarked Kennedy with a keen
look at me, "if it could be done without seeming to violate Mr.
Carter's hospitality."

"Well," I observed, my eye catching a ladder beside the garage,
"there's a ladder. We can do no more than try."

He walked over to the automobile, took a little package out,
slipped it into his pocket, and a few minutes later we had set the
ladder up against the side of the boathouse farthest away from the
house. It was the work of only a moment for Kennedy to scale it
and prowl across the roof to the tower, while I stood guard at the
foot.

"No one has been up there recently," he panted breathlessly as he
rejoined me. "There isn't a sign."

We took the ladder quietly back to the garage, then Kennedy led
the way down the shore to a sort of little summerhouse cut off
from the boathouse and garage by the trees, though over the top of
a hedge one could still see the boathouse tower.

We sat down, and Craig filled his lungs with the good salt air,
sweeping his eye about the blue and green panorama as though this
were a holiday and not a mystery case.

"Walter," he said at length, "I wish you'd take the car and go
around to Verplanck's. I don't think you can see the tower through
the trees, but I should like to be sure."

I found that it could not be seen, though I tried all over the
place and got myself disliked by the gardener and suspected by a
watchman with a dog.

It could not have been from the tower of the boathouse that we had
seen the light, and I hurried back to Craig to tell him so. But
when I returned, I found that he was impatiently pacing the little
rustic summerhouse, no longer interested in what he had sent me to
find out.

"What has happened?" I asked eagerly.

"Just come out here and I'll show you something," he replied,
leaving the summerhouse and approaching the boathouse from the
other side of the hedge, on the beach, so that the house itself
cut us off from observation from Carter's.

"I fixed a lens on the top of that tower when I was up there," he
explained, pointing up at it. "It must be about fifty feet high.
From there, you see, it throws a reflection down to this mirror. I
did it because through a skylight in the tower I could read
whatever was written by anyone sitting at Carter's desk in the
corner under it."

"Read?" I repeated, mystified.

"Yes, by invisible light," he continued. "This invisible light
business, you know, is pretty well understood by this time. I was
only repeating what was suggested once by Professor Wood of Johns
Hopkins. Practically all sources of light, you understand, give
out more or less ultraviolet light, which plays no part in vision
whatever. The human eye is sensitive to but few of the light rays
that reach it, and if our eyes were constituted just the least bit
differently we should have an entirely different set of images.

"But by the use of various devices we can, as it were, translate
these ultraviolet rays into terms of what the human eye can see.
In order to do it, all the visible light rays which show us the
thing as we see it--the tree green, the sky blue--must be cut off.
So in taking an ultraviolet photograph a screen must be used which
will be opaque to these visible rays and yet will let the
ultraviolet rays through to form the image. That gave Professor
Wood a lot of trouble. Glass won't do, for glass cuts off the
ultraviolet rays entirely. Quartz is a very good medium, but it
does not cut off all the visible light. In fact there is only one
thing that will do the work, and that is metallic silver."

I could not fathom what he was driving at, but the fascination of
Kennedy himself was quite sufficient.

"Silver," he went on, "is all right if the objects can be
illuminated by an electric spark or some other source rich in the
rays. But it isn't entirely satisfactory when sunlight is
concerned, for various reasons that I need not bore you with.
Professor Wood has worked out a process of depositing nickel on
glass. That's it up there," he concluded, wheeling a lower
reflector about until it caught the image of the afternoon sun
thrown from the lens on the top of the tower.

"You see," he resumed, "that upper lens is concave so that it
enlarges tremendously. I can do some wonderful tricks with that."

I had been lighting a cigarette and held a box of safety wind
matches in my hand.

"Give me that matchbox," he asked.

He placed it at the foot of the tower. Then he went off, I should
say, without exaggeration, a hundred feet.

The lettering on the matchbox could be seen in the silvered
mirror, enlarged to such a point that the letters were plainly
visible!

"Think of the possibilities in that," he added excitedly. "I saw
them at once. You can read what some one is writing at a desk a
hundred, perhaps two hundred feet away."

"Yes," I cried, more interested in the practical aspects of it
than in the mechanics and optics. "What have you found?"

"Some one came into the boathouse while you were away," he said.
"He had a note. It read, 'Those new detectives are watching
everything. We must have the evidence. You must get those letters
to-night, without fail.'"

"Letters--evidence," I repeated. "Who wrote it? Who received it?"

"I couldn't see over the hedge who had entered the boathouse, and
by the time I got around here he was gone."

"Was it Wickham--or intended for Wickham?" I asked.

Kennedy shrugged his shoulders.

"We'll gain nothing by staying here," he said. "There is just one
possibility in the case, and I can guard against that only by
returning to Verplanck's and getting some of that stuff I brought
up here with me. Let us go."

Late in the afternoon though it was, after our return, Kennedy
insisted on hurrying from Verplanck's to the Yacht Club up the
bay. It was a large building, extending out into the water on made
land, from which ran a long, substantial dock. He had stopped long
enough only to ask Verplanck to lend him the services of his best
mechanician, a Frenchman named Armand.

On the end of the yacht club dock Kennedy and Armand set up a
large affair which looked like a mortar. I watched curiously,
dividing my attention between them and the splendid view of the
harbor which the end of the dock commanded on all sides.

"What is this?" I asked finally. "Fireworks?"

"A rocket mortar of light weight," explained Kennedy, then dropped
into French as he explained to Armand the manipulation of the
thing.

There was a searchlight near by on the dock.

"You can use that?" queried Kennedy.

"Oh, yes. Mr. Verplanck, he is vice-commodore of the club. Oh,
yes, I can use that. Why, Monsieur?"

Kennedy had uncovered a round brass case. It did not seem to
amount to much, as compared to some of the complicated apparatus
he had used. In it was a four-sided prism of glass--I should have
said, cut off the corner of a huge glass cube.

He handed it to us.

"Look in it," he said.

It certainly was about the most curious piece of crystal gazing I
had ever done. Turn the thing any way I pleased and I could see my
face in it, just as in an ordinary mirror.

"What do you call it?" Armand asked, much interested.

"A triple mirror," replied Kennedy, and again, half in English and
half in French, neither of which I could follow, he explained the
use of the mirror to the mechanician.

We were returning up the dock, leaving Armand with instructions to
be at the club at dusk, when we met McNeill, tired and disgusted.

"What luck?" asked Kennedy.

"Nothing," he returned. "I had a 'short' shadow and a 'long'
shadow at Wickham's heels all day. You know what I mean. Instead
of one man, two--the second sleuthing in the other's tracks. If he
escaped Number One, Number Two would take it up, and I was ready
to move up into Number Two's place. They kept him in sight about
all the time. Not a fact. But then, of course, we don't know what
he was doing before we took up tailing him. Say," he added, "I
have just got word from an agency with which I correspond in New
York that it is reported that a yeggman named 'Australia Mac,' a
very daring and clever chap, has been attempting to dispose of
some of the goods which we know have been stolen through one of
the worst 'fences' in New York."

"Is that all?" asked Craig, with the mention of Australia Mac
showing the first real interest yet in anything that McNeill had
done since we met him the night before.

"All so far. I wired for more details immediately."

"Do you know anything about this Australia Mac?"

"Not much. No one does. He's a new man, it seems, to the police
here."

"Be here at eight o'clock, McNeill," said Craig, as we left the
club for Verplanck's. "If you can find out more about this
yeggman, so much the better."

"Have you made any progress?" asked Verplanck as we entered the
estate a few minutes later.

"Yes," returned Craig, telling only enough to whet his interest.
"There's a clue, as I half expected, from New York, too. But we
are so far away that we'll have to stick to my original plan. You
can trust Armand?"

"Absolutely."

"Then we shall transfer our activity to the Yacht Club to-night,"
was all that Kennedy vouchsafed.




CHAPTER VI

THE TRIPLE MIRROR


It was the regular Saturday night dance at the club, a brilliant
spectacle, faces that radiated pleasure, gowns that for startling
combinations of color would have shamed a Futurist, music that set
the feet tapping irresistibly--a scene which I shall pass over
because it really has no part in the story.

The fascination of the ballroom was utterly lost on Craig. "Think
of all the houses only half guarded about here to-night," he
mused, as we joined Armand and McNeill on the end of the dock. I
could not help noting that that was the only idea which the gay,
variegated, sparkling tango throng conveyed to him.

In front of the club was strung out a long line of cars, and at
the dock several speed boats of national and international
reputation, among them the famous Streamline II, at our instant
beck and call. In it Craig had already placed some rather bulky
pieces of apparatus, as well as a brass case containing a second
triple mirror like that which he had left with Armand.

With McNeill, I walked back along the pier, leaving Kennedy with
Armand, until we came to the wide porch, where we joined the
wallflowers and the rocking-chair fleet. Mrs. Verplanck, I
observed, was a beautiful dancer. I picked her out in the throng
immediately, dancing with Carter.

McNeill tugged at my sleeve. Without a word I saw what he meant me
to see. Verplanck and Mrs. Hollingsworth were dancing together.
Just then, across the porch I caught sight of Kennedy at one of
the wide windows. He was trying to attract Verplanck's attention,
and as he did so I worked my way through the throng of chatting
couples leaving the floor until I reached him. Verplanck,
oblivious, finished the dance; then, seeming to recollect that he
had something to attend to, caught sight of us, and ran off during
the intermission from the gay crowd to which he resigned Mrs.
Hollingsworth.

"What is it?" he asked.

"There's that light down the bay," whispered Kennedy.

Instantly Verplanck forgot about the dance.

"Where?" he asked.

"In the same place."

I had not noticed, but Mrs. Verplanck, woman-like, had been able
to watch several things at once. She had seen us and had joined
us.

"Would you like to run down there in the Streamline?" he asked.
"It will only take a few minutes."

"Very much."

"What is it--that light again?" she asked, as she joined us in
walking down the dock.

"Yes," answered her husband, pausing to look for a moment at the
stuff Kennedy had left with Armand. Mrs. Verplanck leaned over the
Streamline, turned as she saw me, and said: "I wish I could go
with you. But evening dress is not the thing for a shivery night
in a speed boat. I think I know as much about it as Mr. Verplanck.
Are you going to leave Armand?"

"Yes," replied Kennedy, taking his place beside Verplanck, who was
seated at the steering wheel. "Walter and McNeill, if you two will
sit back there, we're ready. All right."

Armand had cast us off and Mrs. Verplanck waved from the end of
the float as the Streamline quickly shot out into the night, a
buzzing, throbbing shape of mahogany and brass, with her exhausts
sticking out like funnels and booming like a pipe organ. It took
her only seconds to eat into the miles.

"A little more to port," said Kennedy, as Verplanck swung her
around.

Just then the steady droning of the engine seemed a bit less
rhythmical. Verplanck throttled her down, but it had no effect. He
shut her off. Something was wrong. As he crawled out into the
space forward of us where the engine was, it seemed as if the
Streamline had broken down suddenly and completely.

Here we were floundering around in the middle of the bay.

"Chuck-chuck-chuck," came in quick staccato out of the night. It
was Montgomery Carter, alone, on his way across the bay from the
club, in his own boat.

"Hello--Carter," called Verplanck.

"Hello, Verplanck. What's the matter?"

"Don't know. Engine trouble of some kind. Can you give us a line?"

"I've got to go down to the house," he said, ranging up near us.
"Then I can take you back. Perhaps I'd better get you out of the
way of any other boats first. You don't mind going over and then
back?"

Verplanck looked at Craig. "On the contrary," muttered Craig, as
he made fast the welcome line.

The Carter dock was some three miles from the club on the other
side of the bay. As we came up to it, Carter shut off his engine,
bent over it a moment, made fast, and left us with a hurried,
"Wait here."

Suddenly, overhead, we heard a peculiar whirring noise that seemed
to vibrate through the air. Something huge, black, monster-like,
slid down a board runway into the water, traveled a few feet, in
white suds and spray, rose in the darkness--and was gone!

As the thing disappeared, I thought I could hear a mocking laugh
flung back at us.

"What is it?" I asked, straining my eyes at what had seemed for an
instant like a great flying fish with finny tail and huge fins at
the sides and above.

"'Aquaero,'" quoted Kennedy quickly. "Don't you understand--a
hydroaeroplane--a flying boat. There are hundreds of privately
owned flying boats now wherever there is navigable water. That was
the secret of Carter's boathouse, of the light we saw in the air."

"But this Aquaero--who is he?" persisted McNeill. "Carter--
Wickham--Australia Mac?"

We looked at each other blankly. No one said a word. We were
captured, just as effectively as if we were ironed in a dungeon.
There were the black water, the distant lights, which at any other
time I should have said would have been beautiful.

Kennedy had sprung into Carter's boat.

"The deuce," he exclaimed. "He's put her out of business."

Verplanck, chagrined, had been going over his own engine
feverishly. "Do you see that?" he asked suddenly, holding up in
the light of a lantern a little nut which he had picked out of the
complicated machinery. "It never belonged to this engine. Some one
placed it there, knowing it would work its way into a vital part
with the vibration."

Who was the person, the only one who could have done it? The
answer was on my lips, but I repressed it. Mrs. Verplanck herself
had been bending over the engine when last I saw her. All at once
it flashed over me that she knew more about the phantom bandit
than she had admitted. Yet what possible object could she have had
in putting the Streamline out of commission?

My mind was working rapidly, piecing together the fragmentary
facts. The remark of Kennedy, long before, instantly assumed new
significance. What were the possibilities of blackmail in the
right sort of evidence? The yeggman had been after what was more
valuable than jewels--letters! Whose? Suddenly I saw the
situation. Carter had not been robbed at all. He was in league
with the robber. That much was a blind to divert suspicion. He was
a lawyer--some one's lawyer. I recalled the message about letters
and evidence, and as I did so there came to mind a picture of
Carter and the woman he had been dancing with. In return for his
inside information about the jewels of the wealthy homes of
Bluffwood, the yeggman was to get something of interest and
importance to his client.

The situation called for instant action. Yet what could we do,
marooned on the other side of the bay?

From the Club dock a long finger of light swept out into the
night, plainly enough near the dock, but diffused and disclosing
nothing in the distance. Armand had trained it down the bay in the
direction we had taken, but by the time the beam reached us it was
so weak that it was lost.

Craig had leaped up on the Carter dock and was capping and
uncapping with the brass cover the package which contained the
triple mirror.

Still in the distance I could see the wide path of light, aimed
toward us, but of no avail.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Using the triple mirror to signal to Armand. It is something
better than wireless. Wireless requires heavy and complicated
apparatus. This is portable, heatless, almost weightless, a source
of light depending for its power on another source of light at a
great distance."

I wondered how Armand could ever detect its feeble ray.

"Even in the case of a rolling ship," Kennedy continued,
alternately covering and uncovering the mirror, "the beam of light
which this mirror reflects always goes back, unerring, to its
source. It would do so from an aeroplane, so high in the air that
it could not be located. The returning beam is invisible to anyone
not immediately in the path of the ray, and the ray always goes to
the observer. It is simply a matter of pure mathematics
practically applied. The angle of incidence equals the angle of
reflection. There is not a variation of a foot in two miles."

"What message are you sending him?" asked Verplanck.

"To tell Mrs. Hollingsworth to hurry home immediately," Kennedy
replied, still flashing the letters according to his code.

"Mrs. Hollingsworth?" repeated Verplanck, looking up.

"Yes. This hydroaeroplane yeggman is after something besides
jewels to-night. Were those letters that were stolen from you the
only ones you had in the safe?"

Verplanck looked up quickly. "Yes, yes. Of course."

"You had none from a woman--"

"No," he almost shouted. Of a sudden it seemed to dawn on him what
Kennedy was driving at--the robbery of his own house with no loss
except of a packet of letters on business, followed by the attempt
on Mrs. Hollingsworth. "Do you think I'd keep dynamite, even in
the safe?"

To hide his confusion he had turned and was bending again over the
engine.

"How is it?" asked Kennedy, his signaling over.

"Able to run on four cylinders and one propeller," replied
Verplanck.

"Then let's try her. Watch the engine. I'll take the wheel."

Limping along, the engine skipping and missing, the once peerless
Streamline started back across the bay. Instead of heading toward
the club, Kennedy pointed her bow somewhere between that and
Verplanck's.

"I wish Armand would get busy," he remarked, after glancing now
and then in the direction of the club. "What can be the matter?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

There came the boom as if of a gun far away in the direction in
which he was looking, then another.

"Oh, there it is. Good fellow. I suppose he had to deliver my
message to Mrs. Hollingsworth himself first."

From every quarter showed huge balls of fire, rising from the sea,
as it were, with a brilliantly luminous flame.

"What is it?" I asked, somewhat startled.

"A German invention for use at night against torpedo and aeroplane
attacks. From that mortar Armand has shot half a dozen bombs of
phosphide of calcium which are hurled far into the darkness. They
are so constructed that they float after a short plunge and are
ignited on contact by the action of the salt water itself."

It was a beautiful pyrotechnic display, lighting up the shore and
hills of the bay as if by an unearthly flare.

"There's that thing now!" exclaimed Kennedy.

In the glow we could see a peculiar, birdlike figure flying
through the air over toward the Hollingsworth house. It was the
hydroaeroplane.

Out from the little stretch of lawn under the accentuated shadow
of the trees, she streaked into the air, swaying from side to side
as the pilot operated the stabilizers on the ends of the planes to
counteract the puffs of wind off the land.

How could she ever be stopped?

The Streamline, halting and limping, though she was, had almost
crossed the bay before the light bombs had been fired by Armand.
Every moment brought the flying boat nearer.

She swerved. Evidently the pilot had seen us at last and realized
who we were. I was so engrossed watching the thing that I had not
noticed that Kennedy had given the wheel to Verplanck and was
standing in the bow, endeavoring to sight what looked like a huge
gun.

In rapid succession half a dozen shots rang out. I fancied I could
almost hear the ripping and tearing of the tough rubber-coated
silken wings of the hydroaeroplane as the wind widened the
perforation the gun had made.

She had not been flying high, but now she swooped down almost like
a gull, seeking to rest on the water. We were headed toward her
now, and as the flying boat sank I saw one of the passengers rise
in his seat, swing his arm, and far out something splashed in the
bay.

On the water, with wings helpless, the flying boat was no match
for the Streamline now. She struck at an acute angle, rebounded in
the air for a moment, and with a hiss skittered along over the
waves, planing with the help of her exhaust under the step of the
boat.

There she was, a hull, narrow, scow-bowed, like a hydroplane, with
a long pointed stern and a cockpit for two men, near the bow.
There were two wide, winglike planes, on a light latticework of
wood covered with silk, trussed and wired like a kite frame, the
upper plane about five feet above the lower, which was level with
the boat deck. We could see the eight-cylindered engine which
drove a two-bladed wooden propeller, and over the stern were the
air rudder and the horizontal planes. There she was, the hobbled
steed now of the phantom bandit who had accomplished the seemingly
impossible.

In spite of everything, however, the flying boat reached the shore
a trifle ahead of us. As she did so both figures in her jumped,
and one disappeared quickly up the bank, leaving the other alone.

"Verplanck, McNeill--get him," cried Kennedy, as our own boat
grated on the beach. "Come, Walter, we'll take the other one."

The man had seen that there was no safety in flight. Down the
shore he stood, without a hat, his hair blown pompadour by the
wind.

As we approached Carter turned superciliously, unbuttoning his
bulky khaki life preserver jacket.

"Well?" he asked coolly.

Not for a moment did Kennedy allow the assumed coolness to take
him back, knowing that Carter's delay did not cover the retreat of
the other man.

"So," Craig exclaimed, "you are the--the air pirate?"

Carter disdained to reply.

"It was you who suggested the millionaire households, full of
jewels, silver and gold, only half guarded; you, who knew the
habits of the people; you, who traded that information in return
for another piece of thievery by your partner, Australia Mac--
Wickham he called himself here in Bluffwood. It was you---"

A car drove up hastily, and I noted that we were still on the
Hollingsworth estate. Mrs. Hollingsworth had seen us and had
driven over toward us.

"Montgomery!" she cried, startled.

"Yes," said Kennedy quickly, "air pirate and lawyer for Mrs.
Verplanck in the suit which she contemplated bringing--"

Mrs. Hollingsworth grew pale under the ghastly, flickering light
from the bay.

"Oh!" she cried, realizing at what Kennedy hinted, "the letters!"

"At the bottom of the harbor, now," said Kennedy. "Mr. Verplanck
tells me he has destroyed his. The past is blotted out as far as
that is concerned. The future is--for you three to determine. For
the present I've caught a yeggman and a blackmailer."




CHAPTER VII

THE WIRELESS WIRETAPPERS


Kennedy did not wait at Bluffwood longer than was necessary. It
was easy enough now to silence Montgomery Carter, and the
reconciliation of the Verplancks was assured. In the Star I made
the case appear at the time to involve merely the capture of
Australia Mac.

When I dropped into the office the next day as usual, I found that
I had another assignment that would take me out on Long Island.
The story looked promising and I was rather pleased to get it.

"Bound for Seaville, I'll wager," sounded a familiar voice in my
ear, as I hurried up to the train entrance at the Long Island
corner of the Pennsylvania Station.

I turned quickly, to find Kennedy just behind me, breathless and
perspiring.

"Er--yes," I stammered in surprise at seeing him so unexpectedly,
"but where did you come from? How did you know?"

"Let me introduce Mr. Jack Waldon," he went on, as we edged our
way toward the gate, "the brother of Mrs. Tracy Edwards, who
disappeared so strangely from the houseboat Lucie last night at
Seaville. That is the case you're going to write up, isn't it?"

It was then for the first time that I noticed the excited young
man beside Kennedy was really his companion.

I shook hands with Waldon, who gave me a grip that was both a
greeting and an added impulse in our general direction through the
wicket.

"Might have known the Star would assign you to this Edwards case,"
panted Kennedy, mopping his forehead, for the heat in the terminal
was oppressive and the crowd, though not large, was closely
packed. "Mr. Jameson is my right-hand man," he explained to
Waldon, taking us each by the arm and urging us forward. "Waldon
was afraid we might miss the train or I should have tried to get
you, Walter, at the office."

It was all done so suddenly that they quite took away what
remaining breath I had, as we settled ourselves to swelter in the
smoker instead of in the concourse. I did not even protest at the
matter-of-fact assurance with which Craig assumed that his
deduction as to my destination was correct.

Waldon, a handsome young fellow in a flannel suit and yachting cap
somewhat the worse for his evidently perturbed state of mind,
seemed to eye me for the moment doubtfully, in spite of Kennedy's
cordial greeting.

"I've had all the first editions of the evening papers," I hinted
as we sped through the tunnel, "but the stories seemed to be quite
the same--pretty meager in details."

"Yes," returned Waldon with a glance at Kennedy, "I tried to keep
as much out of the papers as I could just now for Lucie's sake."

"You needn't fear Jameson," remarked Kennedy.

He fumbled in his pocket, then paused a moment and shot a glance
of inquiry at Waldon, who nodded a mute acquiescence to him.

"There seem to have been a number of very peculiar disappearances
lately," resumed Kennedy, "but this case of Mrs. Edwards is by far
the most extraordinary. Of course the Star hasn't had that--yet,"
he concluded, handing me a sheet of notepaper.

"Mr. Waldon didn't give it out, hoping to avoid scandal."

I took the paper and read eagerly, in a woman's hand:

"MY DEAR MISS FOX: I have been down here at Seaville on our
houseboat, the Lucie, for several days for a purpose which now is
accomplished.

"Already I had my suspicions of you, from a source which I need
not name. Therefore, when the Kronprinz got into wireless
communication with the station at Seaville I determined through
our own wireless on the Lucie to overhear whether there would be
any exchange of messages between my husband and yourself.

"I was able to overhear the whole thing and I want you to know
that your secret is no longer a secret from me, and that I have
already told Mr. Edwards that I know it. You ruin his life by your
intimacy which you seem to want to keep up, although you know you
have no right to do it, but you shall not ruin mine.

"I am thoroughly disillusioned now. I have not decided on what
steps to take, but--"

Only a casual glance was necessary to show me that the writing
seemed to grow more and more weak as it progressed, and the note
stopped abruptly, as if the writer had been suddenly interrupted
or some new idea had occurred to her.

Hastily I tried to figure it out. Lucie Waldon, as everybody knew,
was a famous beauty, a marvel of charm and daintiness, slender,
with big, soulful, wistful eyes. Her marriage to Tracy Edwards,
the wealthy plunger and stockbroker, had been a great social event
the year before, and it was reputed at the time that Edwards had
showered her with jewels and dresses to the wonder and talk even
of society.

As for Valerie Fox, I knew she had won quick recognition and even
fame as a dancer in New York during the previous winter, and I
recalled reading three or four days before that she had just
returned on the Kronprinz from a trip abroad.

"I don't suppose you have had time to see Miss Fox," I remarked.
"Where is she?"

"At Beach Park now, I think," replied Waldon, "a resort a few
miles nearer the city on the south shore, where there is a large
colony of actors."

I handed back the letter to Kennedy.

"What do you make of it?" he asked, as he folded it up and put it
back into his pocket.

"I hardly know what to say," I replied. "Of course there have been
rumors, I believe, that all was not exactly like a honeymoon still
with the Tracy Edwardses."

"Yes," returned Waldon slowly, "I know myself that there has been
some trouble, but nothing definite until I found this letter last
night in my sister's room. She never said anything about it either
to mother or myself. They haven't been much together during the
summer, and last night when she disappeared Tracy was in the city.
But I hadn't thought much about it before, for, of course, you
know he has large financial interests that make him keep in pretty
close touch with New York and this summer hasn't been a
particularly good one on the stock exchange."

"And," I put in, "a plunger doesn't always make the best of
husbands. Perhaps there is temperament to be reckoned with here."

"There seem to be a good many things to be reckoned with," Craig
considered. "For example, here's a houseboat, the Lucie, a
palatial affair, cruising about aimlessly, with a beautiful woman
on it. She gives a little party, in the absence of her husband, to
her brother, his fiancee and her mother, who visit her from his
yacht, the Nautilus. They break up, those living on the Lucie
going to their rooms and the rest back to the yacht, which is
anchored out further in the deeper water of the bay.

"Some time in the middle of the night her maid, Juanita, finds
that she is not in her room. Her brother is summoned back from his
yacht and finds that she has left this pathetic, unfinished
letter. But otherwise there is no trace of her. Her husband is
notified and hurries out there, but he can find no clue.
Meanwhile, Mr. Waldon, in despair, hurries down to the city to
engage me quietly."

"You remember I told you," suggested Waldon, "that my sister
hadn't been feeling well for several days. In fact it seemed that
the sea air wasn't doing her much good, and some one last night
suggested that she try the mountains."

"Had there been anything that would foreshadow the--er--
disappearance?" asked Kennedy.

"Only as I say, that for two or three days she seemed to be
listless, to be sinking by slow and easy stages into a sort of
vacant, moody state of ill health."

"She had a doctor, I suppose?" I asked.

"Yes, Dr. Jermyn, Tracy's own personal physician came down from
the city several days ago."

"What did he say?"

"He simply said that it was congestion of the lungs. As far as he
could see there was no apparent cause for it. I don't think he was
very enthusiastic about the mountain air idea. The fact is he was
like a good many doctors under the circumstances, noncommittal--
wanted her under observation, and all that sort of thing."

"What's your opinion?" I pressed Craig. "Do you think she has run
away?"

"Naturally, I'd rather not attempt to say yet," Craig replied
cautiously. "But there are several possibilities. Yes, she might
have left the houseboat in some other boat, of course. Then there
is the possibility of accident. It was a hot night. She might have
been leaning from the window and have lost her balance. I have
even thought of drugs, that she might have taken something in her
despondency and have fallen overboard while under the influence of
it. Then, of course, there are the two deductions that everyone
has made already--either suicide or murder."

Waldon had evidently been turning something over in his mind.

"There was a wireless outfit aboard the houseboat," he ventured at
length.

"What of that?" I asked, wondering why he was changing the subject
so abruptly.

"Why, only this," he replied. "I have been reading about wireless
a good deal lately, and if the theories of some scientists are
correct, the wireless age is not without its dangers as well as
its wonders. I recall reading not long ago of a German professor
who says there is no essential difference between wireless waves
and the X-rays, and we know the terrible physical effects of X-
rays. I believe he estimated that only one three hundred millionth
part of the electrical energy generated by sending a message from
one station to another near by is actually used up in transmitting
the message. The rest is dispersed in the atmosphere. There must
be a good deal of such stray electrical energy about Seaville.
Isn't it possible that it might hit some one somewhere who was
susceptible?"

Kennedy said nothing. Waldon's was at least a novel idea, whether
it was plausible or not. The only way to test it out, as far as I
could determine, was to see whether it fitted with the facts after
a careful investigation of the case itself.

It was still early in the day and the trains were not as crowded
as they would be later. Consequently our journey was comfortable
enough and we found ourselves at last at the little vine-covered
station at Seaville.

One could almost feel that the gay summer colony was in a state of
subdued excitement. As we left the quaint station and walked down
the main street to the town wharf where we expected some one would
be waiting for us, it seemed as if the mysterious disappearance of
the beautiful Mrs. Edwards had put a damper on the life of the
place. In the hotels there were knots of people evidently
discussing the affair, for as we passed we could tell by their
faces that they recognized us. One or two bowed and would have
joined us, if Waldon had given any encouragement. But he did not
stop, and we kept on down the street quickly.

I myself began to feel the spell of mystery about the case as I
had not felt it among the distractions of the city. Perhaps I
imagined it, but there even seemed to be something strange about
the houseboat which we could descry at anchor far down the bay as
we approached the wharf.

We were met, as Waldon had arranged, by a high-powered runabout,
the tender to his own yacht, a slim little craft of mahogany and
brass, driven like an automobile, and capable of perhaps twenty-
five or thirty miles an hour. We jumped in and were soon skimming
over the waters of the bay like a skipping stone.

It was evident that Waldon was much relieved at having been able
to bring assistance, in which he had as much confidence as he
reposed in Kennedy. At any rate it was something to be nearing the
scene of action again.

The Lucie was perhaps seventy feet long and a most attractive
craft, with a hull yachty in appearance and of a type which could
safely make long runs along the coast, a stanch, seaworthy boat,
of course without the speed of the regularly designed yacht, but
more than making up in comfort for those on board what was lost in
that way. Waldon pointed out with obvious pride his own trim yacht
swinging gracefully at anchor a half mile or so away.

As we approached the houseboat I looked her over carefully. One of
the first things I noticed was that there rose from the roof the
primitive inverted V aerial of a wireless telegraph. I thought
immediately of the unfinished letter and its contents, and shaded
my eyes as I took a good look at the powerful transatlantic
station on the spit of sand perhaps three or four miles distant,
with its tall steel masts of the latest inverted L type and the
cluster of little houses below, in which the operators and the
plant were.

Waldon noticed what I was looking at, and remarked, "It's a
wonderful station--and well worth a visit, if you have the time--
one of the most powerful on the coast, I understand."

"How did the Lucie come to be equipped with wireless?" asked Craig
quickly. "It's a little unusual for a private boat."

"Mr. Edwards had it done when she was built," explained Waldon.
"His idea was to use it to keep in touch with the stock market on
trips."

"And it has proved effective?" asked Craig.

"Oh, yes--that is, it was all right last winter when he went on a
short cruise down in Florida. This summer he hasn't been on the
boat long enough to use it much."

"Who operates it?"

"He used to hire a licensed operator, although I believe the
engineer, Pedersen, understands the thing pretty well and could
use it if necessary."

"Do you think it was Pedersen who used it for Mrs. Edwards?" asked
Kennedy.

"I really don't know," confessed Waldon. "Pedersen denies
absolutely that he has touched the thing for weeks. I want you to
quiz him. I wasn't able to get him to admit a thing."




CHAPTER VIII

THE HOUSEBOAT MYSTERY


We had by this time swung around to the side of the houseboat. I
realized as we mounted the ladder that the marine gasoline engine
had materially changed the old-time houseboat from a mere scow or
barge with a low flat house on it, moored in a bay or river, and
only with difficulty and expense towed from one place to another.
Now the houseboat was really a fair-sized yacht.

The Lucie was built high in order to give plenty of accommodation
for the living quarters. The staterooms, dining rooms and saloon
were really rooms, with seven or eight feet of head room, and
furnished just as one would find in a tasteful and expensive
house.

Down in the hull, of course, was the gasoline motor which drove
the propeller, so that when the owner wanted a change of scene all
that was necessary was to get up anchor, start the motor and
navigate the yacht-houseboat to some other harbor.

Edwards himself met us on the deck. He was a tall man, with a red
face, a man of action, of outdoor life, apparently a hard worker
and a hard player. It was quite evident that he had been waiting
for the return of Waldon anxiously.

"You find us considerably upset, Professor Kennedy," he greeted
Craig, as his brother-in-law introduced us.

Edwards turned and led the way toward the saloon. As he entered
and bade us be seated in the costly cushioned wicker chairs I
noticed how sumptuously it was furnished, and particularly its
mechanical piano, its phonograph and the splendid hardwood floor
which seemed to invite one to dance in the cool breeze that
floated across from one set of open windows to the other. And yet
in spite of everything, there was that indefinable air of
something lacking, as in a house from which the woman is gone,

"You were not here last night, I understand," remarked Kennedy,
taking in the room at a glance.

"Unfortunately, no," replied Edwards, "Business has kept me with
my nose pretty close to the grindstone this summer. Waldon called
me up in the middle of the night, however, and I started down in
my car, which enabled me to get here before the first train. I
haven't been able to do a thing since I got here except just wait-
-wait--wait. I confess that I don't know what else to do. Waldon
seemed to think we ought to have some one down here--and I guess
he was right. Anyhow, I'm glad to see you."

I watched Edwards keenly. For the first time I realized that I had
neglected to ask Waldon whether he had seen the unfinished letter.
The question was unnecessary. It was evident that he had not.

"Let me see, Waldon, if I've got this thing straight," Edwards
went on, pacing restlessly up and down the saloon. "Correct me if
I haven't. Last night, as I understand it, there was a sort of
little family party here, you and Miss Verrall and your mother
from the Nautilus, and Mrs. Edwards and Dr. Jermyn."

"Yes," replied Waldon with, I thought, a touch of defiance at the
words "family party." He paused as if he would have added that the
Nautilus would have been more congenial, anyhow, then added, "We
danced a little bit, all except Lucie. She said she wasn't feeling
any too well."

Edwards had paused by the door. "If you'll excuse me a minute," he
said, "I'll call Jermyn and Mrs. Edwards' maid, Juanita. You ought
to go over the whole thing immediately, Professor Kennedy."

"Why didn't you say anything about the letter to him?" asked
Kennedy under his breath.

"What was the use?" returned Waldon. "I didn't know how he'd take
it. Besides, I wanted your advice on the whole thing. Do you want
to show it to him?"

"Perhaps it's just as well," ruminated Kennedy. "It may be
possible to clear the thing up without involving anybody's name.
At any rate, some one is coming down the passage this way."

Edwards entered with Dr. Jermyn, a clean-shaven man, youthful in
appearance, yet approaching middle age. I had heard of him before.
He had studied several years abroad and had gained considerable
reputation since his return to America.

Dr. Jermyn shook hands with us cordially enough, made some passing
comment on the tragedy, and stood evidently waiting for us to
disclose our hands.

"You have been Mrs. Edwards' physician for some time, I believe?"
queried Kennedy, fencing for an opening.

"Only since her marriage," replied the doctor briefly.

"She hadn't been feeling well for several days, had she?" ventured
Kennedy again.

"No," replied Dr. Jermyn quickly. "I doubt whether I can add much
to what you already know. I suppose Mr. Waldon has told you about
her illness. The fact is, I suppose her maid Juanita will be able
to tell you really more than I can."

I could not help feeling that Dr. Jermyn showed a great deal of
reluctance in talking.

"You have been with her several days, though, haven't you?"

"Four days, I think. She was complaining of feeling nervous and
telegraphed me to come down here. I came prepared to stay over
night, but Mr. Edwards happened to run down that day, too, and he
asked me if I wouldn't remain longer. My practice in the summer is
such that I can easily leave it with my assistant in the city, so
I agreed. Really, that is about all I can say. I don't know yet
what was the matter with Mrs. Edwards, aside from the nervousness
which seemed to be of some time standing."

He stood facing us, thoughtfully stroking his chin, as a very
pretty and petite maid nervously entered and stood facing us in
the doorway.

"Come in, Juanita," encouraged Edwards. "I want you to tell these
gentlemen just what you told me about discovering that Madame had
gone--and anything else that you may recall now."

"It was Juanita who discovered that Madame was gone, you know,"
put in Waldon.

"How did you discover it?" prompted Craig.

"It was very hot," replied the maid, "and often on hot nights I
would come in and fan Madame since she was so wakeful. Last night
I went to the door and knocked. There was no reply. I called to
her, 'Madame, madame.' Still there was no answer. The worst I
supposed was that she had fainted. I continued to call."

"The door was locked?" inquired Kennedy.

"Yes, sir. My call aroused the others on the boat. Dr. Jermyn came
and he broke open the door with his shoulder. But the room was
empty. Madame was gone."

"How about the windows?" asked Kennedy.

"Open. They were always open these nights. Sometimes Madame would
sit by the window when there was not much breeze."

"I should like to see the room," remarked Craig, with an inquiring
glance at Edwards.

"Certainly," he answered, leading the way down a corridor.

Mrs. Edwards' room was on the starboard side, with wide windows
instead of portholes. It was furnished magnificently and there was
little about it that suggested the nautical, except the view from
the window.

"The bed had not been slept in," Edwards remarked as we looked
about curiously.

Kennedy walked over quickly to the wide series of windows before
which was a leather-cushioned window seat almost level with the
window, several feet above the level of the water. It was by this
window, evidently, that Juanita meant that Mrs. Edwards often sat.
It was a delightful position, but I could readily see that it
would be comparatively easy for anyone accidentally or purposely
to fall.

"I think myself," Waldon remarked to Kennedy, "that it must have
been from the open window that she made her way to the outside. It
seems that all agree that the door was locked, while the window
was wide open."

"There had been no sound--no cry to alarm you?" shot out Kennedy
suddenly to Juanita.

"No, sir, nothing. I could not sleep myself, and I thought of
Madame."

"You heard nothing?" he asked of Dr. Jermyn.

"Nothing until I heard the maid call," he replied briefly.

Mentally I ran over again Kennedy's first list of possibilities--
taken off by another boat, accident, drugs, suicide, murder.

Was there, I asked myself, sufficient reason for suicide? The
letter seemed to me to show too proud a spirit for that. In fact
the last sentence seemed to show that she was contemplating the
surest method of revenge, rather than surrender. As for accident,
why should a person fall overboard from a large houseboat into a
perfectly calm harbor? Then, too, there had been no outcry.
Somehow, I could not seem to fit any of the theories in with the
facts. Evidently it was like many another case, one in which we,
as yet, had insufficient data for a conclusion.

Suddenly I recalled the theory that Waldon himself had advanced
regarding the wireless, either from the boat itself or from the
wireless station. For the moment, at least, it seemed plausible
that she might have been seated at the window, that she might have
been affected by escaped wireless, or by electrolysis. I knew that
some physicians had described a disease which they attributed to
wireless, a sort of anemia with a marked diminution in the number
of red corpuscles in the blood, due partly to the over
etherization of the air by reason of the alternating currents used
to generate the waves.

"I should like now to inspect the little wireless plant you have
here on the Lucie," remarked Kennedy. "I noticed the mast as we
were approaching a few minutes ago."

I had turned at the sound of his voice in time to catch Edwards
and Dr. Jermyn eyeing each other furtively. Did they know about
the letter, after all, I wondered? Was each in doubt about just
how much the other knew?

There was no time to pursue these speculations. "Certainly,"
agreed Mr. Edwards promptly, leading the way.

Kennedy seemed keenly interested in inspecting the little wireless
plant, which was of a curious type and not exactly like any that I
had seen before.

"Wireless apparatus," he remarked, as he looked it over, "is
divided into three parts, the source of power whether battery or
dynamo, the making and sending of wireless waves, including the
key, spark, condenser and tuning coil, and the receiving
apparatus, head telephones, antennae, ground and detector."

Pedersen, the engineer, came in while we were looking the plant
over, but seemed uncommunicative to all Kennedy's efforts to
engage him in conversation.

"I see," remarked Kennedy, "that it is a very compact system with
facilities for a quick change from one wave length to another."

"Yes," grunted Pedersen, as averse to talking, evidently, as
others on the Lucie.

"Spark gap, quenched type," I heard Kennedy mutter almost to
himself, with a view to showing Pedersen that he knew something
about it. "Break system relay--operator can overhear any
interference while transmitting--transformation by a single throw
of a six-point switch which tunes the oscillating and open
circuits to resonance. Very clever--very efficient. By the way,
Pedersen, are you the only person aboard who can operate this?"

"How should I know?" he answered almost surlily.

"You ought to know, if anybody," answered Kennedy unruffled. "I
know that it has been operated within the past few days."

Pedersen shrugged his shoulders. "You might ask the others
aboard," was all he said. "Mr. Edwards pays me to operate it only
for himself, when he has no other operator."

Kennedy did not pursue the subject, evidently from fear of saying
too much just at present.

"I wonder if there is anyone else who could have operated it,"
said Waldon, as we mounted again to the deck.

"I don't know," replied Kennedy, pausing on the way up. "You
haven't a wireless on the Nautilus, have you?"

Waldon shook his head. "Never had any particular use for it
myself," he answered.

"You say that Miss Verrall and her mother have gone back to the
city?" pursued Kennedy, taking care that as before the others were
out of earshot.

"Yes."

"I'd like to stay with you tonight, then," decided Kennedy. "Might
we go over with you now? There doesn't seem to be anything more I
can do here, unless we get some news about Mrs. Edwards."

Waldon seemed only too glad to agree, and no one on the Lucie
insisted on our staying.

We arrived at the Nautilus a few minutes later, and while we were
lunching Kennedy dispatched the tender to the Marconi station with
a note.

It was early in the afternoon when the tender returned with
several packages and coils of wire. Kennedy immediately set to
work on the Nautilus stretching out some of the wire.

"What is it you are planning?" asked Waldon, to whom every action
of Kennedy seemed to be a mystery of the highest interest.

"Improvising my own wireless," he replied, not averse to talking
to the young man to whom he seemed to have taken a fancy. "For
short distances, you know, it isn't necessary to construct an
aerial pole or even to use outside wires to receive messages. All
that is needed is to use just a few wires stretched inside a room.
The rest is just the apparatus."

I was quite as much interested as Waldon. "In wireless," he went
on, "the signals are not sent in one direction, but in all, so
that a person within range of the ethereal disturbance can get
them if only he has the necessary receiving apparatus. This
apparatus need not be so elaborate and expensive as used to be
thought needful if a sensitive detector is employed, and I have
sent over to the station for a new piece of apparatus which I knew
they had in almost any Marconi station. Why, I've got wireless
signals using only twelve feet of number eighteen copper wire
stretched across a room and grounded with a water pipe. You might
even use a wire mattress on an iron bedstead."

"Can't they find out by--er, interference?" I asked, repeating the
term I had so often heard.

Kennedy laughed. "No, not for radio apparatus which merely
receives radiograms and is not equipped for sending. I am setting
up only one side of a wireless outfit here. All I want to do is to
hear what is being said. I don't care about saying anything."

He unwrapped another package which had been loaned to him by the
radio station and we watched him curiously as he tested it and set
it up. Some parts of it I recognized such as the very sensitive
microphone, and another part I could have sworn was a phonograph
cylinder, though Craig was so busy testing his apparatus that now
we could not ask questions.

It was late in the afternoon when he finished, and we had just
time to run up to the dock at Seaville and stop off at the Lucie
to see if anything had happened in the intervening hours before
dinner. There was nothing, except that I found time to file a
message to the Star and meet several fellow newspaper men who had
been sent down by other papers on the chance of picking up a good
story.

We had the Nautilus to ourselves, and as she was a very
comfortable little craft, we really had a very congenial time, a
plunge over her side, a good dinner, and then a long talk out on
deck under the stars, in which we went over every phase of the
case. As we discussed it, Waldon followed keenly, and it was quite
evident from his remarks that he had come to the conclusion that
Dr. Jermyn at least knew more than he had told about the case.

Still, the day wore away with no solution yet of the mystery.




CHAPTER IX

THE RADIO DETECTIVE


It was early the following morning when a launch drew up beside
the Nautilus. In it were Edwards and Dr. Jermyn, wildly excited.

"What's the matter?" called out Waldon.

"They--they have found the body," Edwards blurted out.

Waldon paled and clutched the rail. He had thought the world of
his sister, and not until the last moment had he given up hope
that perhaps she might be found to have disappeared in some other
way than had become increasingly evident.

"Where?" cried Kennedy. "Who?"

"Over on Ten Mile Beach," answered Edwards. "Some fishermen who
had been out on a cruise and hadn't heard the story. They took the
body to town, and there it was recognized. They sent word out to
us immediately."

Waldon had already spun the engine of his tender, which was about
the fastest thing afloat about Seaville, had taken Edwards over,
and we were off in a cloud of spray, the nose of the boat many
inches above the surface of the water.

In the little undertaking establishment at Seaville lay the body
of the beautiful young matron about whom so much anxiety had been
felt. I could not help thinking what an end was this for the
incomparable beauty. At the very height of her brief career the
poor little woman's life had been suddenly snuffed out. But by
what? The body had been found, but the mystery had been far from
solved.

As Kennedy bent over the body, I heard him murmur to himself, "She
had everything--everything except happiness."

"Was it drowning that caused her death?" asked Kennedy of the
local doctor, who also happened to be coroner and had already
arrived on the scene.

The doctor shook his head. "I don't know," he said doubtfully.
"There was congestion of the lungs--but I--I can't say but what
she might have been dead before she fell or was thrown into the
water."

Dr. Jermyn stood on one side, now and then putting in a word, but
for the most part silent unless spoken to. Kennedy, however, was
making a most minute examination.

As he turned the beautiful head, almost reverently, he saw
something that evidently attracted his attention. I was standing
next to him and, between us, I think we cut off the view of the
others. There on the back of the neck, carefully, had been smeared
something transparent, almost skin-like, which had easily escaped
the attention of the rest.

Kennedy tried to pick it off, but only succeeded in pulling off a
very minute piece to which the flesh seemed to adhere.

"That's queer," he whispered to me. "Water, naturally, has no
effect on it, else it would have been washed off long before.
Walter," he added, "just slip across the street quietly to the
drug store and get me a piece of gauze soaked with acetone."

As quickly and unostentatiously as I could I did so and handed him
the wet cloth, contriving at the same time to add Waldon to our
barrier, for I could see that Kennedy was anxious to be observed
as little as possible.

"What is it?" I whispered, as he rubbed the transparent skin-like
stuff off, and dropped the gauze into his pocket.

"A sort of skin varnish," he remarked under his breath,
"waterproof and so adhesive that it resists pulling off even with
a knife without taking the cuticle with it."

Beneath, as the skin varnish slowly dissolved under his gentle
rubbing, he had disclosed several very small reddish spots, like
little cuts that had been made by means of a very sharp
instrument. As he did so, he gave them a hasty glance, turned the
now stony beautiful head straight again, stood up, and resumed his
talk with the coroner, who was evidently getting more and more
bewildered by the case.

Edwards, who had completed the arrangements with the undertaker
for the care of the body as soon as the coroner released it,
seemed completely unnerved.

"Jermyn," he said to the doctor, as he turned away and hid his
eyes, "I can't stand this. The undertaker wants some stuff from
the--er--boat," his voice broke over the name which had been hers.
"Will you get it for me? I'm going up to a hotel here, and I'll
wait for you there. But I can't go out to the boat--yet."

"I think Mr. Waldon will be glad to take you out in his tender,"
suggested Kennedy. "Besides, I feel that I'd like a little fresh
air as a bracer, too, after such a shock."

"What were those little cuts?" I asked as Waldon and Dr. Jermyn
preceded us through the crowd outside to the pier.

"Some one," he answered in a low tone, "has severed the
pneumogastric nerves."

"The pneumogastric nerves?" I repeated.

"Yes, the vagus or wandering nerve, the so-called tenth cranial
nerve. Unlike the other cranial nerves, which are concerned with
the special senses or distributed to the skin and muscles of the
head and neck, the vagus, as its name implies, strays downward
into the chest and abdomen supplying branches to the throat,
lungs, heart and stomach and forms an important connecting link
between the brain and the sympathetic nervous system."

We had reached the pier, and a nod from Kennedy discouraged
further conversation on the subject.

A few minutes later we had reached the Lucie and gone up over her
side. Kennedy waited until Jermyn had disappeared into the room of
Mrs. Edwards to get what the undertaker had desired. A moment and
he had passed quietly into Dr. Jermyn's own room, followed by me.
Several quick glances about told him what not to waste time over,
and at last his eye fell on a little portable case of medicines
and surgical instruments. He opened it quickly and took out a
bottle of golden yellow liquid.

Kennedy smelled it, then quickly painted some on the back of his
hand. It dried quickly, like an artificial skin. He had found a
bottle of skin varnish in Dr. Jermyn's own medicine chest!

We hurried back to the deck, and a few minutes later the doctor
appeared with a large package.

"Did you ever hear of coating the skin by a substance which is
impervious to water, smooth and elastic?" asked Kennedy quietly as
Waldon's tender sped along back to Seaville.

"Why--er, yes," he said frankly, raising his eyes and looking at
Craig in surprise. "There have been a dozen or more such
substances. The best is one which I use, made of pyroxylin, the
soluble cotton of commerce, dissolved in amyl acetate and acetone
with some other substances that make it perfectly sterile. Why do
you ask?"

"Because some one has used a little bit of it to cover a few
slight cuts on the back of the neck of Mrs. Edwards."

"Indeed?" he said simply, in a tone of mild surprise.

"Yes," pursued Kennedy. "They seem to me to be subcutaneous
incisions of the neck with a very fine scalpel dividing the two
great pneumogastric nerves. Of course you know what that would
mean--the victim would pass away naturally by slow and easy stages
in three or four days, and all that would appear might be
congestion of the lungs. They are delicate little punctures and
elusive nerves to locate, but after all it might be done as
painlessly, as simply and as safely as a barber might remove some
dead hairs. A country coroner might easily pass over such evidence
at an autopsy--especially if it was concealed by skin varnish."

I was surprised at the frankness with which Kennedy spoke, but
absolutely amazed at the coolness of Jermyn. At first he said
absolutely nothing. He seemed to be as set in his reticence as he
had been when we first met.

I watched him narrowly. Waldon, who was driving the boat, had not
heard what was said, but I had, and I could not conceive how
anyone could take it so calmly.

Finally Jermyn turned to Kennedy and looked him squarely in the
eye. "Kennedy," he said slowly, "this is extraordinary--most
extraordinary," then, pausing, added, "if true."

"There can be no doubt of the truth," replied Kennedy, eyeing Dr.
Jermyn just as squarely.

"What do you propose to do about it?" asked the doctor.

"Investigate," replied Kennedy simply. "While Waldon takes these
things up to the undertaker's, we may as well wait here in the
boat. I want him to stop on the way back for Mr. Edwards. Then we
shall go out to the Lucie. He must go, whether he likes it or
not."

It was indeed a most peculiar situation as Kennedy and I sat in
the tender with Dr. Jermyn waiting for Waldon to return with
Edwards. Not a word was spoken.

The tenseness of the situation was not relieved by the return of
Waldon with Edwards. Waldon seemed to realize without knowing just
what it was, that something was about to happen. He drove his boat
back to the Lucie again in record time. This was Kennedy's turn to
be reticent. Whatever it was he was revolving in his mind, he
answered in scarcely more than monosyllables whatever questions
were put to him.

"You are not coming aboard?" inquired Edwards in surprise as he
and Jermyn mounted the steps of the houseboat ladder, and Kennedy
remained seated in the tender.

"Not yet," replied Craig coolly.

"But I thought you had something to show me. Waldon told me you
had."

"I think I shall have in a short time," returned Kennedy. "We
shall be back immediately. I'm just going to ask Waldon to run
over to the Nautilus for a few minutes. We'll tow back your
launch, too, in case you need it."

Waldon had cast off obediently.

"There's one thing sure," I remarked. "Jermyn can't get away from
the Lucie until we return--unless he swims."

Kennedy did not seem to pay much attention to the remark, for his
only reply was: "I'm taking a chance by this maneuvering, but I
think it will work out that I am correct. By the way, Waldon, you
needn't put on so much speed. I'm in no great hurry to get back.
Half an hour will be time enough."

"Jermyn? What did you mean by Jermyn?" asked Waldon, as we climbed
to the deck of the Nautilus.

He had evidently learned, as I had, that it was little use to try
to quiz Kennedy until he was ready to be questioned and had
decided to try it on me.

I had nothing to conceal and I told him quite fully all that I
knew. Actually, I believe if Jermyn had been there, it would have
taken both Kennedy and myself to prevent violence. As it was I had
a veritable madman to deal with while Kennedy gathered up
leisurely the wireless outfit he had installed on the deck of
Waldon's yacht. It was only by telling him that I would certainly
demand that Kennedy leave him behind if he did not control his
feelings that I could calm him before Craig had finished his work
on the yacht.

Waldon relieved himself by driving the tender back at top speed to
the Lucie, and now it seemed that Kennedy had no objection to
traveling as fast as the many-cylindered engine was capable of
going.

As we entered the saloon of the houseboat, I kept close watch over
Waldon.

Kennedy began by slipping a record on the phonograph in the corner
of the saloon, then facing us and addressing Edwards particularly.

"You may be interested to know, Mr. Edwards," he said, "that your
wireless outfit here has been put to a use for which you never
intended it."

No one said anything, but I am sure that some one in the room then
for the first time began to suspect what was coming.

"As you know, by the use of an aerial pole, messages may be easily
received from any number of stations," continued Craig. "Laws,
rules and regulations may be adopted to shut out interlopers and
plug busybody ears, but the greater part of whatever is
transmitted by the Hertzian waves can be snatched down by other
wireless apparatus.

"Down below, in that little room of yours," went on Craig, "might
sit an operator with his ear-phone clamped to his head, drinking
in the news conveyed surely and swiftly to him through the
wireless signals--plucking from the sky secrets of finance and,"
he added, leaning forward, "love."

In his usual dramatic manner Kennedy had swung his little audience
completely with him.

"In other words," he resumed, "it might be used for eavesdropping
by a wireless wiretapper. Now," he concluded, "I thought that if
there was any radio detective work being done, I might as well do
some, too."

He toyed for a moment with the phonograph record. "I have used,"
he explained, "Marconi's radiotelephone, because in connection
with his receivers Marconi uses phonographic recorders and on them
has captured wireless telegraph signals over hundreds of miles.

"He has found that it is possible to receive wireless signals,
although ordinary records are not loud enough, by using a small
microphone on the repeating diaphragm and connected with a loud-
speaking telephone. The chief difficulty was to get a microphone
that would carry a sufficient current without burning up. There
were other difficulties, but they have been surmounted and now
wireless telegraph messages may be automatically recorded and made
audible."

Kennedy started the phonograph, running it along, stopping it,
taking up the record at a new point.

"Listen," he exclaimed at length, "there's something interesting,
the WXY call--Seaville station--from some one on the Lucie only a
few minutes ago, sending a message to be relayed by Seaville to
the station at Beach Park. It seems impossible, but buzzing and
ticking forth is this message from some one off this very
houseboat. It reads: "Miss Valerie Fox, Beach Park. I am suspected
of the murder of Mrs. Edwards. I appeal to you to help me. You
must allow me to tell the truth about the messages I intercepted
for Mrs. Edwards which passed between yourself on the ocean and
Mr. Edwards in New York via Seaville. You rejected me and would
not let me save you. Now you must save me."

Kennedy paused, then added, "The message is signed by Dr. Jermyn!"

At once I saw it all. Jermyn had been the unsuccessful suitor for
Miss Fox's affections. But before I could piece out the rest of
the tragic story, Kennedy had started the phonograph record at an
earlier point which he had skipped for the present.

"Here's another record--a brief one--also to Valerie Fox from the
houseboat: 'Refuse all interviews. Deny everything. Will see you
as soon as present excitement dies down.'"

Before Kennedy could finish, Waldon had leaped forward, unable
longer to control his feelings. If Kennedy had not seized his arm,
I verily believe he would have cast Dr. Jermyn into the bay into
which his sister had fallen two nights before in her terribly
weakened condition.

"Waldon," cried Kennedy, "for God's sake, man--wait! Don't you
understand? The second message is signed Tracy Edwards."

It came as quite as much a shock of surprise to me as to Waldon.

"Don't you understand?" he repeated. "Your sister first learned
from Dr. Jermyn what was going on. She moved the Lucie down here
near Seaville in order to be near the wireless station when the
ship bearing her rival, Valerie Fox, got in touch with land. With
the help of Dr. Jermyn she intercepted the wireless messages from
the Kronprinz to the shore--between her husband and Valerie Fox."

Kennedy was hurrying on now to his irresistible conclusion. "She
found that he was infatuated with the famous stage beauty, that he
was planning to marry another, her rival. She accused him of it,
threatened to defeat his plans. He knew she knew his
unfaithfulness. Instead of being your sister's murderer, Dr.
Jermyn was helping her get the evidence that would save both her
and perhaps win Miss Fox back to himself."

Kennedy had turned sharply on Edwards.

"But," he added, with a glance that crushed any lingering hope
that the truth had been concealed, "the same night that Dr. Jermyn
arrived here, you visited your wife. As she slept you severed the
nerves that meant life or death to her. Then you covered the cuts
with the preparation which you knew Dr. Jermyn used. You asked him
to stay, while you went away, thinking that when death came you
would have a perfect alibi--perhaps a scapegoat. Edwards, the
radio detective convicts you!"




CHAPTER X

THE CURIO SHOP


Edwards crumpled up as Kennedy and I faced him. There was no
escape. In fact our greatest difficulty was to protect him from
Waldon.

Kennedy's work in the case was over when we had got Edwards ashore
and in the hands of the authorities. But mine had just begun and
it was late when I got my story on the wire for the Star.

I felt pretty tired and determined to make up for it by sleeping
the next day. It was no use, however.

"Why, what's the matter, Mrs. Northrop?" I heard Kennedy ask as he
opened our door the next morning, just as I had finished dressing.

He had admitted a young woman, who greeted us with nervous, wide-
staring eyes.

"It's--it's about Archer," she cried, sinking into the nearest
chair and staring from one to the other of us.

She was the wife of Professor Archer Northrop, director of the
archeological department at the university. Both Craig and I had
known her ever since her marriage to Northrop, for she was one of
the most attractive ladies in the younger set of the faculty, to
which Craig naturally belonged. Archer had been of the class below
us in the university. We had hazed him, and out of the mild hazing
there had, strangely enough, grown a strong friendship.

I recollected quickly that Northrop, according to last reports,
had been down in the south of Mexico on an archeological
expedition. But before I could frame, even in my mind, the natural
question in a form that would not alarm his wife further, Kennedy
had it on his lips.

"No bad news from Mitla, I hope?" he asked gently, recalling one
of the main working stations chosen by the expedition and the
reported unsettled condition of the country about it. She looked
up quickly.

"Didn't you know--he--came back from Vera Cruz yesterday?" she
asked slowly, then added, speaking in a broken tone, "and--he
seems--suddenly--to have disappeared. Oh, such a terrible night of
worry! No word--and I called up the museum, but Doctor Bernardo,
the curator, had gone, and no one answered. And this morning--I
couldn't stand it any longer--so I came to you."

"You have no idea, I suppose, of anything that was weighing on his
mind?" suggested Kennedy.

"No," she answered promptly.

In default of any further information, Kennedy did not pursue this
line of questioning. I could not determine from his face or manner
whether he thought the matter might involve another than Mrs.
Northrop, or, perhaps, something connected with the unsettled
condition of the country from which her husband had just arrived.

"Have you any of the letters that Archer wrote home?" asked Craig,
at length.

"Yes," she replied eagerly, taking a little packet from her
handbag. "I thought you might ask that. I brought them."

"You are an ideal client," commented Craig encouragingly, taking
the letters. "Now, Mrs. Northrop, be brave. Trust me to run this
thing down, and if you hear anything let me know immediately."

She left us a moment later, visibly relieved.

Scarcely had she gone when Craig, stuffing the letters into his
pocket unread, seized his hat, and a moment later was striding
along toward the museum with his habitual rapid, abstracted step
which told me that he sensed a mystery.

In the museum we met Doctor Bernardo, a man slightly older than
Northrop, with whom he had been very intimate. He had just arrived
and was already deeply immersed in the study of some new and
beautiful colored plates from the National Museum of Mexico City.

"Do you remember seeing Northrop here yesterday afternoon?"
greeted Craig, without explaining what had happened.

"Yes," he answered promptly. "I was here with him until very late.
At least, he was in his own room, working hard, when I left."

"Did you see him go?"

"Why--er--no," replied Bernardo, as if that were a new idea. "I
left him here--at least, I didn't see him go out."

Kennedy tried the door of Northrop's room, which was at the far
end, in a corner, and communicated with the hall only through the
main floor of the museum. It was locked. A pass-key from the
janitor quickly opened it.

Such a sight as greeted us, I shall never forget. There, in his
big desk-chair, sat Northrop, absolutely rigid, the most horribly
contorted look on his features that I have ever seen--half of
pain, half of fear, as if of something nameless.

Kennedy bent over. His hands were cold.

Northrop had been dead at least twelve hours, perhaps longer. All
night the deserted museum had guarded its terrible secret.

As Craig peered into his face, he saw, in the fleshy part of the
neck, just below the left ear, a round red mark, with just a drop
or two of now black coagulated blood in the center. All around we
could see a vast amount of miscellaneous stuff, partly unpacked,
partly just opened, and waiting to be taken out of the wrappings
by the now motionless hands.

"I suppose you are more or less familiar with what Northrop
brought back?" asked Kennedy of Bernardo, running his eye over the
material in the room.

"Yes, reasonably," answered Bernardo. "Before the cases arrived
from the wharf, he told me in detail what he had managed to bring
up with him."

"I wish, then, that you would look it over and see if there is
anything missing," requested Craig, already himself busy in going
over the room for other evidence.

Doctor Bernardo hastily began taking a mental inventory of the
stuff. While they worked, I tried vainly to frame some theory
which would explain the startling facts we had so suddenly
discovered.

Mitla, I knew, was south of the city of Oaxaca, and there, in its
ruined palaces, was the crowning achievement of the old Zapotec
kings. No ruins in America were more elaborately ornamented or
richer in lore for the archeologist.

Northrop had brought up porphyry blocks with quaint grecques and
much hieroglyphic painting. Already unpacked were half a dozen
copper axes, some of the first of that particular style that had
ever been brought to the United States. Besides the sculptured
stones and the mosaics were jugs, cups, vases, little gods,
sacrificial stones--enough, almost, to equip a new alcove in the
museum.

Before Northrop was an idol, a hideous thing on which frogs and
snakes squatted and coiled. It was a fitting piece to accompany
the gruesome occupant of the little room in his long, last vigil.
In fact, it almost sent a shudder over me, and if I had been
inclined to the superstitious, I should certainly have concluded
that this was retribution for having disturbed the lares and
penates of a dead race.

Doctor Bernardo was going over the material a second time. By the
look on his face, even I could guess that something was missing.

"What is it?" asked Craig, following the curator closely.

"Why," he answered slowly, "there was an inscription--we were
looking at it earlier in the day--on a small block of porphyry. I
don't see it."

He paused and went back to his search before we could ask him
further what he thought the inscription was about.

I thought nothing myself at the time of his reticence, for Kennedy
had gone over to a window back of Northrop and to the left. It was
fully twenty feet from the downward slope of the campus there,
and, as he craned his neck out, he noted that the copper leader of
the rain pipe ran past it a few feet away.

I, too, looked out. A thick group of trees hid the window from the
avenue beyond the campus wall, and below us, at a corner of the
building, was a clump of rhododendrons. As Craig bent over the
sill, he whipped out a pocket lens.

A moment later he silently handed the glass to me. As nearly as I
could make out, there were five marks on the dust of the sill.

"Finger-prints!" I exclaimed. "Some one has been clinging to the
edge of the ledge."

"In that case," Craig observed quietly, "there would have been
only four prints."

I looked again, puzzled. The prints were flat and well separated.

"No," he added, "not finger-prints--toe-prints."

"Toe-prints?" I echoed.

Before he could reply, Craig had dashed out of the room, around,
and under the window. There, he was carefully going over the soft
earth around the bushes below.

"What are you looking for?" I asked, joining him.

"Some one--perhaps two--has been here," he remarked, almost under
his breath. "One, at least, has removed his shoes. See those shoe-
prints up to this point? The print of a boot-heel in soft earth
shows the position and contour of every nail head. Bertillon has
made a collection of such nails, certain types, sizes, and shapes
used in certain boots, showing often what country the shoes came
from. Even the number and pattern are significant. Some factories
use a fixed number of nails and arrange them in a particular
manner. I have made my own collection of such prints in this
country. These were American shoes. Perhaps the clue will not lead
us anywhere, though, for I doubt whether it was an American foot."

Kennedy continued to study the marks.

"He removed his shoes--either to help in climbing or to prevent
noise--ah--here's the foot! Strange--see how small it is--and
broad, how prehensile the toes--almost like fingers. Surely that
foot could never have been encased in American shoes all its life.
I shall make plaster casts of these, to preserve later."

He was still scouting about on hands and knees in the dampness of
the rhododendrons. Suddenly he reached his long arm in among the
shrubs and picked up a little reed stick. On the end of it was a
small cylinder of buff brown.

He looked at it curiously, dug his nail into the soft mass, then
rubbed his nail over the tip of his tongue gingerly.

With a wry face, as if the taste were extremely acrid, he
moistened his handkerchief and wiped off his tongue vigorously.

"Even that minute particle that was on my nail makes my tongue
tingle and feel numb," he remarked, still rubbing. "Let us go back
again. I want to see Bernardo."

"Had he any visitors during the day?" queried Kennedy, as he
reentered the ghastly little room, while the curator stood
outside, completely unnerved by the tragedy which had been so
close to him without his apparently knowing it. Kennedy was
squeezing out from the little wound on Northrop's neck a few drops
of liquid on a sterilized piece of glass.

"No; no one," Bernardo answered, after a moment.

"Did you see anyone in the museum who looked suspicious?" asked
Kennedy, watching Bernardo's face keenly.

"No," he hesitated. "There were several people wandering about
among the exhibits, of course. One, I recall, late in the
afternoon, was a little dark-skinned woman, rather good-looking."

"A Mexican?"

"Yes, I should say so. Not of Spanish descent, though. She was
rather of the Indian type. She seemed to be much interested in the
various exhibits, asked me several questions, very intelligently,
too. Really, I thought she was trying to--er--flirt with me."

He shot a glance at Craig, half of confession, half of
embarrassment.

"And--oh, yes--there was another--a man, a little man, as I
recall, with shaggy hair. He looked like a Russian to me. I
remember, because he came to the door, peered around hastily, and
went away. I thought he might have got into the wrong part of the
building and went to direct him right--but before I could get out
into the hall, he was gone. I remember, too, that, as I turned,
the woman had followed me and soon was asking other questions--
which, I will admit--I was glad to answer."

"Was Northrop in his room while these people were here?"

"Yes; he had locked the door so that none of the students or
visitors could disturb him."

"Evidently the woman was diverting your attention while the man
entered Northrop's room by the window," ruminated Craig, as we
stood for a moment in the outside doorway.

He had already telephoned to our old friend Doctor Leslie, the
coroner, to take charge of the case, and now was ready to leave.
The news had spread, and the janitor of the building was waiting
to lock the campus door to keep back the crowd of students and
others.

Our next duty was the painful one of breaking the news to Mrs.
Northrop. I shall pass it over. Perhaps no one could have done it
more gently than Kennedy. She did not cry. She was simply dazed.
Fortunately her mother was with her, had been, in fact, ever since
Northrop had gone on the expedition.

"Why should anyone want to steal tablets of old Mixtec
inscriptions?" I asked thoughtfully, as we walked sadly over the
campus in the direction of the chemistry building. "Have they a
sufficient value, even on appreciative Fifth Avenue, to warrant
murder?"

"Well," he remarked, "it does seem incomprehensible. Yet people do
just such things. The psychologists tell us that there is a
veritable mania for possessing such curios. However, it is
possible that there may be some deeper significance in this case,"
he added, his face puckered in thought.

Who was the mysterious Mexican woman, who the shaggy Russian? I
asked myself. Clearly, at least, if she existed at all, she was
one of the millions not of Spanish but of Indian descent in the
country south of us. As I reasoned it out, it seemed to me as if
she must have been an accomplice. She could not have got into
Northrop's room either before or after Doctor Bernardo left. Then,
too, the toe-and shoe-prints were not hers. But, I figured, she
certainly had a part in the plot.

While I was engaged in the vain effort to unravel the tragic
affair by pure reason, Kennedy was at work with practical science.

He began by examining the little dark cylinder on the end of the
reed. On a piece of the stuff, broken off, he poured a dark liquid
from a brown-glass bottle. Then he placed it under a microscope.

"Microscopically," he said slowly, "it consists almost wholly of
minute, clear granules which give a blue reaction with iodine.
They are starch. Mixed with them are some larger starch granules,
a few plant cells, fibrous matter, and other foreign particles.
And then, there is the substance that gives that acrid, numbing
taste." He appeared to be vacantly studying the floor.

"What do you think it is?" I asked, unable to restrain myself.

"Aconite," he answered slowly, "of which the active principle is
the deadly poisonous alkaloid, aconitin."

He walked over and pulled down a well-thumbed standard work on
toxicology, turned the pages, then began to read aloud:

Pure aconitin is probably the most actively poisonous substance
with which we are acquainted and, if administered hypodermically,
the alkaloid is even more powerfully poisonous than when taken by
the mouth.

As in the case of most of the poisonous alkaloids, aconitin does
not produce any decidedly characteristic post-mortem appearances.
There is no way to distinguish it from other alkaloids, in fact,
no reliable chemical test. The physiological effects before death
are all that can be relied on.

Owing to its exceeding toxic nature, the smallness of the dose
required to produce death, and the lack of tests for recognition,
aconitin possesses rather more interest in legal medicine than
most other poisons.

It is one of the few substances which, in the present state of
toxicology, might be criminally administered and leave no positive
evidence of the crime. If a small but fatal dose of the poison
were to be given, especially if it were administered
hypodermically, the chances of its detection in the body after
death would be practically none.




CHAPTER XI

THE "PILLAR OF DEATH"


I was looking at him fixedly as the diabolical nature of what must
have happened sank into my mind. Here was a poison that defied
detection. I could see by the look on Craig's face that that
problem, alone, was enough to absorb his attention. He seemed
fully to realize that we had to deal with a criminal so clever
that he might never be brought to justice.

An idea flashed over me.

"How about the letters?" I suggested.

"Good, Walter!" he exclaimed.

He untied the package which Mrs. Northrop had given him and
glanced quickly over one after another of the letters.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, fairly devouring one dated at Mitla. "Listen--
it tells about Northrop's work and goes on:

"'I have been much interested in a cavern, or subterraneo, here,
in the shape of a cross, each arm of which extends for some twelve
feet underground. In the center it is guarded by a block of stone
popularly called "the Pillar of Death." There is a superstition
that whoever embraces it will die before the sun goes down.

"'From the subterraneo is said to lead a long, underground passage
across the court to another subterranean chamber which is full of
Mixtec treasure. Treasure hunters have dug all around it, and it
is said that two old Indians, only, know of the immense amount of
buried gold and silver, but that they will not reveal it.'"

I started up. Here was the missing link which I had been waiting
for.

"There, at least, is the motive," I blurted out. "That is why
Bernardo was so reticent. Northrop, in his innocence of heart, had
showed him that inscription."

Kennedy said nothing as he finally tied up the little packet of
letters and locked it in his safe. He was not given to hasty
generalizations; neither was he one who clung doggedly to a
preconceived theory.

It was still early in the afternoon. Craig and I decided to drop
into the museum again in order to see Doctor Bernardo. He was not
there and we sat down to wait.

Just then the letter box in the door clicked. It was the postman
on his rounds. Kennedy walked over and picked up the letter.

The postmark bore the words, "Mexico City," and a date somewhat
later than that on which Northrop had left Vera Cruz. In the lower
corner, underscored, were the words, "Personal--Urgent."

"I'd like to know what is in that," remarked Craig, turning it
over and over.

He appeared to be considering something, for he rose suddenly and
shoved the letter into his pocket.

I followed, and a few moments later, across the campus in his
laboratory, he was working quickly over an X-ray apparatus. He had
placed the letter in it.

"These are what are known as 'low' tubes," he explained. "They
give out 'soft rays.'" He continued to work for a few moments,
then handed me the letter.

"Now, Walter," he said, "if you will just hurry back to the museum
and replace that letter, I think I will have something that will
astonish you--though whether it will have any bearing on the case,
remains to be seen."

"What is it?" I asked, a few minutes later, when I had rejoined
him, after returning the letter. He was poring intently over what
looked like a negative.

"The possibility of reading the contents of documents inclosed in
a sealed envelope," he replied, still studying the shadowgraph
closely, "has already been established by the well-known English
scientist, Doctor Hall Edwards. He has been experimenting with the
method of using X-rays recently discovered by a German scientist,
by which radiographs of very thin substances, such as a sheet of
paper, a leaf, an insect's body, may be obtained. These thin
substances through which the rays used formerly to pass without
leaving an impression, can now be radiographed."

I looked carefully as he traced out something on the negative. On
it was easily possible, following his guidance, to read the words
inscribed on the sheet of paper inside. So admirably defined were
all the details that even the gum on the envelope and the edges of
the sheet of paper inside the envelope could be distinguished.

"Any letter written with ink having a mineral basis can be
radiographed," added Craig. "Even when the sheet is folded in the
usual way, it is possible by taking a radiograph stereoscopically,
to distinguish the writing, every detail standing out in relief.
Besides, it can be greatly magnified, which aids in deciphering it
if it is indistinct or jumbled up. Some of it looks like mirror
writing. Ah," he added, "here's something interesting!"

Together we managed to trace out the contents of several
paragraphs, of which the significant parts were as follows:

 I am expecting that my friend Senora Herreria will be in New York
by the time you receive this, and should she call on you, I know
you will accord her every courtesy. She has been in Mexico City
for a few days, having just returned from Mitla, where she met
Professor Northrop. It is rumored that Professor Northrop has
succeeded in smuggling out of the country a very important stone
bearing an inscription which, I understand, is of more than
ordinary interest. I do not know anything definite about it, as
Senora Herreria is very reticent on the matter, but depend on you
to find out if possible and let me know of it.

According to the rumors and the statements of the senora, it seems
that Northrop has taken an unfair advantage of the situation down
in Oaxaca, and I suppose she and others who know about the
inscription feel that it is really the possession of the
government.

You will find that the senora is an accomplished antiquarian and
scholar. Like many others down here just now, she has a high
regard for the Japanese. As you know, there exists a natural
sympathy between some Mexicans and Japanese, owing to what is
believed to be a common origin of the two races.

In spite of the assertions of many to the contrary, there is
little doubt left in the minds of students that the Indian races
which have peopled Mexico were of Mongolian stock. Many words in
some dialects are easily understood by Chinese immigrants. A
secretary of the Japanese legation here was able recently to
decipher old Mixtec inscriptions found in the ruins of Mitla.

Senora Herreria has been much interested in establishing the
relationship and, I understand, is acquainted with a Japanese
curio dealer in New York who recently visited Mexico for the same
purpose. I believe that she wishes to collaborate with him on a
monograph on the subject, which is expected to have a powerful
effect on the public opinion both here and at Tokyo.

In regard to the inscription which Northrop has taken with him, I
rely on you to keep me informed. There seems to be a great deal of
mystery connected with it, and I am simply hazarding a guess as to
its nature. If it should prove to be something which might
interest either the Japanese or ourselves, you can see how
important it may be, especially in view of the forthcoming mission
of General Francisco to Tokyo.

Very sincerely yours,

DR. EMILIO SANCHEZ, Director.

"Bernardo is a Mexican," I exclaimed, as Kennedy finished reading,
"and there can be no doubt that the woman he mentioned was this
Senora Herreria."

Kennedy said nothing, but seemed to be weighing the various
paragraphs in the letter.

"Still," I observed, "so far, the only one against whom we have
any direct suspicion in the case is the shaggy Russian, whoever he
is."

"A man whom Bernardo says looked like a Russian," corrected Craig.

He was pacing the laboratory restlessly.

"This is becoming quite an international affair," he remarked
finally, pausing before me, his hat on. "Would you like to relax
your mind by a little excursion among the curio shops of the city?
I know something about Japanese curios--more, perhaps, than I do
of Mexican. It may amuse us, even if it doesn't help in solving
the mystery. Meanwhile, I shall make arrangements for shadowing
Bernardo. I want to know just how he acts after he reads that
letter."

He paused long enough to telephone his instructions to an uptown
detective agency which could be depended on for such mere routine
work, then joined me with the significant remark: "Blood is
thicker than water, anyhow, Walter. Still, even if the Mexicans
are influenced by sentiment, I hardly think that would account for
the interest of our friends from across the water in the matter."

I do not know how many of the large and small curio shops of the
city we visited that afternoon. At another time, I should have
enjoyed the visits immensely, for anyone seeking articles of
beauty will find the antique shops of Fifth and Fourth Avenues and
the side streets well worth visiting.

We came, at length, to one, a small, quaint, dusty rookery, down
in a basement, entered almost directly from the street. It bore
over the door a little gilt sign which read simply, "Sato's."

As we entered, I could not help being impressed by the wealth of
articles in beautiful cloisonne enamel, in mother-of-pearl,
lacquer, and champleve. There were beautiful little koros, or
incense burners, vases, and teapots. There were enamels incrusted,
translucent, and painted, works of the famous Namikawa, of Kyoto,
and Namikawa, of Tokyo. Satsuma vases, splendid and rare examples
of the potter's art, crowded gorgeously embroidered screens
depicting all sorts of brilliant scenes, among others the sacred
Fujiyama rising in the stately distance. Sato himself greeted us
with a ready smile and bow.

"I am just looking for a few things to add to my den," explained
Kennedy, adding, "nothing in particular, but merely whatever
happens to strike my fancy."

"Surely, then, you have come to the right shop," greeted Sato. "If
there is anything that interests you, I shall be glad to show it."

"Thank you," replied Craig. "Don't let me trouble you with your
other customers. I will call on you if I see anything."

For several minutes, Craig and I busied ourselves looking about,
and we did not have to feign interest, either.

"Often things are not as represented," he whispered to me, after a
while, "but a connoiseur can tell spurious goods. These are the
real thing, mostly."

"Not one in fifty can tell the difference," put in the voice of
Sato, at his elbow.

"Well, you see I happen to know," Craig replied, not the least
disconcerted. "You can't always be too sure."

A laugh and a shrug was Sato's answer. "It's well all are not so
keen," he said, with a frank acknowledgment that he was not above
sharp practices.

I glanced now and then at the expressionless face of the curio
dealer. Was it merely the natural blankness of his countenance
that impressed me, or was there, in fact, something deep and dark
hidden in it, something of "East is East and West is West" which I
did not and could not understand? Craig was admiring the bronzes.
He had paused before one, a square metal fire-screen of odd
design, with the title on a card, "Japan Gazing at the World."

It represented Japan as an eagle, with beak and talons of
burnished gold, resting on a rocky island about which great waves
dashed. The bird had an air of dignity and conscious pride in its
strength, as it looked out at the world, a globe revolving in
space.

"Do you suppose there is anything significant in that?" I asked,
pointing to the continent of North America, also in gold and
prominently in view.

"Ah, honorable sir," answered Sato, before Kennedy could reply,
"the artist intended by that to indicate Japan's friendliness for
America and America's greatness."

He was inscrutable. It seemed as if he were watching our every
move, and yet it was done with a polite cordiality that could not
give offense.

Behind some bronzes of the Japanese Hercules destroying the demons
and other mythical heroes was a large alcove, or tokonoma,
decorated with peacock, stork, and crane panels. Carvings and
lacquer added to the beauty of it. A miniature chrysanthemum
garden heightened the illusion. Carved hinoki wood framed the
panels, and the roof was supported by columns in the old Japanese
style, the whole being a compromise between the very simple and
quiet and the polychromatic. The dark woods, the lanterns, the
floor tiles of dark red, and the cushions of rich gold and yellow
were most alluring. It had the genuine fascination of the Orient.

"Will the gentlemen drink a little sake?" Sato asked politely.

Craig thanked him and said that we would.

"Otaka!" Sato called.

A peculiar, almost white-skinned attendant answered, and a moment
later produced four cups and poured out the rice brandy, taking
his own quietly, apart from us. I watched him drink, curiously. He
took the cup; then, with a long piece of carved wood, he dipped
into the sake, shaking a few drops on the floor to the four
quarters. Finally, with a deft sweep, he lifted his heavy mustache
with the piece of wood and drank off the draft almost without
taking breath.

He was a peculiar man of middle height, with a shock of dark,
tough, woolly hair, well formed and not bad-looking, with a robust
general physique, as if his ancestors had been meat eaters. His
forehead was narrow and sloped backward; the cheekbones were
prominent; nose hooked, broad and wide, with strong nostrils;
mouth large, with thick lips, and not very prominent chin. His
eyes were perhaps the most noticeable feature. They were dark
gray, almost like those of a European.

As Otaka withdrew with the empty cups, we rose to continue our
inspection of the wonders of the shop. There were ivories of all
descriptions. Here was a two-handled sword, with a very large
ivory handle, a weirdly carved scabbard, and wonderful steel
blade. By the expression of Craig's face, Sato knew that he had
made a sale.

Craig had been rummaging among some warlike instruments which
Sato, with the instincts of a true salesman, was now displaying,
and had picked up a bow. It was short, very strong, and made of
pine wood. He held it horizontally and twanged the string. I
looked up in time to catch a pleased expression on the face of
Otaka.

"Most people would have held it the other way," commented Sato.

Craig said nothing, but was examining an arrow, almost twenty
inches long and thick, made of cane, with a point of metal very
sharp but badly fastened. He fingered the deep blood groove in the
scooplike head of the arrow and looked at it carefully.

"I'll take that," he said, "only I wish it were one with the
regular reddish-brown lump in it."

"Oh, but, honorable sir," apologized Sato, "the Japanese law
prohibits that, now. There are few of those, and they are very
valuable."

"I suppose so," agreed Craig. "This will do, though. You have a
wonderful shop here, Sato. Some time, when I feel richer, I mean
to come in again. No, thank you, you need not send them; I'll
carry them."

We bowed ourselves out, promising to come again when Sato received
a new consignment from the Orient which he was expecting.

"That other Jap is a peculiar fellow," I observed, as we walked
along uptown again.

"He isn't a Jap," remarked Craig. "He is an Ainu, one of the
aborigines who have been driven northward into the island of
Yezo."

"An Ainu?" I repeated.

"Yes. Generally thought, now, to be a white race and nearer of kin
to Europeans than Asiatics. The Japanese have pushed them
northward and are now trying to civilize them. They are a dirty,
hairy race, but when they are brought under civilizing influences
they adapt themselves to their environment and make very good
servants. Still, they are on about the lowest scale of humanity."

"I thought Otaka was very mild," I commented.

"They are a most inoffensive and peaceable people usually," he
answered, "good-natured and amenable to authority. But they become
dangerous when driven to despair by cruel treatment. The Japanese
government is very considerate of them--but not all Japanese are."




CHAPTER XII

THE ARROW POISON


Far into the night Craig was engaged in some very delicate and
minute microscopic work in the laboratory.

We were about to leave when there was a gentle tap on the door.
Kennedy opened it and admitted a young man, the operative of the
detective agency who had been shadowing Bernardo. His report was
very brief, but, to me at least, significant. Bernardo, on his
return to the museum, had evidently read the letter, which had
agitated him very much, for a few moments later he hurriedly left
and went downtown to the Prince Henry Hotel. The operative had
casually edged up to the desk and overheard whom he asked for. It
was Senora Herreria. Once again, later in the evening, he had
asked for her, but she was still out.

It was quite early the next morning, when Kennedy had resumed his
careful microscopic work, that the telephone bell rang, and he
answered it mechanically. But a moment later a look of intense
surprise crossed his face.

"It was from Doctor Leslie," he announced, hanging up the receiver
quickly. "He has a most peculiar case which he wants me to see--a
woman."

Kennedy called a cab, and, at a furious pace, we dashed across the
city and down to the Metropolitan Hospital, where Doctor Leslie
was waiting. He met us eagerly and conducted us to a little room
where, lying motionless on a bed, was a woman.

She was a striking-looking woman, dark of hair and skin, and in
life she must have been sensuously attractive. But now her face
was drawn and contorted--with the same ghastly look that had been
on the face of Northrop.

"She died in a cab," explained Doctor Leslie, "before they could
get her to the hospital. At first they suspected the cab driver.
But he seems to have proved his innocence. He picked her up last
night on Fifth Avenue, reeling--thought she was intoxicated. And,
in fact, he seems to have been right. Our tests have shown a great
deal of alcohol present, but nothing like enough to have had such
a serious effect."

"She told nothing of herself?" asked Kennedy.

"No; she was pretty far gone when the cabby answered her signal.
All he could get out of her was a word that sounded like 'Curio-
curio.' He says she seemed to complain of something about her
mouth and head. Her face was drawn and shrunken; her hands were
cold and clammy, and then convulsions came on. He called an
ambulance, but she was past saving when it arrived. The numbness
seemed to have extended over all her body; swallowing was
impossible; there was entire loss of her voice as well as sight,
and death took place by syncope."

"Have you any clue to the cause of her death?" asked Craig.

"Well, it might have been some trouble with her heart, I suppose,"
remarked Doctor Leslie tentatively.

"Oh, she looks strong that way. No, hardly anything organic."

"Well, then I thought she looked like a Mexican," went on Doctor
Leslie. "It might be some new tropical disease. I confess I don't
know. The fact is," he added, lowering his voice, "I had my own
theory about it until a few moments ago. That was why I called
you."

"What do you mean?" asked Craig, evidently bent on testing his own
theory by the other's ignorance.

Doctor Leslie made no answer immediately, but raised the sheet
which covered her body and disclosed, in the fleshy part of the
upper arm, a curious little red swollen mark with a couple of
drops of darkened blood.

"I thought at first," he added, "that we had at last a genuine
'poisoned needle' case. You see, that looked like it. But I have
made all the tests for curare and strychnin without results."

At the mere suggestion, a procession of hypodermic-needle and
white-slavery stories flashed before me.

"But," objected Kennedy, "clearly this was not a case of
kidnaping. It is a case of murder. Have you tested for the
ordinary poisons?"

Doctor Leslie shook his head. "There was no poison," he said,
"absolutely none that any of our tests could discover."

Kennedy bent over and squeezed out a few drops of liquid from the
wound on a microscope slide, and covered them.

"You have not identified her yet," he added, looking up. "I think
you will find, Leslie, that there is a Senora Herreria registered
at the Prince Henry who is missing, and that this woman will agree
with the description of her. Anyhow, I wish you would look it up
and let me know."

Half an hour later, Kennedy was preparing to continue his studies
with the microscope when Doctor Bernardo entered. He seemed most
solicitous to know what progress was being made on the case, and,
although Kennedy did not tell much, still he did not discourage
conversation on the subject.

When we came in the night before, Craig had unwrapped and tossed
down the Japanese sword and the Ainu bow and arrow on a table, and
it was not long before they attracted Bernardo's attention.

"I see you are a collector yourself," he ventured, picking them
up.

"Yes," answered Craig, offhand; "I picked them up yesterday at
Sato's. You know the place?"

"Oh, yes, I know Sato," answered the curator, seemingly without
the slightest hesitation. "He has been in Mexico--is quite a
student."

"And the other man, Otaka?"

"Other man--Otaka? You mean his wife?"

I saw Kennedy check a motion of surprise and came to the rescue
with the natural question: "His wife--with a beard and mustache?"

It was Bernardo's turn to be surprised. He looked at me a moment,
then saw that I meant it, and suddenly his face lighted up.

"Oh," he exclaimed, "that must have been on account of the
immigration laws or something of the sort. Otaka is his wife. The
Ainus are much sought after by the Japanese as wives. The women,
you know, have a custom of tattooing mustaches on themselves. It
is hideous, but they think it is beautiful."

"I know," I pursued, watching Kennedy's interest in our
conversation, "but this was not tattooed."

"Well, then, it must have been false," insisted Bernardo.

The curator chatted a few moments, during which I expected Kennedy
to lead the conversation around to Senora Herreria. But he did
not, evidently fearing to show his hand.

"What did you make of it?" I asked, when he had gone. "Is he
trying to hide something?"

"I think he has simplified the case," remarked Craig, leaning
back, his hands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling. "Hello,
here's Leslie! What did you find, Doctor?" The coroner had entered
with a look of awe on his face, as if Kennedy had directed him by
some sort of necromancy.

"It was Senora Herreria!" he exclaimed. "She has been missing from
the hotel ever since late yesterday afternoon. What do you think
of it?"

"I think," replied Kennedy, speaking slowly and deliberately,
"that it is very much like the Northrop case. You haven't taken
that up yet?"

"Only superficially. What do you make of it?" asked the coroner.

"I had an idea that it might be aconitin poisoning," he said.

Leslie glanced at him keenly for a moment. "Then you'll never
prove anything in the laboratory," he said.

"There are more ways of catching a criminal, Leslie," put in
Craig, "than are set down in the medico-legal text-books. I shall
depend on you and Jameson to gather together a rather cosmopolitan
crowd here to-night."

He said it with a quiet confidence which I could not gainsay,
although I did not understand. However, mostly with the official
aid of Doctor Leslie, I followed out his instructions, and it was
indeed a strange party that assembled that night. There were
Doctor Bernardo; Sato, the curio dealer; Otaka, the Ainu, and
ourselves. Mrs. Northrop, of course, could not come.

"Mexico," began Craig, after he had said a few words explaining
why he had brought us together, "is full of historical treasure.
To all intents and purposes, the government says, 'Come and dig.'
But when there are finds, then the government swoops down on them
for its own national museum. The finder scarcely gets a chance to
export them. However, now seemed to be the time to Professor
Northrop to smuggle his finds out of the country.

"But evidently it could not be done without exciting all kinds of
rumors and suspicions. Stories seem to have spread far and fast
about what he had discovered. He realized the unsettled condition
of the country--perhaps wanted to confirm his reading of a certain
inscription by consultation with one scholar whom he thought he
could trust. At any rate, he came home."

Kennedy paused, making use of the silence for emphasis. "You have
all read of the wealth that Cortez found in Mexico. Where are the
gold and silver of the conquistadores? Gone to the melting pot,
centuries ago. But is there none left? The Indians believe so.
There are persons who would stop at nothing--even at murder of
American professors, murder of their own comrades, to get at the
secret."

He laid his hand almost lovingly on his powerful little microscope
as he resumed on another line of evidence.

"And while we are on the subject of murders, two very similar
deaths have occurred," he went on. "It is of no use to try to
gloss them over. Frankly, I suspected that they might have been
caused by aconite poisoning. But, in the case of such poisoning,
not only is the lethal dose very small but our chemical methods of
detection are nil. The dose of the active principle, aconitin
nitrate, is about one six-hundredth of a grain. There are no color
tests, no reactions, as in the case of the other organic poisons."

I wondered what he was driving at. Was there, indeed, no test? Had
the murderer used the safest of poisons--one that left no clue? I
looked covertly at Sato's face. It was impassive. Doctor Bernardo
was visibly uneasy as Kennedy proceeded. Cool enough up to the
time of the mention of the treasure, I fancied, now, that he was
growing more and more nervous.

Craig laid down on the table the reed stick with the little
darkened cylinder on the end.

"That," he said, "is a little article which I picked up beneath
Northrop's window yesterday. It is a piece of anno-noki, or
bushi." I fancied I saw just a glint of satisfaction in Otaka's
eyes.

"Like many barbarians," continued Craig, "the Ainus from time
immemorial have prepared virulent poisons with which they charged
their weapons of the chase and warfare. The formulas for the
preparations, as in the case of other arrow poisons of other
tribes, are known only to certain members, and the secret is
passed down from generation to generation as an heirloom, as it
were. But in this case it is no longer a secret. It has now been
proved that the active principle of this poison is aconite."

"If that is the case," broke in Doctor Leslie, "it is hopeless to
connect anyone directly in that way with these murders. There is
no test for aconitin."

I thought Sato's face was more composed and impassive than ever.
Doctor Bernardo, however, was plainly excited.

"What--no test--NONE?" asked Kennedy, leaning forward eagerly.
Then, as if he could restrain the answer to his own question no
longer, he shot out: "How about the new starch test just
discovered by Professor Reichert, of the University of
Pennsylvania? Doubtless you never dreamed that starch may be a
means of detecting the nature of a poison in obscure cases in
criminology, especially in cases where the quantity of poison
necessary to cause death is so minute that no trace of it can be
found in the blood.

"The starch method is a new and extremely inviting subject to me.
The peculiarities of the starch of any plant are quite as
distinctive of the plant as are those of the hemoglobin crystals
in the blood of an animal. I have analyzed the evidence of my
microscope in this case thoroughly. When the arrow poison is
introduced subcutaneously--say, by a person shooting a poisoned
dart, which he afterward removes in order to destroy the evidence-
-the lethal constituents are rapidly absorbed.

"But the starch remains in the wound. It can be recovered and
studied microscopically and can be definitely recognized. Doctor
Reichert has published a study of twelve hundred such starches
from all sorts of plants. In this case, it not only proves to be
aconitin but the starch granules themselves can be recognized.
They came from this piece of arrow poison."

Every eye was fixed on him now.

"Besides," he rapped out, "in the soft soil beneath the window of
Professor Northrop's room, I found footprints. I have only to
compare the impressions I took there and those of the people in
this room, to prove that, while the real murderer stood guard
below the window, he sent some one more nimble up the rain pipe to
shoot the poisoned dart at Professor Northrop, and, later, to let
down a rope by which he, the instigator, could gain the room,
remove the dart, and obtain the key to the treasure he sought."

Kennedy was looking straight at Professor Bernardo.

"A friend of mine in Mexico has written me about an inscription,"
he burst out. "I received the letter only to-day. As nearly as I
can gather, there was an impression that some of Northrop's stuff
would be valuable in proving the alleged kinship between Mexico
and Japan, perhaps to arouse hatred of the United States."

"Yes--that is all very well," insisted Kennedy. "But how about the
treasure?"

"Treasure?" repeated Bernardo, looking from one of us to another.

"Yes," pursued Craig relentlessly, "the treasure. You are an
expert in reading the hieroglyphics. By your own statement, you
and Northrop had been going over the stuff he had sent up. You
know it."

Bernardo gave a quick glance from Kennedy to me. Evidently he saw
that the secret was out.

"Yes," he said huskily, in a low tone, "Northrop and I were to
follow the directions after we had plotted them out and were to
share it together on the next expedition, which I could direct as
a Mexican without so much suspicion. I should still have shared it
with his widow if this unfortunate affair had not exposed the
secret."

Bernardo had risen earnestly.

"Kennedy," he cried, "before God, if you will get back that stone
and keep the secret from going further than this room, I will
prove what I have said by dividing the Mixtec treasure with Mrs.
Northrop and making her one of the richest widows in the country!"

"That is what I wanted to be sure of," nodded Craig. "Bernardo,
Senora Herreria, of whom your friend wrote to you from Mexico, has
been murdered in the same way that Professor Northrop was. Otaka
was sent by her husband to murder Northrop, in order that they
might obtain the so-called 'Pillar of Death' and the key to the
treasure. Then, when the senora was no doubt under the influence
of sake in the pretty little Oriental bower at the curio shop, a
quick jab, and Otaka had removed one who shared the secret with
them."

He had turned and faced the pair.

"Sato," he added, "you played on the patriotism of the senora
until you wormed from her the treasure secret. Evidently rumors of
it had spread from Mexican Indians to Japanese visitors. And then,
Otaka, all jealousy over one whom she, no doubt, justly considered
a rival, completed your work by sending her forth to die, unknown,
on the street. Walter, ring up First Deputy O'Connor. The stone is
hidden somewhere in the curio shop. We can find it without Sato's
help. The quicker such a criminal is lodged safely in jail, the
better for humanity."

Sato was on his feet, advancing cautiously toward Craig. I knew
the dangers, now, of anno-noki, as well as the wonders of jujutsu,
and, with a leap, I bounded past Bernardo and between Sato and
Kennedy.

How it happened, I don't know, but, an instant later, I was
sprawling.

Before I could recover myself, before even Craig had a chance to
pull the hair-trigger of his automatic, Sato had seized the Ainu
arrow poison from the table, had bitten the little cylinder in
half, and had crammed the other half into the mouth of Otaka.




CHAPTER XIII

THE RADIUM ROBBER


Kennedy simply reached for the telephone and called an ambulance.
But it was purely perfunctory. Dr. Leslie himself was the only
official who could handle Sato's case now.

We had planned a little vacation for ourselves, but the planning
came to naught. The next night we spent on a sleeper. That in
itself is work to me.

It all came about through a hurried message from Murray Denison,
president of the Federal Radium Corporation. Nothing would do but
that he should take both Kennedy and myself with him post-haste to
Pittsburgh at the first news of what had immediately been called
"the great radium robbery."

Of course the newspapers were full of it. The very novelty of an
ultra-modern cracksman going off with something worth upward of a
couple of hundred thousand dollars--and all contained in a few
platinum tubes which could be tucked away in a vest pocket--had
something about it powerfully appealing to the imagination.

"Most ingenious, but, you see, the trouble with that safe is that
it was built to keep radium IN--not cracksmen OUT," remarked
Kennedy, when Denison had rushed us from the train to take a look
at the little safe in the works of the Corporation.

"Breaking into such a safe as this," added Kennedy, after a
cursory examination, "is simple enough, after all."

It was, however, a remarkably ingenious contrivance, about three
feet in height and of a weight of perhaps a ton and a half, and
all to house something weighing only a few grains.

"But," Denison hastened to explain, "we had to protect the radium
not only against burglars, but, so to speak, against itself.
Radium emanations pass through steel and experiments have shown
that the best metal to contain them is lead. So, the difficulty
was solved by making a steel outer case enclosing an inside leaden
shell three inches thick."

Kennedy had been toying thoughtfully with the door.

"Then the door, too, had to be contrived so as to prevent any
escape of the emanations through joints. It is lathe turned and
circular, a 'dead fit.' By means of a special contrivance any
slight looseness caused by wear and tear of closing can be
adjusted. And another feature. That is the appliance for
preventing the loss of emanation when the door is opened. Two
valves have been inserted into the door and before it is opened
tubes with mercury are passed through which collect and store the
emanation."

"All very nice for the radium," remarked Craig cheerfully. "But
the fellow had only to use an electric drill and the gram or more
of radium was his."

"I know that--now," ruefully persisted Denison. "But the safe was
designed for us specially. The fellow got into it and got away, as
far as I can see, without leaving a clue."

"Except one, of course," interrupted Kennedy quickly.

Denison looked at him a moment keenly, then nodded and said, "Yes-
-you are right. You mean one which he must bear on himself?"

"Exactly. You can't carry a gram or more of radium bromide long
with impunity. The man to look for is one who in a few days will
have somewhere on his body a radium burn which will take months to
heal. The very thing he stole is a veritable Frankenstein's
monster bent on the destruction of the thief himself!"

Kennedy had meanwhile picked up one of the Corporation's circulars
lying on a desk. He ran his eye down the list of names.

"So, Hartley Haughton, the broker, is one of your stockholders,"
mused Kennedy.

"Not only one but THE one," replied Denison with obvious pride.

Haughton was a young man who had come recently into his fortune,
and, while no one believed it to be large, he had cut quite a
figure in Wall Street.

"You know, I suppose," added Denison, "that he is engaged to
Felicie Woods, the daughter of Mrs. Courtney Woods?"

Kennedy did not, but said nothing.

"A most delightful little girl," continued Denison thoughtfully.
"I have known Mrs. Woods for some time. She wanted to invest, but
I told her frankly that this is, after all, a speculation. We may
not be able to swing so big a proposition, but, if not, no one can
say we have taken a dollar of money from widows and orphans."

"I should like to see the works," nodded Kennedy approvingly.

"By all means."

The plant was a row of long low buildings of brick on the
outskirts of the city, once devoted to the making of vanadium
steel. The ore, as Denison explained, was brought to Pittsburgh
because he had found here already a factory which could readily be
turned into a plant for the extraction of radium. Huge baths and
vats and crucibles for the various acids and alkalis and other
processes used in treating the ore stood at various points.

"This must be like extracting gold from sea water," remarked
Kennedy jocosely, impressed by the size of the plant as compared
to the product.

"Except that after we get through we have something infinitely
more precious than gold," replied Denison, "something which
warrants the trouble and outlay. Yes, the fact is that the
percentage of radium in all such ores is even less than of gold in
sea water."

"Everything seems to be most carefully guarded," remarked Kennedy
as we concluded our tour of the well-appointed works.

He had gone over everything in silence, and now at last we had
returned to the safe.

"Yes," he repeated slowly, as if confirming his original
impression, "such an amount of radium as was stolen wouldn't
occasion immediate discomfort to the thief, I suppose, but later
no infernal machine could be more dangerous to him."

I pictured to myself the series of fearful works of mischief and
terror that might follow, a curse on the thief worse than that of
the weirdest curses of the Orient, the danger to the innocent, and
the fact that in the hands of a criminal it was an instrument for
committing crimes that might defy detection.

"There is nothing more to do here now," he concluded. "I can see
nothing for the present except to go back to New York. The
telltale burn may not be the only clue, but if the thief is going
to profit by his spoils we shall hear about it best in New York or
by cable from London, Paris, or some other European city."

Our hurried departure from New York had not given us a chance to
visit the offices of the Radium Corporation for the distribution
of the salts themselves. They were in a little old office building
on William Street, near the drug district and yet scarcely a
moment's walk from the financial district.

"Our head bookkeeper, Miss Wallace, is ill," remarked Denison when
we arrived at the office, "but if there is anything I can do to
help you, I shall be glad to do it. We depend on Miss Wallace a
great deal. Haughton says she is the brains of the office."

Kennedy looked about the well-appointed suite curiously.

"Is this another of those radium safes?" he asked, approaching one
similar in appearance to that which had been broken open already.

"Yes, only a little larger."

"How much is in it?"

"Most of our supply. I should say about two and a half grams. Miss
Wallace has the record."

"It is of the same construction, I presume," pursued Kennedy. "I
wonder whether the lead lining fits closely to the steel?"

"I think not," considered Denison. "As I remember there was a sort
of insulating air cushion or something of the sort."

Denison was quite eager to show us about. In fact ever since he
had hustled us out to view the scene of the robbery, his high
nervous tension had given us scarcely a moment's rest. For hours
he had talked radium, until I felt that he, like his metal, must
have an inexhaustible emanation of words. He was one of those
nervous, active little men, a born salesman, whether of ribbons or
radium.

"We have just gone into furnishing radium water," he went on,
bustling about and patting a little glass tank.

I looked closely and could see that the water glowed in the dark
with a peculiar phosphorescence.

"The apparatus for the treatment," he continued, "consists of two
glass and porcelain receptacles. Inside the larger receptacle is
placed the smaller, which contains a tiny quantity of radium. Into
the larger receptacle is poured about a gallon of filtered water.
The emanation from that little speck of radium is powerful enough
to penetrate its porcelain holder and charge the water with its
curative properties. From a tap at the bottom of the tank the
patient draws the number of glasses of water a day prescribed. For
such purposes the emanation within a day or two of being collected
is as good as radium itself. Why, this water is five thousand
times as radioactive as the most radioactive natural spring
water."

"You must have control of a comparatively large amount of the
metal," suggested Kennedy.

"We are, I believe, the largest holders of radium in the world,"
he answered. "I have estimated that all told there are not much
more than ten grams, of which Madame Curie has perhaps three,
while Sir Ernest Cassel of London is the holder of perhaps as
much. We have nearly four grams, leaving about six or seven for
the rest of the world."

Kennedy nodded and continued to look about.

"The Radium Corporation," went on Denison, "has several large
deposits of radioactive ore in Utah in what is known as the Poor
Little Rich Valley, a valley so named because from being about the
barrenest and most unproductive mineral or agricultural hole in
the hills, the sudden discovery of the radioactive deposits has
made it almost priceless."

He had entered a private office and was looking over some mail
that had been left on his desk during his absence.

"Look at this," he called, picking up a clipping from a newspaper
which had been laid there for his attention. "You see, we have
them aroused."

We read the clipping together hastily:

PLAN TO CORNER WORLD'S RADIUM

LONDON.--Plans are being matured to form a large corporation for
the monopoly of the existing and future supply of radium
throughout the world. The company is to be called Universal
Radium, Limited, and the capital of ten million dollars will be
offered for public subscription at par simultaneously in London,
Paris and New York.

The company's business will be to acquire mines and deposits of
radioactive substances as well as the control of patents and
processes connected with the production of radium. The outspoken
purpose of the new company is to obtain a world-wide monopoly and
maintain the price.

 "Ah--a competitor," commented Kennedy, handing back the clipping.

"Yes. You know radium salts used always to come from Europe. Now
we are getting ready to do some exporting ourselves. Say," he
added excitedly, "there's an idea, possibly, in that."

"How?" queried Craig.

"Why, since we should be the principal competitors to the foreign
mines, couldn't this robbery have been due to the machinations of
these schemers? To my mind, the United States, because of its
supply of radium-bearing ores, will have to be reckoned with first
in cornering the market. This is the point, Kennedy. Would those
people who seem to be trying to extend their new company all over
the world stop at anything in order to cripple us at the start?"

How much longer Denison would have rattled on in his effort to
explain the robbery, I do not know. The telephone rang and a
reporter from the Record, who had just read my own story in the
Star, asked for an interview. I knew that it would be only a
question of minutes now before the other men were wearing a path
out on the stairs, and we managed to get away before the onrush
began.

"Walter," said Kennedy, as soon as we had reached the street. "I
want to get in touch with Halsey Haughton. How can it be done?"

I could think of nothing better at that moment than to inquire at
the Star's Wall Street office, which happened to be around the
corner. I knew the men down there intimately, and a few minutes
later we were whisked up in the elevator to the office.

They were as glad to see me as I was to see them, for the story of
the robbery had interested the financial district perhaps more
than any other.

"Where can I find Halsey Haughton at this hour?" I asked.

"Say," exclaimed one of the men, "what's the matter? There have
been all kinds of rumors in the Street about him to-day. Did you
know he was ill?"

"No," I answered. "Where is he?"

"Out at the home of his fiancee, who is the daughter of Mrs.
Courtney Woods, at Glenclair."

"What's the matter?" I persisted.

"That's just it. No one seems to know. They say--well--they say he
has a cancer."

Halsey Haughton suffering from cancer? It was such an uncommon
thing to hear of a young man that I looked up quickly in surprise.
Then all at once it flashed over me that Denison and Kennedy had
discussed the matter of burns from the stolen radium. Might not
this be, instead of cancer, a radium burn?

Kennedy, who had been standing a little apart from me while I was
talking with the boys, signaled to me with a quick glance not to
say too much, and a few minutes later we were on the street again.

I knew without being told that he was bound by the next train to
the pretty little New Jersey suburb of Glenclair.

It was late when we arrived, yet Kennedy had no hesitation in
calling at the quaint home of Mrs. Courtney Woods on Woodridge
Avenue.

Mrs. Woods, a well-set-up woman of middle age, who had retained
her youth and good looks in a remarkable manner, met us in the
foyer. Briefly, Kennedy explained that we had just come in from
Pittsburgh with Mr. Denison and that it was very important that we
should see Haughton at once.

We had hardly told her the object of our visit when a young woman
of perhaps twenty-two or three, a very pretty girl, with all the
good looks of her mother and a freshness which only youth can
possess, tiptoed quietly downstairs. Her face told plainly that
she was deeply worried over the illness of her fiance.

"Who is it, mother?" she whispered from the turn in the stairs.
"Some gentlemen from the company? Hartley's door was open when the
bell rang, and he thought he heard something said about the
Pittsburgh affair."

Though she had whispered, it had not been for the purpose of
concealing anything from us, but rather that the keen ears of her
patient might not catch the words. She cast an inquiring glance at
us.

"Yes," responded Kennedy in answer to her look, modulating his
tone. "We have just left Mr. Denison at the office. Might we see
Mr. Haughton for a moment? I am sure that nothing we can say or do
will be as bad for him as our going away, now that he knows that
we are here."

The two women appeared to consult for a moment.

"Felicie," called a rather nervous voice from the second floor,
"is it some one from the company?"

"Just a moment, Hartley," she answered, then, lower to her mother,
added, "I don't think it can do any harm, do you, mother?"

"You remember the doctor's orders, my dear."

Again the voice called her.

"Hang the doctor's orders," the girl exclaimed, with an air of
almost masculinity. "It can't be half so bad as to have him worry.
Will you promise not to stay long? We expect Dr. Bryant in a few
moments, anyway."




CHAPTER XIV

THE SPINTHARISCOPE


We followed her upstairs and into Haughton's room, where he was
lying in bed, propped up by pillows. Haughton certainly was ill.
There was no mistake about that. He was a tall, gaunt man with an
air about him that showed that he found illness very irksome.
Around his neck was a bandage, and some adhesive tape at the back
showed that a plaster of some sort had been placed there.

As we entered his eyes traveled restlessly from the face of the
girl to our own in an inquiring manner. He stretched out a nervous
hand to us, while Kennedy in a few short sentences explained how
we had become associated with the case and what we had seen
already.

"And there is not a clue?" he repeated as Craig finished.

"Nothing tangible yet," reiterated Kennedy. "I suppose you have
heard of this rumor from London of a trust that is going into the
radium field internationally?"

"Yes," he answered, "that is the thing you read to me in the
morning papers, you remember, Felicie. Denison and I have heard
such rumors before. If it is a fight, then we shall give them a
fight. They can't hold us up, if Denison is right in thinking that
they are at the bottom of this--this robbery."

"Then you think he may be right?" shot out Kennedy quickly.

Haughton glanced nervously from Kennedy to me.

"Really," he answered, "you see how impossible it is for me to
have an opinion? You and Denison have been over the ground. You
know much more about it than I do. I am afraid I shall have to
defer to you."

Again we heard the bell downstairs, and a moment later a cheery
voice, as Mrs. Woods met some one down in the foyer, asked, "How
is the patient to-night?"

We could not catch the reply.

"Dr. Bryant, my physician," put in Haughton. "Don't go. I will
assume the responsibility for your being here. Hello, Doctor. Why,
I'm much the same to-night, thank you. At least no worse since I
took your advice and went to bed."

Dr. Bryant was a bluff, hearty man, with the personal magnetism
which goes with the making of a successful physician. He had
mounted the stairs quietly but rapidly, evidently prepared to see
us.

"Would you mind waiting in this little dressing room?" asked the
doctor, motioning to another, smaller room adjoining.

He had taken from his pocket a little instrument with a dial face
like a watch, which he attached to Haughton's wrist. "A pocket
instrument to measure blood pressure," whispered Craig, as we
entered the little room.

While the others were gathered about Haughton, we stood in the
next room, out of earshot. Kennedy had leaned his elbow on a
chiffonier. As he looked about the little room, more from force of
habit than because he thought he might discover anything,
Kennedy's eye rested on a glass tray on the top in which lay some
pins, a collar button or two, which Haughton had apparently just
taken off, and several other little unimportant articles.

Kennedy bent over to look at the glass tray more closely, a
puzzled look crossed his face, and with a glance at the other room
he gathered up the tray and its contents.

"Keep up a good courage," said Dr. Bryant. "You'll come out all
right, Haughton." Then as he left the bedroom he added to us,
"Gentlemen, I hope you will pardon me, but if you could postpone
the remainder of your visit until a later day, I am sure you will
find it more satisfactory."

There was an air of finality about the doctor, though nothing
unpleasant in it. We followed him down the stairs, and as we did
so, Felicie, who had been waiting in a reception room, appeared
before the portieres, her earnest eyes fixed on his kindly face.

"Dr. Bryant," she appealed, "is he--is he, really--so badly?"

The Doctor, who had apparently known her all her life, reached
down and took one of her hands, patting it with his own in a
fatherly way. "Don't worry, little girl," he encouraged. "We are
going to come out all right--all right."

She turned from him to us and, with a bright forced smile which
showed the stuff she was made of, bade us good night.

Outside, the Doctor, apparently regretting that he had virtually
forced us out, paused before his car. "Are you going down toward
the station? Yes? I am going that far. I should be glad to drive
you there."

Kennedy climbed into the front seat, leaving me in the rear where
the wind wafted me their brief conversation as we sped down
Woodbridge Avenue.

"What seems to be the trouble?" asked Craig.

"Very high blood pressure, for one thing," replied the Doctor
frankly.

"For which the latest thing is the radium water cure, I suppose?"
ventured Kennedy.

"Well, radioactive water is one cure for hardening of the
arteries. But I didn't say he had hardening of the arteries.
Still, he is taking the water, with good results. You are from the
company?"

Kennedy nodded.

"It was the radium water that first interested him in it. Why, we
found a pressure of 230 pounds, which is frightful, and we have
brought it down to 150, not far from normal."

"Still that could have nothing to do with the sore on his neck,"
hazarded Kennedy.

The Doctor looked at him quickly, then ahead at the path of light
which his motor shed on the road.

He said nothing, but I fancied that even he felt there was
something strange in his silence over the new complication. He did
not give Kennedy a chance to ask whether there were any other such
sores.

"At any rate," he said, as he throttled down his engine with a
flourish before the pretty little Glenclair station, "that girl
needn't worry."

There was evidently no use in trying to extract anything further
from him. He had said all that medical ethics or detective skill
could get from him. We thanked him and turned to the ticket window
to see how long we should have to wait.

"Either that doctor doesn't know what he is talking about or he is
concealing something," remarked Craig, as we paced up and down the
platform. "I am inclined to read the enigma in the latter way."

Nothing more passed between us during the journey back, and we
hurried directly to the laboratory, late as it was. Kennedy had
evidently been revolving something over and over in his mind, for
the moment he had switched on the light, he unlocked one of his
air-and dust-proof cabinets and took from it an instrument which
he placed on a table before him.

It was a peculiar-looking instrument, like a round glass electric
battery with a cylinder atop, smaller and sticking up like a
safety valve. On that were an arm, a dial, and a lens fixed in
such a way as to read the dial. I could not see what else the
rather complicated little apparatus consisted of, but inside, when
Kennedy brought near it the pole of a static electric machine two
delicate thin leaves of gold seemed to fly wide apart when it was
charged.

Kennedy had brought the glass tray near the thing. Instantly the
leaves collapsed and he made a reading through the lens.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A radioscope," he replied, still observing the scale. "Really a
very sensitive gold leaf electroscope, devised by one of the
students of Madame Curie. This method of detection is far more
sensitive even than the spectroscope."

"What does it mean when the leaves collapse?" I asked.

"Radium has been near that tray," he answered. "It is radioactive.
I suspected it first when I saw that violet color. That is what
radium does to that kind of glass. You see, if radium exists in a
gram of inactive matter only to the extent of one in ten-thousand
million parts its presence can be readily detected by this
radioscope, and everything that has been rendered radioactive is
the same. Ordinarily the air between the gold leaves is
insulating. Bringing something radioactive near them renders the
air a good conductor and the leaves fall under the radiation."

"Wonderful!" I exclaimed, marveling at the delicacy of it.

"Take radium water," he went on, "sufficiently impregnated with
radium emanations to be luminous in the dark, like that water of
Denison's. It would do the same. In fact all mineral waters and
the so-called curarive muds like fango are slightly radioactive.
There seems to be a little radium everywhere on earth that
experiments have been made, even in the interiors of buildings. It
is ubiquitous. We are surrounded and permeated by radiations--that
soil out there on the campus, the air of this room, all. But," he
added contemplatively, "there is something different about that
tray. A lot of radium has been near that, and recently."

"How about that bandage about Haughton's neck?" I asked suddenly.
"Do you think radium could have had anything to do with that?"
"Well, as to burns, there is no particular immediate effect
usually, and sometimes even up to two weeks or more, unless the
exposure has been long and to a considerable quantity. Of course
radium keeps itself three or four degrees warmer than other things
about it constantly. But that isn't what does the harm. It is
continually emitting little corpuscles, which I'll explain some
other time, traveling all the way from twenty to one hundred and
thirty thousand miles a second, and these corpuscles blister and
corrode the flesh like quick-moving missiles bombarding it. The
gravity of such lesions increases with the purity of the radium.
For instance I have known an exposure of half an hour to a
comparatively small quantity through a tube, a box and the clothes
to produce a blister fifteen days later. Curie said he wouldn't
trust himself in a room with a kilogram of it. It would destroy
his eyesight, burn off his skin and kill him eventually. Why, even
after a slight exposure your clothes are radioactive--the
electroscope will show that."

He was still fumbling with the glass plate and the various
articles on it.

"There's something very peculiar about all this," he muttered,
almost to himself.

Tired by the quick succession of events of the past two days, I
left Kennedy still experimenting in his laboratory and retired,
still wondering when the real clue was to develop. Who could it
have been who bore the tell-tale burn? Was the mark hidden by the
bandage about Haughton's neck the brand of the stolen tubes? Or
were there other marks on his body which we could not see?

No answer came to me, and I fell asleep and woke up without a
radiation of light on the subject. Kennedy spent the greater part
of the day still at work at his laboratory, performing some very
delicate experiments. Finding nothing to do there, I went down to
the Star office and spent my time reading the reports that came in
from the small army of reporters who had been assigned to run down
clues in the case which was the sensation of the moment. I have
always felt my own lips sealed in such cases, until the time came
that the story was complete and Kennedy released me from any
further need of silence. The weird and impossible stories which
came in not only to the Star but to the other papers surely did
make passable copy in this instance, but with my knowledge of the
case I could see that not one of them brought us a step nearer the
truth.

One thing which uniformly puzzled the newspapers was the illness
of Haughton and his enforced idleness at a time which was of so
much importance to the company which he had promoted and indeed
very largely financed. Then, of course, there was the romantic
side of his engagement to Felicie Woods.

Just what connection Felicie Woods had with the radium robbery if
any, I was myself unable quite to fathom. Still, that made no
difference to the papers. She was pretty and therefore they
published her picture, three columns deep, with Haughton and
Denison, who were intimately concerned with the real loss in
little ovals perhaps an inch across and two inches in the opposite
dimension.

The late afternoon news editions had gone to press, and I had
given up in despair, determined to go up to the laboratory and sit
around idly watching Kennedy with his mystifying experiments, in
preference to waiting for him to summon me.

I had scarcely arrived and settled myself to an impatient watch,
when an automobile drove up furiously, and Denison himself, very
excited, jumped out and dashed into the laboratory.

"What's the matter?" asked Kennedy, looking up from a test tube
which he had been examining, with an air for all the world
expressive of "Why so hot, little man?"

"I've had a threat," ejaculated Denison.

He laid on one of the laboratory tables a letter, without heading
and without signature, written in a disguised hand, with an
evident attempt to simulate the cramped script of a foreign
penmanship.

"I know who did the Pittsburgh job. The same party is out to ruin
Federal Radium. Remember Pittsburgh and be prepared!

"A STOCKHOLDER."

"Well?" demanded Kennedy, looking up.

"That can have only one meaning," asserted Denison.

"What is that?" inquired Kennedy coolly, as if to confirm his own
interpretation.

"Why, another robbery--here in New York, of course."

"But who would do it?" I asked.

"Who?" repeated Denison. "Some one representing that European
combine, of course. That is only part of the Trust method--ruin of
competitors whom they cannot absorb."

"Then you have refused to go into the combine? You know who is
backing it?"

"No--no," admitted Denison reluctantly. "We have only signified
our intent to go it alone, as often as anyone either with or
without authority has offered to buy us out. No, I do not even
know who the people are. They never act in the open. The only
hints I have ever received were through perfectly reputable
brokers acting for others."

"Does Haughton know of this note?" asked Kennedy.

"Yes. As soon as I received it, I called him up."

"What did he say?"

"He said to disregard it. But--you know what condition he is in. I
don't know what to do, whether to surround the office by a squad
of detectives or remove the radium to a regular safety deposit
vault, even at the loss of the emanation. Haughton has left it to
me."

Suddenly the thought flashed across my mind that perhaps Haughton
could act in this uninterested fashion because he had no fear of
ruin either way. Might he not be playing a game with the
combination in which he had protected himself so that he would
win, no matter what happened?

"What shall I do?" asked Denison. "It is getting late."

"Neither," decided Kennedy.

Denison shook his head. "No," he said, "I shall have some one
watch there, anyhow."




CHAPTER XV

THE ASPHYXIATING SAFE


Denison had scarcely gone to arrange for some one to watch the
office that night, when Kennedy, having gathered up his radioscope
and packed into a parcel a few other things from various cabinets,
announced: "Walter, I must see that Miss Wallace, right away.
Denison has already given me her address. Call a cab while I
finish clearing up here. I don't like the looks of this thing,
even if Haughton does neglect it."

We found Miss Wallace at a modest boarding-house in an old but
still respectable part of the city. She was a very pretty girl, of
the slender type, rather a business woman than one given much to
amusement. She had been ill and was still ill. That was evident
from the solicitous way in which the motherly landlady scrutinized
two strange callers.

Kennedy presented a card from Denison, and she came down to the
parlor to see us.

"Miss Wallace," began Kennedy, "I know it is almost cruel to
trouble you when you are not feeling like office work, but since
the robbery of the safe at Pittsburgh, there have been threats of
a robbery of the New York office."

She started involuntarily, and it was evident, I thought, that she
was in a very high-strung state.

"Oh," she cried, "why, the loss means ruin to Mr. Denison!"

There were genuine tears in her eyes as she said it.

"I thought you would be willing to aid us," pursued Kennedy
sympathetically. "Now, for one thing, I want to be perfectly sure
just how much radium the Corporation owns, or rather owned before
the first robbery."

"The books will show it," she said simply.

"They will?" commented Kennedy. "Then if you will explain to me
briefly just the system you used in keeping account of it, perhaps
I need not trouble you any more."

"I'll go down there with you," she answered bravely. "I'm better
to-day, anyhow, I think."

She had risen, but it was evident that she was not as strong as
she wanted us to think.

"The least I can do is to make it as easy as possible by going in
a car," remarked Kennedy, following her into the hall where there
was a telephone.

The hallway was perfectly dark, yet as she preceded us I could see
that the diamond pin which held her collar in the back sparkled as
if a lighted candle had been brought near it. I had noticed in the
parlor that she wore a handsome tortoiseshell comb set with what I
thought were other brilliants, but when I looked I saw now that
there was not the same sparkle to the comb which held her dark
hair in a soft mass. I noticed these little things at the time,
not because I thought they had any importance, but merely by
chance, wondering at the sparkle of the one diamond which had
caught my eye.

"What do you make of her?" I asked as Kennedy finished
telephoning.

"A very charming and capable girl," he answered noncommittally.

"Did you notice how that diamond in her neck sparkled?" I asked
quickly.

He nodded. Evidently it had attracted his attention, too.

"What makes it?" I pursued.

"Well, you know radium rays will make a diamond fluoresce in the
dark."

"Yes," I objected, "but how about those in the comb?"

"Paste, probably," he answered tersely, as we heard her foot on
the landing. "The rays won't affect paste."

It was indeed a shame to take advantage of Miss Wallace's loyalty
to Denison, but she was so game about it that I knew only the
utmost necessity on Kennedy's part would have prompted him to do
it. She had a key to the office so that it was not necessary to
wait for Denison, if indeed we could have found him.

Together she and Kennedy went over the records. It seemed that
there were in the safe twenty-five platinum tubes of one hundred
milligrams each, and that there had been twelve of the same amount
at Pittsburgh. Little as it seemed in weight it represented a
fabulous fortune.

"You have not the combination?" inquired Kennedy.

"No. Only Mr. Denison has that. What are you going to do to
protect the safe to-night?" she asked.

"Nothing especially," evaded Kennedy.

"Nothing?" she repeated in amazement.

"I have another plan," he said, watching her intently. "Miss
Wallace, it was too much to ask you to come down here. You are
ill."

She was indeed quite pale, as if the excitement had been an
overexertion.

"No, indeed," she persisted. Then, feeling her own weakness, she
moved toward the door of Denison's office where there was a
leather couch. "Let me rest here a moment. I do feel queer. I--"

She would have fallen if he had not sprung forward and caught her
as she sank to the floor, overcome by the exertion.

Together we carried her in to the couch, and as we did so the comb
from her hair clattered to the floor.

Craig threw open the window, and bathed her face with water until
there was a faint flutter of the eyelids.

"Walter," he said, as she began to revive, "I leave her to you.
Keep her quiet for a few moments. She has unintentionally given me
just the opportunity I want."

While she was yet hovering between consciousness and
unconsciousness on the couch, he had unwrapped the package which
he had brought with him. For a moment he held the comb which she
had dropped near the radioscope. With a low exclamation of
surprise he shoved it into his pocket.

Then from the package he drew a heavy piece of apparatus which
looked as if it might be the motor part of an electric fan, only
in place of the fan he fitted a long, slim, vicious-looking steel
bit. A flexible wire attached the thing to the electric light
circuit and I knew that it was an electric drill. With his coat
off he tugged at the little radium safe until he had moved it out,
then dropped on his knees behind it and switched the current on in
the electric drill.

It was a tedious process to drill through the steel of the outer
casing of the safe and it was getting late. I shut the door to the
office so that Miss Wallace could not see.

At last by the cessation of the low hum of the boring, I knew that
he had struck the inner lead lining. Quietly I opened the door and
stepped out. He was injecting something from an hermetically
sealed lead tube into the opening he had made and allowing it to
run between the two linings of lead and steel. Then using the tube
itself he sealed the opening he had made and dabbed a little black
over it.

Quickly he shoved the safe back, then around it concealed several
small coils with wires also concealed and leading out through a
window to a court.

"We'll catch the fellow this time," he remarked as he worked. "If
you ever have any idea, Walter, of going into the burglary
business, it would be well to ascertain if the safes have any of
these little selenium cells as suggested by my friend, Mr. Hammer,
the inventor. For by them an alarm can be given miles away the
moment an intruder's bull's-eye falls on a hidden cell sensitive
to light."

While I was delegated to take Miss Wallace home, Kennedy made
arrangements with a small shopkeeper on the ground floor of a
building that backed up on the court for the use of his back room
that night, and had already set up a bell actuated by a system of
relays which the weak current from the selenium cells could
operate.

It was not until nearly midnight that he was ready to leave the
laboratory again, where he had been busily engaged in studying the
tortoiseshell comb which Miss Wallace in her weakness had
forgotten.

The little shopkeeper let us in sleepily and Kennedy deposited a
large round package on a chair in the back of the shop, as well as
a long piece of rubber tubing. Nothing had happened so far.

As we waited the shopkeeper, now wide awake and not at all
unconvinced that we were bent on some criminal operation, hung
around. Kennedy did not seem to care. He drew from his pocket a
little shiny brass instrument in a lead case, which looked like an
abbreviated microscope.

"Look through it," he said, handing it to me.

I looked and could see thousands of minute sparks.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A spinthariscope. In that it is possible to watch the bombardment
of the countless little corpuscles thrown off by radium, as they
strike on the zinc blende crystal which forms the base. When
radium was originally discovered, the interest was merely in its
curious properties, its power to emit invisible rays which
penetrated solid substances and rendered things fluorescent, of
expending energy without apparent loss.

"Then came the discovery," he went on, "of its curative powers.
But the first results were not convincing. Still, now that we know
the reasons why radium may be dangerous and how to protect
ourselves against them we know we possess one of the most
wonderful of curative agencies."

I was thinking rather of the dangers than of the beneficence of
radium just now, but Kennedy continued.

"It has cured many malignant growths that seemed hopeless, brought
back destroyed cells, exercised good effects in diseases of the
liver and intestines and even the baffling diseases of the
arteries. The reason why harm, at first, as well as good came, is
now understood. Radium emits, as I told you before, three kinds of
rays, the alpha, beta, and gamma rays, each with different
properties. The emanation is another matter. It does not concern
us in this case, as you will see."

Fascinated as I was by the mystery of the case, I began to see
that he was gradually arriving at an explanation which had baffled
everyone else.

"Now, the alpha rays are the shortest," he launched forth, "in
length let us say one inch. They exert a very destructive effect
on healthy tissue. That is the cause of injury. They are stopped
by glass, aluminum and other metals, and are really particles
charged with positive electricity. The beta rays come next, say,
about an inch and a half. They stimulate cell growth. Therefore
they are dangerous in cancer, though good in other ways. They can
be stopped by lead, and are really particles charged with negative
electricity. The gamma rays are the longest, perhaps three inches
long, and it is these rays which effect cures, for they check the
abnormal and stimulate the normal cells. They penetrate lead. Lead
seems to filter them out from the other rays. And at three inches
the other rays don't reach, anyhow. The gamma rays are not charged
with electricity at all, apparently."

He had brought a little magnet near the spinthariscope. I looked
into it.

"A magnet," he explained, "shows the difference between the alpha,
beta, and gamma rays. You see those weak and wobbly rays that seem
to fall to one side? Those are the alpha rays. They have a strong
action, though, on tissues and cells. Those falling in the other
direction are the beta rays. The gamma rays seem to flow
straight."

"Then it is the alpha rays with which we are concerned mostly
now?" I queried, looking up.

"Exactly. That is why, when radium is unprotected or
insufficiently protected and comes too near, it is destructive of
healthy cells, produces burns, sores, which are most difficult to
heal. It is with the explanation of such sores that we must deal."

It was growing late. We had waited patiently now for some time.
Kennedy had evidently reserved this explanation, knowing we should
have to wait. Still nothing happened.

Added to the mystery of the violet-colored glass plate was now
that of the luminescent diamond. I was about to ask Kennedy point-
blank what he thought of them, when suddenly the little bell
before us began to buzz feebly under the influence of a current.

I gave a start. The faithful little selenium cell burglar alarm
had done the trick. I knew that selenium was a good conductor of
electricity in the light, poor in the dark. Some one had,
therefore, flashed a light on one of the cells in the Corporation
office. It was the moment for which Kennedy had prepared.

Seizing the round package and the tubing, he dashed out on the
street and around the corner. He tried the door opening into the
Radium Corporation hallway. It was closed, but unlocked. As it
yielded and we stumbled in, up the old worn wooden stairs of the
building, I knew that there must be some one there.

A terrific, penetrating, almost stunning odor seemed to permeate
the air even in the hall.

Kennedy paused at the door of the office, tried it, found it
unlocked, but did not open it.

"That smell is ethyldichloracetate," he explained. "That was what
I injected into the air cushion of that safe between the two
linings. I suppose my man here used an electric drill. He might
have used thermit or an oxyacetylene blowpipe for all I would
care. These fumes would discourage a cracksman from 'soup' to
nuts," he laughed, thoroughly pleased at the protection modern
science had enabled him to devise.

As we stood an instant by the door, I realized what had happened.
We had captured our man. He was asphyxiated!

Yet how were we to get to him? Would Craig leave him in there,
perhaps to die? To go in ourselves meant to share his fate,
whatever might be the effect of the drug.

Kennedy had torn the wrapping off the package. From it he drew a
huge globe with bulging windows of glass in the front and several
curious arrangements on it at other points. To it he fitted the
rubber tubing and a little pump. Then he placed the globe over his
head, like a diver's helmet, and fastened some air-tight rubber
arrangement about his neck and shoulders.

"Pump, Walter I" he shouted. "This is an oxygen helmet such as is
used in entering mines filled with deadly gases."

Without another word he was gone into the blackness of the noxious
stifle which filled the Radium Corporation office since the
cracksman had struck the unexpected pocket of rapidly evaporating
stuff.

I pumped furiously.

Inside I could hear him blundering around. What was he doing?

He was coming back slowly. Was he, too, overcome?

As he emerged into the darkness of the hallway where I myself was
almost sickened, I saw that he was dragging with him a limp form.

A rush of outside air from the street door seemed to clear things
a little. Kennedy tore off the oxygen helmet and dropped down on
his knees beside the figure, working its arms in the most approved
manner of resuscitation.

"I think we can do it without calling on the pulmotor," he panted.
"Walter, the fumes have cleared away enough now in the outside
office. Open a window--and keep that street door open, too."

I did so, found the switch and turned on the lights.

It was Denison himself!

For many minutes Kennedy worked over him. I bent down, loosened
his collar and shirt, and looked eagerly at his chest for the
tell-tale marks of the radium which I felt sure must be there.
There was not even a discoloration.

Not a word was said, as Kennedy brought the stupefied little man
around.

Denison, pale, shaken, was leaning back now in a big office chair,
gasping and holding his head.

Kennedy, before him, reached down into his pocket and handed him
the spinthariscope.

"You see that?" he demanded.

Denison looked through the eyepiece.

"Wh--where did you get so much of it?" he asked, a queer look on
his face.

"I got that bit of radium from the base of the collar button of
Hartley Haughton," replied Kennedy quietly, "a collar button which
some one intimate with him had substituted for his own, bringing
that deadly radium with only the minutest protection of a thin
strip of metal close to the back of his neck, near the spinal cord
and the medulla oblongata which controls blood pressure. That
collar button was worse than the poisoned rings of the Borgias.
And there is more radium in the pretty gift of a tortoiseshell
comb with its paste diamonds which Miss Wallace wore in her hair.
Only a fraction of an inch, not enough to cut off the deadly alpha
rays, protected the wearers of those articles."

He paused a moment, while surging through my mind came one after
another the explanations of the hitherto inexplicable. Denison
seemed almost to cringe in the chair, weak already from the fumes.

"Besides," went on Kennedy remorselessly, "when I went in there to
drag you out, I saw the safe open. I looked. There was nothing in
those pretty platinum tubes, as I suspected. European trust--bah!
All the cheap devices of a faker with a confederate in London to
send a cablegram--and another in New York to send a threatening
letter."

Kennedy extended an accusing forefinger at the man cowering before
him.

"This is nothing but a get-rich-quick scheme, Denison. There never
was a milligram of radium in the Poor Little Rich Valley, not a
milligram here in all the carefully kept reports of Miss Wallace--
except what was bought outside by the Corporation with the money
it collected from its dupes. Haughton has been fleeced. Miss
Wallace, blinded by her loyalty to you--you will always find such
a faithful girl in such schemes as yours--has been fooled.

"And how did you repay it? What was cleverer, you said to
yourself, than to seem to be robbed of what you never had, to
blame it on a bitter rival who never existed? Then to make
assurance doubly sure, you planned to disable, perhaps get rid of
the come-on whom you had trimmed, and the faithful girl whose eyes
you had blinded to your gigantic swindle.

"Denison," concluded Kennedy, as the man drew back, his very face
convicting him, "Denison, you are the radium robber--robber in
another sense!"




CHAPTER XVI

THE DEAD LINE


Maiden Lane, no less than Wall Street, was deeply interested in
the radium case. In fact, it seemed that one case in this section
of the city led to another.

Naturally, the Star and the other papers made much of the capture
of Denison. Still, I was not prepared for the host of Maiden Lane
cases that followed. Many of them were essentially trivial. But
one proved to be of extreme importance.

"Professor Kennedy, I have just heard of your radium case, and I--
I feel that I can--trust you."

There was a note of appeal in the hesitating voice of the tall,
heavily veiled woman whose card had been sent up to us with a
nervous "Urgent" written across its face.

It was very early in the morning, but our visitor was evidently
completely unnerved by some news which she had just received and
which had sent her posting to see Craig.

Kennedy met her gaze directly with a look that arrested her
involuntary effort to avoid it again. She must have read in his
eyes more than in his words that she might trust him.

"I--I have a confession to make," she faltered.

"Please sit down, Mrs. Moulton," he said simply. "It is my
business to receive confidences--and to keep them."

She sank into, rather than sat down in, the deep leather rocker
beside his desk, and now for the first time raised her veil.

Antoinette Moulton was indeed stunning, an exquisite creature with
a wonderful charm of slender youth, brightness of eye and brunette
radiance.

I knew that she had been on the musical comedy stage and had had a
rapid rise to a star part before her marriage to Lynn Moulton, the
wealthy lawyer, almost twice her age. I knew also that she had
given up the stage, apparently without a regret. Yet there was
something strange about the air of secrecy of her visit. Was there
a hint in it of a disagreement between the Moultons, I wondered,
as I waited while Kennedy reassured her.

Her distress was so unconcealed that Craig, for the moment, laid
aside his ordinary inquisitorial manner. "Tell me just as much or
just as little as you choose, Mrs. Moulton," he added tactfully.
"I will do my best."

A look almost of gratitude crossed her face.

"When we were married," she began again, "my husband gave me a
beautiful diamond necklace. Oh, it must have been worth a hundred
thousand dollars easily. It was splendid. Everyone has heard of
it. You know, Lynn--er--Mr. Moulton, has always been an
enthusiastic collector of jewels."

She paused again and Kennedy nodded reassuringly. I knew the
thought in his mind. Moulton had collected one gem that was
incomparable with all the hundred thousand dollar necklaces in
existence.

"Several months ago." she went on rapidly, still avoiding his eyes
and forcing the words from her reluctant lips, "I--oh, I needed
money--terribly."

She had risen and faced him, pressing her daintily gloved hands
together in a little tremble of emotion which was none the less
genuine because she had studied the art of emotion.

"I took the necklace to a jeweler, Herman Schloss, of Maiden Lane,
a man with whom my husband had often had dealings and whom I
thought I could trust. Under a promise of secrecy he loaned me
fifty thousand dollars on it and had an exact replica in paste
made by one of his best workmen. This morning, just now, Mr.
Schloss telephoned me that his safe had been robbed last night. My
necklace is gone!"

She threw out her hands in a wildly appealing gesture.

"And if Lynn finds that the necklace in our wall safe is of paste-
-as he will find, for he is an expert in diamonds--oh--what shall
I do? Can't you--can't you find my necklace?"

Kennedy was following her now eagerly. "You were blackmailed out
of the money?" he queried casually, masking his question.

There was a sudden, impulsive drooping of her mouth, an evasion
and keen wariness in her eyes. "I can't see that that has anything
to do with the robbery," she answered in a low voice.

"I beg your pardon," corrected Kennedy quickly. "Perhaps not. I'm
sorry. Force of habit, I suppose. You don't know anything more
about the robbery?"

"N--no, only that it seems impossible that it could have happened
in a place that has the wonderful burglar alarm protection that
Mr. Schloss described to me."

"You know him pretty well?"

"Only through this transaction," she replied hastily. "I wish to
heaven I had never heard of him."

The telephone rang insistently.

"Mrs. Moulton," said Kennedy, as he returned the receiver to the
hook, "it may interest you to know that the burglar alarm company
has just called me up about the same case. If I had need of an
added incentive, which I hope you will believe I have not, that
might furnish it. I will do my best," he repeated.

"Thank you--a thousand times," she cried fervently, and, had I
been Craig, I think I should have needed no more thanks than the
look she gave him as he accompanied her to the door of our
apartment.

It was still early and the eager crowds were pushing their way to
business through the narrow network of downtown streets as Kennedy
and I entered a large office on lower Broadway in the heart of the
jewelry trade and financial district.

"One of the most amazing robberies that has ever been attempted
has been reported to us this morning," announced James McLear,
manager of the Hale Electric Protection, adding with a look half
of anxiety, half of skepticism, "that is, if it is true."

McLear was a stocky man, of powerful build and voice and a general
appearance of having been once well connected with the city
detective force before an attractive offer had taken him into this
position of great responsibility.

"Herman Schloss, one of the best known of Maiden Lane jewelers,"
he continued, "has been robbed of goods worth two or three hundred
thousand dollars--and in spite of every modern protection. So that
you will get it clearly, let me show you what we do here."

He ushered us into a large room, on the walls of which were
hundreds of little indicators. From the front they looked like
rows of little square compartments, tier on tier, about the size
of ordinary post office boxes. Closer examination showed that each
was equipped with a delicate needle arranged to oscillate backward
and forward upon the very minutest interference with the electric
current. Under the boxes, each of which bore a number, was a
series of drops and buzzers numbered to correspond with the boxes.

"In nearly every office in Maiden Lane where gems and valuable
jewelry are stored," explained McLear, "this electrical system of
ours is installed. When the safes are closed at night and the
doors swung together, a current of electricity is constantly
shooting around the safes, conducted by cleverly concealed wires.
These wires are picked up by a cable system which finds its way to
this central office. Once here, the wires are safeguarded in such
manner that foreign currents from other wires or from lightning
cannot disturb the system."

We looked with intense interest at this huge electrical pulse that
felt every change over so vast and rich an area.

"Passing a big dividing board," he went on, "they are distributed
and connected each in its place to the delicate tangent
galvanometers and sensitive indicators you see in this room. These
instantly announce the most minute change in the working of the
current, and each office has a distinct separate metallic circuit.
Why, even a hole as small as a lead pencil in anything protected
would sound the alarm here."

Kennedy nodded appreciatively.

"You see," continued McLear, glad to be able to talk to one who
followed him so closely, "it is another evidence of science
finding for us greater security in the use of a tiny electric wire
than in massive walls of steel and intricate lock devices. But
here is a case in which, it seems, every known protection has
failed. We can't afford to pass that by. If we have fallen down we
want to know how, as well as to catch the burglar."

"How are the signals given?" I asked.

"Well, when the day's business is over, for instance, Schloss
would swing the heavy safe doors together and over them place the
doors of a wooden cabinet. That signals an alarm to us here. We
answer it and if the proper signal is returned, all right. After
that no one can tamper with the safe later in the night without
sounding an alarm that would bring a quick investigation."

"But suppose that it became necessary to open the safe before the
next morning. Might not some trusted employee return to the
office, open it, give the proper signals and loot the safe?"

"No indeed," he answered confidently. "The very moment anyone
touches the cabinet, the alarm is sounded. Even if the proper code
signal is returned, it is not sufficient. A couple of our trusted
men from the central office hustle around there anyhow and they
don't leave until they are satisfied that everything is right. We
have the authorized signatures on hand of those who are supposed
to open the safe and a duplicate of one of them must be given or
there is an arrest."

McLear considered for a moment.

"For instance, Schloss, like all the rest, was assigned a box in
which was deposited a sealed envelope containing a key to the
office and his own signature, in this case, since he alone knew
the combination. Now, when an alarm is sounded, as it was last
night, and the key removed to gain entrance to the office, a
record is made and the key has to be sealed up again by Schloss. A
report is also submitted showing when the signals are received and
anything else that is worth recording. Last night our men found
nothing wrong, apparently. But this morning we learn of the
robbery."

"The point is, then," ruminated Kennedy, "what happened in the
interval between the ringing of the alarm and the arrival of the
special officers? I think I'll drop around and look Schloss' place
over," he added quietly, evidently eager to begin at the actual
scene of the crime.

On the door of the office to which McLear took us was one of those
small blue plates which chance visitors to Maiden Lane must have
seen often. To the initiated--be he crook or jeweler--this simple
sign means that the merchant is a member of the Jewelers' Security
Alliance, enough in itself, it would seem, to make the boldest
burglar hesitate. For it is the motto of this organization to
"get" the thief at any cost and at any time. Still, it had not
deterred the burglar in this instance.

"I know people are going to think it is a fake burglary,"
exclaimed Schloss, a stout, prosperous-looking gem broker, as we
introduced ourselves. "But over two hundred thousands dollars'
worth of stones are gone," he half groaned. "Think of it, man," he
added, "one of the greatest robberies since the Dead Line was
established. And if they can get away with it, why, no one down
here is protected any more. Half a billion dollars in jewels in
Maiden Lane and John Street are easy prey for the cracksmen!"

Staggering though the loss must have been to him, he had
apparently recovered from the first shock of the discovery and had
begun the fight to get back what had been lost.

It was, as McLear had intimated, a most amazing burglary, too. The
door of Schloss' safe was open when Kennedy and I arrived and
found the excited jeweler nervously pacing the office. Surrounding
the safe, I noticed a wooden framework constructed in such a way
as to be a part of the decorative scheme of the office.

Schloss banged the heavy doors shut.

"There, that's just how it was--shut as tight as a drum. There was
absolutely no mark of anyone tampering with the combination lock.
And yet the safe was looted!"

"How did you discover it?" asked Craig. "I presume you carry
burglary insurance?"

Schloss looked up quickly. "That's what I expected as a first
question. No, I carried very little insurance. You see, I thought
the safe, one of those new chrome steel affairs, was about
impregnable. I never lost a moment's sleep over it; didn't think
it possible for anyone to get into it. For, as you see, it is
completely wired by the Hale Electric Protection--that wooden
framework about it. No one could touch that when it was set
without jangling a bell at the central office which would send men
scurrying here to protect the place."

"But they must have got past it," suggested Kennedy.

"Yes--they must have. At least this morning I received the regular
Hale report. It said that their wires registered last night as
though some one was tampering with the safe. But by the time they
got around, in less than five minutes, there was no one here,
nothing seemed to be disturbed. So they set it down to induction
or electrolysis, or something the matter with the wires. I got the
report the first thing when I arrived here with my assistant,
Muller."

Kennedy was on his knees, going over the safe with a fine brush
and some powder, looking now and then through a small magnifying
glass.

"Not a finger print," he muttered. "The cracksman must have worn
gloves. But how did he get in? There isn't a mark of 'soup' having
been used to blow it up, nor of a 'can-opener' to rip it open, if
that were possible, nor of an electric or any other kind of
drill."

"I've read of those fellows who burn their way in," said Schloss.

"But there is no hole," objected Kennedy, "not a trace of the use
of thermit to burn the way in or of the oxyacetylene blowpipe to
cut a piece out. Most extraordinary," he murmured.

"You see," shrugged Schloss, "everyone will say it must have been
opened by one who knew the combination. But I am the only one. I
have never written it down or told anyone, not even Muller. You
understand what I am up against?"

"There's the touch system," I suggested. "You remember, Craig, the
old fellow who used to file his finger tips to the quick until
they were so sensitive that he could actually feel when he had
turned the combination to the right plunger? Might not that
explain the lack of finger prints also?" I added eagerly.

"Nothing like that in this case, Walter," objected Craig
positively. "This fellow wore gloves, all right. No, this safe has
been opened and looted by no ordinarily known method. It's the
most amazing case I ever saw in that respect--almost as if we had
a cracksman in the fourth dimension to whom the inside of a closed
cube is as accessible as is the inside of a plane square to us
three dimensional creatures. It is almost incomprehensible."

I fancied I saw Schloss' face brighten as Kennedy took this view.
So far, evidently, he had run across only skepticism.

"The stones were unset?" resumed Craig.

"Mostly. Not all."

"You would recognize some of them if you saw them?"

"Yes indeed. Some could be changed only by re-cutting. Even some
of those that were set were of odd cut and size--some from a
diamond necklace which belonged to a--"

There was something peculiar in both his tone and manner as he cut
short the words.

"To whom?" asked Kennedy casually.

"Oh, once to a well-known woman in society," he said carefully.
"It is mine, though, now--at least it was mine. I should prefer to
mention no names. I will give a description of the stones."

"Mrs. Lynn Moulton, for instance?" suggested Craig quietly.

Schloss jumped almost as if a burglar alarm had sounded under his
very ears. "How did you know? Yes--but it was a secret. I made a
large loan on it, and the time has expired."

"Why did she need money so badly?" asked Kennedy.

"How should I know?" demanded Schloss.

Here was a deepening mystery, not to be elucidated by continuing
this line of inquiry with Schloss, it seemed.




CHAPTER XVII

THE PASTE REPLICA


Carefully Craig was going over the office. Outside of the safe,
there had apparently been nothing of value. The rest of the office
was not even wired, and it seemed to have been Schloss' idea that
the few thousands of burglary insurance amply protected him
against such loss. As for the safe, its own strength and the
careful wiring might well have been considered quite sufficient
under any hitherto to-be-foreseen circumstances.

A glass door, around the bend of a partition, opened from the
hallway into the office and had apparently been designed with the
object of making visible the safe so that anyone passing might see
whether an intruder was tampering with it.

Kennedy had examined the door, perhaps in the expectation of
finding finger prints there, and was passing on to other things,
when a change in his position caused his eye to catch a large oval
smudge on the glass, which was visible when the light struck it at
the right angle. Quickly he dusted it over with the powder, and
brought out the detail more clearly. As I examined it, while Craig
made preparations to cut out the glass to preserve it, it seemed
to contain a number of minute points and several more or less
broken parallel lines. The edges gradually trailed off into an
indistinct faintness.

Business, naturally, was at a standstill, and as we were working
near the door, we could see that the news of Schloss' strange
robbery had leaked out and was spreading rapidly. Scores of
acquaintances in the trade stopped at the door to inquire about
the rumor.

To each, it seemed that Morris Muller, the working jeweler
employed by Schloss, repeated the same story.

"Oh," he said, "it is a big loss--yes--but big as it is, it will
not break Mr. Schloss. And," he would add with the tradesman's
idea of humor, "I guess he has enough to play a game of poker--
eh?"

"Poker?" asked Kennedy smiling. "Is he much of a player?"

"Yes. Nearly every night with his friends he plays."

Kennedy made a mental note of it. Evidently Schloss trusted Muller
implicitly. He seemed like a partner, rather than an employee,
even though he had not been entrusted with the secret combination.

Outside, we ran into city detective Lieutenant Winters, the
officer who was stationed at the Maiden Lane post, guarding that
famous section of the Dead Line established by the immortal Byrnes
at Fulton Street, below which no crook was supposed to dare even
to be seen. Winters had been detailed on the case.

"You have seen the safe in there?" asked Kennedy, as he was
leaving to carry on his investigation elsewhere.

Winters seemed to be quite as skeptical as Schloss had intimated
the public would be. "Yes," he replied, "there's been an epidemic
of robbery with the dull times--people who want to collect their
burglary insurance, I guess."

"But," objected Kennedy, "Schloss carried so little."

"Well, there was the Hale Protection. How about that?"

Craig looked up quickly, unruffled by the patronizing air of the
professional toward the amateur detective.

"What is your theory?" he asked. "Do you think he robbed himself?"

Winters shrugged his shoulders. "I've been interested in Schloss
for some time," he said enigmatically. "He has had some pretty
swell customers. I'll keep you wised up, if anything happens," he
added in a burst of graciousness, walking off.

On the way to the subway, we paused again to see McLear.

"Well," he asked, "what do you think of it, now?"

"All most extraordinary," ruminated Craig. "And the queerest
feature of all is that the chief loss consists of a diamond
necklace that belonged once to Mrs. Antoinette Moulton."

"Mrs. Lynn Moulton?" repeated McLear.

"The same," assured Kennedy.

McLear appeared somewhat puzzled. "Her husband is one of our old
subscribers," he pursued. "He is a lawyer on Wall Street and quite
a gem collector. Last night his safe was tampered with, but this
morning he reports no loss. Not half an hour ago he had us on the
wire congratulating us on scaring off the burglars, if there had
been any."

"What is your opinion," I asked. "Is there a gang operating?"

"My belief is," he answered, reminiscently of his days on the
detective force, "that none of the loot will be recovered until
they start to 'fence' it. That would be my lay--to look for the
fence. Why, think of all the big robberies that have been pulled
off lately. Remember," he went on, "the spoils of a burglary
consist generally of precious stones. They are not currency. They
must be turned into currency--or what's the use of robbery?

"But merely to offer them for sale at an ordinary jeweler's would
be suspicious. Even pawnbrokers are on the watch. You see what I
am driving at? I think there is a man or a group of men whose
business it is to pay cash for stolen property and who have ways
of returning gems into the regular trade channels. In all these
robberies we get a glimpse of as dark and mysterious a criminal as
has ever been recorded. He may be--anybody. About his legitimacy,
I believe, no question has ever been raised. And, I tell you, his
arrest is going to create a greater sensation than even the
remarkable series of robberies that he has planned or made
possible. The question is, to my mind, who is this fence?"

McLear's telephone rang and he handed the instrument to Craig.

"Yes, this is Professor Kennedy," answered Craig. "Oh, too bad
you've had to try all over to get me. I've been going from one
place to another gathering clues and have made good progress,
considering I've hardly started. Why--what's the matter? Really?"

An interval followed, during which McLear left to answer a
personal call on another wire.

As Kennedy hung up the receiver, his face wore a peculiar look.
"It was Mrs. Moulton," he blurted out. "She thinks that her
husband has found out that the necklace is paste."

"How?" I asked.

"The paste replica is gone from her wall safe in the Deluxe."

I turned, startled at the information. Even Kennedy himself was
perplexed at the sudden succession of events. I had nothing to
say.

Evidently, however, his rule was when in doubt play a trump, for,
twenty minutes later found us in the office of Lynn Moulton, the
famous corporation lawyer, in Wall Street.

Moulton was a handsome man of past fifty with a youthful face
against his iron gray hair and mustache, well dressed, genial, a
man who seemed keenly in love with the good things of life.

"It is rumored," began Kennedy, "that an attempt was made on your
safe here at the office last night."

"Yes," he admitted, taking off his glasses and polishing them
carefully. "I suppose there is no need of concealment, especially
as I hear that a somewhat similar attempt was made on the safe of
my friend Herman Schloss in Maiden Lane."

"You lost nothing?"

Moulton put his glasses on and looked Kennedy in the face frankly.

"Nothing, fortunately," he said, then went on slowly. "You see, in
my later years, I have been something of a collector of precious
stones myself. I don't wear them, but I have always taken the
keenest pleasure in owning them and when I was married it gave me
a great deal more pleasure to have them set in rings, pendants,
tiaras, necklaces, and other forms for my wife."

He had risen, with the air of a busy man who had given the subject
all the consideration he could afford and whose work proceeded
almost by schedule. "This morning I found my safe tampered with,
but, as I said, fortunately something must have scared off the
burglars."

He bowed us out politely. What was the explanation, I wondered. It
seemed, on the face of things, that Antoinette Moulton feared her
husband. Did he know something else already, and did she know he
knew? To all appearances he took it very calmly, if he did know.
Perhaps that was what she feared, his very calmness.

"I must see Mrs. Moulton again," remarked Kennedy, as we left.

The Moultons lived, we found, in one of the largest suites of a
new apartment hotel, the Deluxe, and in spite of the fact that our
arrival had been announced some minutes before we saw Mrs.
Moulton, it was evident that she had been crying hysterically over
the loss of the paste jewels and what it implied.

"I missed it this morning, after my return from seeing you," she
replied in answer to Craig's inquiry, then added, wide-eyed with
alarm, "What shall I do? He must have opened the wall safe and
found the replica. I don't dare ask him point-blank."

"Are you sure he did it?" asked Kennedy, more, I felt, for its
moral effect on her than through any doubt in his own mind.

"Not sure. But then the wall safe shows no marks, and the replica
is gone."

"Might I see your jewel case?" he asked.

"Surely. I'll get it. The wall safe is in Lynn's room. I shall
probably have to fuss a long time with the combination."

In fact she could not have been very familiar with it for it took
several minutes before she returned. Meanwhile, Kennedy, who had
been drumming absently on the arms of his chair, suddenly rose and
walked quietly over to a scrap basket that stood beside an
escritoire. It had evidently just been emptied, for the rooms must
have been cleaned several hours before. He bent down over it and
picked up two scraps of paper adhering to the wicker work. The
rest had evidently been thrown away.

I bent over to read them. One was:

           --rest Nettie--
           --dying to see--

The other read:

           --cherche to-d
           --love and ma
           --rman.

What did it mean? Hastily, I could fill in "Dearest Nettie," and
"I am dying to see you." Kennedy added, "The Recherche to-day,"
that being the name of a new apartment uptown, as well as "love
and many kisses." But "--rman"--what did that mean? Could it be
Herman--Herman Schloss?

She was returning and we resumed our seats quickly.

Kennedy took the jewel case from her and examined it carefully.
There was not a mark on it.

"Mrs. Moulton," he said slowly, rising and handing it back to her,
"have you told me all?"

"Why--yes," she answered.

Kennedy shook his head gravely.

"I'm afraid not. You must tell me everything."

"No--no," she cried vehemently, "there is nothing more."

We left and outside the Deluxe he paused, looked about, caught
sight of a taxicab and hailed it.

"Where?" asked the driver.

"Across the street," he said, "and wait. Put the window in back of
you down so I can talk. I'll tell you where to go presently. Now,
Walter, sit back as far as you can. This may seem like an
underhand thing to do, but we've got to get what that woman won't
tell us or give up the case."

Perhaps half an hour we waited, still puzzling over the scraps of
paper. Suddenly I felt a nudge from Kennedy. Antoinette Moulton
was standing in the doorway across the street. Evidently she
preferred not to ride in her own car, for a moment later she
entered a taxicab.

"Follow that black cab," said Kennedy to our driver.

Sure enough, it stopped in front of the Recherche Apartments and
Mrs. Moulton stepped out and almost ran in.

We waited a moment, then Kennedy followed. The elevator that had
taken her up had just returned to the ground floor.

"The same floor again," remarked Kennedy, jauntily stepping in and
nodding familiarly to the elevator boy.

Then he paused suddenly, looked at his watch, fixed his gaze
thoughtfully on me an instant, and exclaimed. "By George--no. I
can't go up yet. I clean forgot that engagement at the hotel. One
moment, son. Let us out. We'll be back again."

Considerably mystified, I followed him to the sidewalk.

"You're entitled to an explanation," he laughed catching my
bewildered look as he opened the cab door. "I didn't want to go up
now while she is there, but I wanted to get on good terms with
that boy. We'll wait until she comes down, then go up."

"Where?" I asked.

"That's what I am going through all this elaborate preparation to
find out. I have no more idea than you have."

It could not have been more than twenty minutes later when Mrs.
Moulton emerged rather hurriedly, and drove away.

While we had been waiting I had observed a man on the other side
of the street who seemed unduly interested in the Recherche, too,
for he had walked up and down the block no less than six times.
Kennedy saw him, and as he made no effort to follow Mrs. Moulton,
Kennedy did not do so either. In fact a little quick glance which
she had given at our cab had raised a fear that she might have
discovered that she was being followed.

Kennedy and I paid off our cabman and sauntered into the Recherche
in the most debonair manner we could assume.

"Now, son, we'll go up," he said to the boy who, remembering us,
and now not at all clear in his mind that he might not have seen
us before that, whisked us to the tenth floor.

"Let me see," said Kennedy, "it's number one hundred and--er---"

"Three," prompted the boy.

He pressed the buzzer and a neatly dressed colored maid responded.

"I had an appointment here with Mrs. Moulton this morning,"
remarked Kennedy.

"She has just gone," replied the maid, off her guard.

"And was to meet Mr. Schloss here in half an hour," he added
quickly.

It was the maid's turn to look surprised.

"I didn't think he was to be here," she said. "He's had some--"

"Trouble at the office," supplied Kennedy. "That's what it was
about. Perhaps he hasn't been able to get away yet. But I had the
appointment. Ah, I see a telephone in the hall. May I?"

He had stepped politely in, and by dint of cleverly keeping his
finger on the hook in the half light, he carried on a one-sided
conversation with himself long enough to get a good chance to look
about.

There was an air of quiet and refinement about the apartment in
the Recherche. It was darkened to give the little glowing electric
bulbs in their silken shades a full chance to simulate right. The
deep velvety carpets were noiseless to the foot, and the
draperies, the pictures, the bronzes, all bespoke taste.

But the chief objects of interest to Craig were the little square
green baize-covered tables on one of which lay neatly stacked a
pile of gilt-edged cards and a mahogany box full of ivory chips of
red, white and blue.

It was none of the old-time gambling places, like Danfield's, with
its steel door which Craig had once cut through with an
oxyacetylene blowpipe in order to rescue a young spendthrift from
himself.

Kennedy seemed perfectly well satisfied merely with a cursory view
of the place, as he hung up the receiver and thanked the maid
politely for allowing him to use it.

"This is up-to-date gambling in cleaned-up New York," he remarked
as we waited for the elevator to return for us. "And the worst of
it all is that it gets the women as well as the men. Once they are
caught in the net, they are the most powerful lure to men that the
gamblers have yet devised."

We rode down in silence, and as we went down the steps to the
street, I noticed the man whom we had seen watching the place,
lurking down at the lower corner. Kennedy quickened his pace and
came up behind him.

"Why, Winters!" exclaimed Craig. "You here?"

"I might say the same to you," grinned the detective not
displeased evidently that our trail had crossed his. "I suppose
you are looking for Schloss, too. He's up in the Recherche a great
deal, playing poker. I understand he owns an interest in the game
up there."

Kennedy nodded, but said nothing.

"I just saw one of the cappers for the place go out before you
went in."

"Capper?" repeated Kennedy surprised. "Antoinette Moulton a
steerer for a gambling joint? What can a rich society woman have
to do with a place like that or a man like Schloss?"

Winters smiled sardonically. "Society ladies to-day often get into
scrapes of which their husbands know nothing," he remarked. "You
didn't know before that Antoinette Moulton, like many of her
friends in the smart set, was a gambler--and loser--did you?"

Craig shook his head. He had more of human than scientific
interest in a case of a woman of her caliber gone wrong.

"But you must have read of the famous Moulton diamonds?"

"Yes," said Craig, blankly, as if it were all news to him.

"Schloss has them--or at least had them. The jewels she wore at
the opera this winter were paste, I understand."

"Does Moulton play?" he asked.

"I think so--but not here, naturally. In a way, I suppose, it is
his fault. They all do it. The example of one drives on another."

Instantly there flashed over my mind a host of possibilities.
Perhaps, after all, Winters had been right. Schloss had taken this
way to make sure of the jewels so that she could not redeem them.
Suddenly another explanation crowded that out. Had Mrs. Moulton
robbed the safe herself, or hired some one else to do it for her,
and had that person gone back on her?

Then a horrid possibility occurred to me. Whatever Antoinette
Moulton may have been and done, some one must have her in his
power. What a situation for the woman! My sympathy went out to her
in her supreme struggle. Even if it had been a real robbery,
Schloss might easily recover from it. But for her every event
spelled ruin and seemed only to be bringing that ruin closer.

We left Winters, still watching on the trail of Schloss, and went
on uptown to the laboratory.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE BURGLAR'S MICROPHONE


That night I was sitting, brooding over the case, while Craig was
studying a photograph which he made of the smudge on the glass
door down at Schloss'. He paused in his scrutiny of the print to
answer the telephone.

"Something has happened to Schloss," he exclaimed seizing his hat
and coat. "Winters has been watching him. He didn't go to the
Recherche. Winters wants me to meet him at a place several blocks
below it Come on. He wouldn't say over the wire what it was.
Hurry."

We met Winters in less than ten minutes at the address he had
given, a bachelor apartment in the neighborhood of the Recherche.

"Schloss kept rooms here," explained Winters, hurrying us quickly
upstairs. "I wanted you to see before anyone else."

As we entered the large and luxuriously furnished living room of
the jeweler's suite, a gruesome sight greeted us.

There lay Schloss on the floor, face down, in a horribly contorted
position. In one hand, clenched under him partly, the torn sleeve
of a woman's dress was grasped convulsively. The room bore
unmistakable traces of a violent struggle, but except for the
hideous object on the floor was vacant.

Kennedy bent down over him. Schloss was dead. In a corner, by the
door, stood a pile of grips, stacked up, packed, and undisturbed.

Winters who had been studying the room while we got our bearings
picked up a queer-looking revolver from the floor. As he held it
up I could see that along the top of the barrel was a long
cylinder with a ratchet or catch at the butt end. He turned it
over and over carefully.

"By George," he muttered, "it has been fired off."

Kennedy glanced more minutely at the body. There was not a mark on
it. I stared about vacantly at the place where Winters had picked
the thing up.

"Look," I cried, my eye catching a little hole in the baseboard of
the woodwork near it.

"It must have fallen and exploded on the floor," remarked Kennedy.
"Let me see it, Winters."

Craig held it at arm's length and pulled the catch. Instead of an
explosion, there came a cone of light from the top of the gun. As
Kennedy moved it over the wall, I saw in the center of the circle
of light a dark spot.

"A new invention," Craig explained. "All you need to do is to move
it so that little dark spot falls directly on an object. Pull the trigger--
the bullet strikes the dark spot. Even a nervous and unskilled
marksman becomes a good shot in the dark. He can even shoot
from behind the protection of something--and hit accurately."

It was too much for me. I could only stand and watch Kennedy as he
deftly bent over Schloss again and placed a piece of chemically
prepared paper flat on the forehead of the dead man.

When he withdrew it, I could see that it bore marks of the lines
on his head. Without a word, Kennedy drew from his pocket a print
of the photograph of the smudge on Schloss' door.

"It is possible," he said, half to himself, "to identify a person
by means of the arrangement of the sweat glands or pores.
Poroscopy, Dr. Edmond Locard, director of the Police Laboratory at
Lyons, calls it. The shape, arrangement, number per square
centimeter, all vary in different individuals. Besides, here we
have added the lines of the forehead."

He was studying the two impressions intensely. When he looked up
from his examination, his face wore a peculiar expression.

"This is not the head which was placed so close to the glass of
the door of Schloss' office, peering through, on the night of the
robbery, in order to see before picking the lock whether the
office was empty and everything ready for the hasty attack on the
safe."

"That disposes of my theory that Schloss robbed himself," remarked
Winters reluctantly. "But the struggle here, the sleeve of the
dress, the pistol--could he have been shot?"

"No, I think not," considered Kennedy. "It looks to me more like a
case of apoplexy."

"What shall we do?" asked Winters. "Far from clearing anything up,
this complicates it."

"Where's Muller?" asked Kennedy. "Does he know? Perhaps he can
shed some light on it."

The clang of an ambulance bell outside told that the aid summoned
by Winters had arrived.

We left the body in charge of the surgeon and of a policeman who
arrived about the same time, and followed Winters.

Muller lived in a cheap boarding house in a shabbily respectable
street downtown, and without announcing ourselves we climbed the
stairs to his room. He looked up surprised but not disconcerted as
we entered.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Muller," shot out Winters, "we have just found Mr. Schloss dead!"

"D-dead!" he stammered.

The man seemed speechless with horror.

"Yes, and with his grips packed as if to run away."

Muller looked dazedly from one of us to the other, but shut up
like a clam.

"I think you had better come along with us as a material witness,"
burst out Winters roughly.

Kennedy said nothing, leaving that sort of third degree work to
the detective. But he was not idle, as Winters tried to extract
more than the monosyllables, "I don't know," in answer to every
inquiry of Muller about his employer's life and business.

A low exclamation from Craig attracted my attention from Winters.
In a corner he had discovered a small box and had opened it.
Inside was a dry battery and a most peculiar instrument, something
like a little flat telephone transmitter yet attached by wires to
earpieces that fitted over the head after the manner of those of a
wireless detector.

"What's this?" asked Kennedy, dangling it before Muller.

He looked at it phlegmatically. "A deaf instrument I have been
working on," replied the jeweler. "My hearing is getting poor."

Kennedy looked hastily from the instrument to the man.

"I think I'll take it along with us," he said quietly.

Winters, true to his instincts, had been searching Muller in the
meantime. Besides the various assortment that a man carries in his
pockets usually, including pens, pencils, notebooks, a watch, a
handkerchief, a bunch of keys, one of which was large enough to
open a castle, there was a bunch of blank and unissued pawn-tickets
bearing the name, "Stein's One Per Cent. a Month Loans," and an
address on the Bowery.

Was Muller the "fence" we were seeking, or only a tool for the
"fence" higher up? Who was this Stein?

What it all meant I could only guess. It was a far cry from the
wealth of Diamond Lane to a dingy Bowery pawnshop, even though
pawnbroking at one per cent. a month--and more, on the side--pays.
I knew, too, that diamonds are hoarded on the East Side as nowhere
else in the world, outside of India. It was no uncommon thing, I
had heard, for a pawnbroker whose shop seemed dirty and greasy to
the casual visitor to have stored away in his vault gems running
into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"Mrs. Moulton must know of this," remarked Kennedy. "Winters, you
and Jameson bring Muller along. I am going up to the Deluxe."

I must say that I was surprised at finding Mrs. Moulton there.
Outside the suite Winters and I waited with the unresisting
Muller, while Kennedy entered. But through the door which he left
ajar I could hear what passed.

"Mrs. Moulton," he began, "something terrible has happened--"

He broke off, and I gathered that her pale face and agitated
manner told him that she knew already.

"Where is Mr. Moulton?" he went on, changing his question.

"Mr. Moulton is at his office," she answered tremulously. "He
telephoned while I was out that he had to work to-night. Oh, Mr.
Kennedy--he knows--he knows. I know it. He has avoided me ever
since I missed the replica from-"

"Sh!" cautioned Craig. He had risen and gone to the door.

"Winters," he whispered, "I want you to go down to Lynn Moulton's
office. Meanwhile Jameson can take care of Muller. I am going over
to that place of Stein's presently. Bring Moulton up there. You
will wait here, Walter, for the present," he nodded.

He returned to the room where I could hear her crying softly.

"Now, Mrs. Moulton," he said gently, "I'm afraid I must trouble
you to go with me. I am going over to a pawnbroker's on the
Bowery."

"The Bowery?" she repeated, with a genuinely surprised shudder.
"Oh, no, Mr. Kennedy. Don't ask me to go anywhere to-night. I am--
I am in no condition to go anywhere--to do anything--I--"

"But you must," said Kennedy in a low voice.

"I can't. Oh--have mercy on me. I am terribly upset. You--"

"It is your duty to go, Mrs. Moulton," he repeated.

"I don't understand." she murmured. "A pawnbroker's?"

"Come," urged Kennedy, not harshly but firmly, then, as she held
back, added, playing a trump card, "We must work quickly. In his
hands we found the fragments of a torn dress. When the police--"

She uttered a shriek. A glance had told her, if she had deceived
herself before, that Kennedy knew her secret.

Antoinette Moulton was standing before him, talking rapidly.

"Some one has told Lynn. I know it. There is nothing now that I
can conceal. If you had come half an hour later you would not have
found me. He had written to Mr. Schloss, threatening him that if
he did not leave the country he would shoot him at sight. Mr.
Schloss showed me the letter.

"It had come to this. I must either elope with Schloss, or lose
his aid. The thought of either was unendurable. I hated him--yet
was dependent on him.

"To-night I met him, in his empty apartment, alone. I knew that he
had what was left of his money with him, that everything was
packed up. I went prepared. I would not elope. My plan was no less
than to make him pay the balance on the necklace that he had lost-
-or to murder him.

"I carried a new pistol in my muff, one which Lynn had just
bought. I don't know how I did it. I was desperate.

"He told me he loved me, that Lynn did not, never had--that Lynn
had married me only to show off his wealth and diamonds, to give
him a social! position--that I was merely a--a piece of property--
a dummy.

"He tried to kiss me. It was revolting. I struggled away from him.

"And in the struggle, the revolver fell from my muff and exploded
on the floor.

"At once he was aflame with suspicion.

"'So--it's murder you want!' he shouted. 'Well, murder it shall
be!'

"I saw death in his eye as he seized my arm. I was defenseless
now. The old passion came over him. Before he killed--he--would
have his way with me.

"I screamed. With a wild effort I twisted away from him.

"He raised his hand to strike me, I saw his eyes, glassy. Then he
sank back--fell to the floor--dead of apoplexy--dead of his
furious emotions.

"I fled.

"And now you have found me."

She had turned, hastily, to leave the room. Kennedy blocked the
door.

"Mrs. Moulton," he said firmly, "listen to me. What was the first
question you asked me? 'Can I trust you?' And I told you you
could. This is no time for--for suicide." He shot the word out
bluntly. "All may not be lost. I have sent for your husband.
Muller is outside."

"Muller?" she cried. "He made the replica."

"Very well. I am going to clear this thing up. Come. You MUST."

It was all confused to me, the dash in a car to the little
pawnbroker's on the first floor of a five-story tenement, the
quick entry into the place by one of Muller's keys.

Over the safe in back was a framework like that which had covered
Schloss' safe. Kennedy tore it away, regardless of the alarm which
it must have sounded. In a moment he was down before it on his
knees.

"This is how Schloss' safe was opened so quickly," he muttered,
working feverishly. "Here is some of their own medicine."

He had placed the peculiar telephone-like transmitter close to the
combination lock and was turning the combination rapidly.

Suddenly he rose, gave the bolts a twist, and the ponderous doors
swung open.

"What is it?" I asked eagerly.

"A burglar's microphone," he answered, hastily looking over the
contents of the safe. "The microphone is now used by burglars for
picking combination locks. When you turn the lock, a slight sound
is made when the proper number comes opposite the working point.
It can be heard sometimes by a sensitive ear, although it is
imperceptible to most persons. But by using a microphone it is an
easy matter to hear the sounds which allow of opening the lock."

He had taken a yellow chamois bag out of the safe and opened it.

Inside sparkled the famous Moulton diamonds. He held them up--in
all their wicked brilliancy. No one spoke.

Then he took another yellow bag, more dirty and worn than the
first. As he opened it, Mrs. Moulton could restrain herself no
longer.

"The replica!" she cried. "The replica!"

Without a word, Craig handed the real necklace to her. Then he
slipped the paste jewels into the newer of the bags and restored
both it and the empty one to their places, banged shut the door of
the safe, and replaced the wooden screen.

"Quick!" he said to her, "you have still a minute to get away.
Hurry--anywhere--away--only away!"

The look of gratitude that came over her face, as she understood
the full meaning of it was such as I had never seen before.

"Quick!" he repeated.

It was too late.

"For God's sake, Kennedy," shouted a voice at the street door,
"what are you doing here?"

It was McLear himself. He had come with the Hale patrol, on his
mettle now to take care of the epidemic of robberies.

Before Craig could reply a cab drew up with a rush at the curb and
two men, half fighting, half cursing, catapulted themselves into
the shop.

They were Winters and Moulton.

Without a word, taking advantage of the first shock of surprise,
Kennedy had clapped a piece of chemical paper on the foreheads of
Mrs. Moulton, then of Moulton, and on Muller's. Oblivious to the
rest of us, he studied the impressions in the full light of the
counter.

Moulton was facing his wife with a scornful curl of the lip.

"I've been told of the paste replica--and I wrote Schloss that I'd
shoot him down like the dog he is, you--you traitress," he hissed.

She drew herself up scornfully.

"And I have been told why you married me--to show off your wicked
jewels and help you in your--"

"You lie!" he cried fiercely. "Muller--some one--open this safe--
whosever it is. If what I have been told is true, there is in it
one new bag containing the necklace. It was stolen from Schloss to
whom you sold my jewels. The other old bag, stolen from me,
contains the paste replica you had made to deceive me."

It was all so confused that I do not know how it happened. I think
it was Muller who opened the safe.

"There is the new yellow bag," cried Moulton, "from Schloss' own
safe. Open it."

McLear had taken it. He did so. There sparkled not the real gems,
but the replica.

"The devil!" Moulton exclaimed, breaking from Winters and seizing
the old bag.

He tore it open and--it was empty.

"One moment," interrupted Kennedy, looking up quietly from the
counter. "Seal that safe again, McLear. In it are the Schloss
jewels and the products of half a dozen other robberies which the
dupe Muller--or Stein, as you please--pulled off, some as a blind
to conceal the real criminal. You may have shown him how to leave
no finger prints, but you yourself have left what is just as good-
-your own forehead print. McLear--you were right. There's your
criminal--Lynn Moulton, professional fence, the brains of the
thing."




CHAPTER XIX

THE GERM LETTER


Lynn Moulton made no fight and Kennedy did not pursue the case,
for, with the rescue of Antoinette Moulton, his interest ceased.

Blackmail takes various forms, and the Moulton affair was only one
phase of it. It was not long before we had to meet a much stranger
attempt.

"Read the letter, Professor Kennedy. Then I will tell you the
sequel."

Mrs. Hunter Blake lay back in the cushions of her invalid chair in
the sun parlor of the great Blake mansion on Riverside Drive,
facing the Hudson with its continuous reel of maritime life framed
against the green-hilled background of the Jersey shore.

Her nurse, Miss Dora Sears, gently smoothed out the pillows and
adjusted them so that the invalid could more easily watch us. Mrs.
Blake, wealthy, known as a philanthropist, was not an old woman,
but had been for years a great sufferer from rheumatism.

I watched Miss Sears eagerly. Full-bosomed, fine of face and
figure, she was something more than a nurse; she was a companion.
She had bright, sparkling black eyes and an expression about her
well-cut mouth which made one want to laugh with her. It seemed to
say that the world was a huge joke and she invited you to enjoy
the joke with her.

Kennedy took the letter which Miss Sears proffered him, and as he
did so I could not help noticing her full, plump forearm on which
gleamed a handsome plain gold bracelet. He spread the letter out
on a dainty wicker table in such a way that we both could see it.

We had been summoned over the telephone to the Blake mansion by
Reginald Blake, Mrs. Blake's eldest son. Reginald had been very
reticent over the reason, but had seemed very anxious and
insistent that Kennedy should come immediately.

Craig read quickly and I followed him, fascinated by the letter
from its very opening paragraph.

"Dear Madam," it began. "Having received my diploma as doctor of
medicine and bacteriology at Heidelberg in 1909, I came to the
United States to study a most serious disease which is prevalent
in several of the western mountain states."

So far, I reflected, it looked like an ordinary appeal for aid.
The next words, however, were queer: "I have four hundred persons
of wealth on my list. Your name was--"

Kennedy turned the page. On the next leaf of the letter sheet was
pasted a strip of gelatine. The first page had adhered slightly to
the gelatine.

"Chosen by fate," went on the sentence ominously.

"By opening this letter," I read, "you have liberated millions of
the virulent bacteria of this disease. Without a doubt you are
infected by this time, for no human body is impervious to them,
and up to the present only one in one hundred has fully recovered
after going through all its stages."

I gasped. The gelatine had evidently been arranged so that when
the two sheets were pulled apart, the germs would be thrown into
the air about the person opening the letter. It was a very
ingenious device.

The letter continued, "I am happy to say, however, that I have a
prophylactic which will destroy any number of these germs if used
up to the ninth day. It is necessary only that you should place
five thousand dollars in an envelope and leave it for me to be
called for at the desk of the Prince Henry Hotel. When the
messenger delivers the money to me, the prophylactic will be sent
immediately.

"First of all, take a match and burn this letter to avoid
spreading the disease. Then change your clothes and burn the old
ones. Enclosed you will find in a germ-proof envelope an exact
copy of this letter. The room should then be thoroughly fumigated.
Do not come into close contact with anyone near and dear to you
until you have used the prophylactic. Tell no one. In case you do,
the prophylactic will not be sent under any circumstances. Very
truly yours, DR. HANS HOPF."

"Blackmail!" exclaimed Kennedy, looking intently again at the
gelatine on the second page, as I involuntarily backed away and
held my breath.

"Yes, I know," responded Mrs. Blake anxiously, "but is it true?"

There could be no doubt from the tone of her voice that she more
than half believed that it was true.

"I cannot say--yet," replied Craig, still cautiously scanning the
apparently innocent piece of gelatine on the original letter which
Mrs. Blake had not destroyed. "I shall have to keep it and examine
it."

On the gelatine I could see a dark mass which evidently was
supposed to contain the germs.

"I opened the letter here in this room," she went on. "At first I
thought nothing of it. But this morning, when Buster, my prize
Pekinese, who had been with me, sitting on my lap at the time, and
closer to the letter even than I was, when Buster was taken
suddenly ill, I--well, I began to worry."

She finished with a little nervous laugh, as people will to hide
their real feelings.

"I should like to see the dog," remarked Kennedy simply.

"Miss Sears," asked her mistress, "will you get Buster, please?"

The nurse left the room. No longer was there the laughing look on
her face. This was serious business.

A few minutes later she reappeared, carrying gingerly a small dog
basket. Mrs. Blake lifted the lid. Inside was a beautiful little
"Peke," and it was easy to see that Buster was indeed ill.

"Who is your doctor?" asked Craig, considering.

"Dr. Rae Wilson, a very well-known woman physician."

Kennedy nodded recognition of the name. "What does she say?" he
asked, observing the dog narrowly.

"We haven't told anyone, outside, of it yet," replied Mrs. Blake.
"In fact until Buster fell sick, I thought it was a hoax."

"You haven't told anyone?"

"Only Reginald and my daughter Betty. Betty is frantic--not with
fear for herself, but with fear for me. No one can reassure her.
In fact it was as much for her sake as anyone's that I sent for
you. Reginald has tried to trace the thing down himself, but has
not succeeded."

She paused. The door opened and Reginald Blake entered. He was a
young fellow, self confident and no doubt very efficient at the
new dances, though scarcely fitted to rub elbows with a cold world
which, outside of his own immediate circle, knew not the name of
Blake. He stood for a moment regarding us through the smoke of his
cigarette.

"Tell me just what you have done," asked Kennedy of him as his
mother introduced him, although he had done the talking for her
over the telephone.

"Done?" he drawled. "Why, as soon as mother told me of the letter,
I left an envelope up at the Prince Henry, as it directed."

"With the money?" put in Craig quickly.

"Oh, no--just as a decoy."

"Yes. What happened?"

"Well, I waited around a long time. It was far along in the day
when a woman appeared at the desk. I had instructed the clerk to
be on the watch for anyone who asked for mail addressed to a Dr.
Hopf. The clerk slammed the register. That was the signal. I moved
up closer."

"What did she look like?" asked Kennedy keenly.

"I couldn't see her face. But she was beautifully dressed, with a
long light flowing linen duster, a veil that hid her features and
on her hands and arms a long pair of motoring doeskin gloves. By
George, she was a winner--in general looks, though. Well,
something about the clerk, I suppose, must have aroused her
suspicions. For, a moment later, she was gone in the crowd.
Evidently she had thought of the danger and had picked out a time
when the lobby would be full and everybody busy. But she did not
leave by the front entrance through which she entered. I concluded
that she must have left by one of the side street carriage doors."

"And she got away?"

"Yes. I found that she asked one of the boys at the door to crank
up a car standing at the curb. She slid into the seat, and was off
in a minute."

Kennedy said nothing. But I knew that he was making a mighty
effort to restrain comment on the bungling amateur detective work
of the son of our client.

Reginald saw the look on his face. "Still," he hastened, "I got
the number of the car. It was 200859 New York."

"You have looked it up?" queried Kennedy quickly.

"I didn't need to do it. A few minutes later Dr. Rae Wilson
herself came out--storming like mad. Her car had been stolen at
the very door of the hotel by this woman with the innocent aid of
the hotel employees."

Kennedy was evidently keenly interested. The mention of the stolen
car had apparently at once suggested an idea to him.

"Mrs. Blake," he said, as he rose to go, "I shall take this letter
with me. Will you see that Buster is sent up to my laboratory
immediately?"

She nodded. It was evident that Buster was a great pet with her
and that it was with difficulty she kept from smoothing his silky
coat.

"You--you won't hurt Buster?" she pleaded.

"No. Trust me. More than that, if there is any possible way of
untangling this mystery, I shall do it."

Mrs. Blake looked rather than spoke her thanks. As we went
downstairs, accompanied by Miss Sears, we could see in the music
room a very interesting couple, chatting earnestly over the piano.

Betty Blake, a slip of a girl in her first season, was dividing
her attention between her visitor and the door by which we were
passing.

She rose as she heard us, leaving the young man standing alone at
the piano. He was of an age perhaps a year or two older than
Reginald Blake. It was evident that, whatever Miss Betty might
think, he had eyes for no one else but the pretty debutante. He
even seemed to be regarding Kennedy sullenly, as if he were a
possible rival.

"You--you don't think it is serious?" whispered Betty in an
undertone, scarcely waiting to be introduced. She had evidently
known of our visit, but had been unable to get away to be present
upstairs.

"Really, Miss Blake," reassured Kennedy, "I can't say. All I can
do is to repeat what I have already said to your mother. Keep up a
good heart and trust me to work it out."

"Thank you," she murmured, and then, impulsively extending her
small hand to Craig, she added, "Mr. Kennedy, if there is anything
I can do to help you, I beg that you will call on me."

"I shall not forget," he answered, relinquishing the hand
reluctantly. Then, as she thanked him, and turned again to her
guest, he added in a low tone to me, "A remarkable girl, Walter, a
girl that can be depended on."

We followed Miss Sears down the hall.

"Who was that young man in the music room?" asked Kennedy, when we
were out of earshot.

"Duncan Baldwin," she answered. "A friend and bosom companion of
Reginald."

"He seems to think more of Betty than of her brother," Craig
remarked dryly.

Miss Sears smiled. "Sometimes, we think they are secretly
engaged," she returned. We had almost reached the door. "By the
way," she asked anxiously, "do you think there are any precautions
that I should take for Mrs. Blake--and the rest?"

"Hardly," answered Kennedy, after a moment's consideration, "as
long as you have taken none in particular already. Still, I
suppose it will do no harm to be as antiseptic as possible."

"I shall try," she promised, her face showing that she considered
the affair now in a much more serious light than she had before
our visit.

"And keep me informed of anything that turns up," added Kennedy
handing her a card with the telephone number of the laboratory.

As we left the Blake mansion, Kennedy remarked, "We must trace
that car somehow--at least we must get someone working on that."

Half an hour later we were in a towering office building on
Liberty Street, the home of various kinds of insurance. Kennedy
stopped before a door which bore the name, "Douglas Garwood:
Insurance Adjuster."

Briefly, Craig told the story of the stolen car, omitting the
account of the dastardly method taken to blackmail Mrs. Blake. As
he proceeded a light seemed to break on the face of Garwood, a
heavyset man, whose very gaze was inquisitorial.

"Yes, the theft has been reported to us already by Dr. Wilson
herself," he interrupted. "The car was insured in a company I
represent."

"I had hoped so," remarked Kennedy, "Do you know the woman?" he
added, watching the insurance adjuster who had been listening
intently as he told about the fair motor car thief.

"Know her?" repeated Garwood emphatically. "Why, man, we have been
so close to that woman that I feel almost intimate with her. The
descriptions are those of a lady, well-dressed, and with a voice
and manner that would carry her through any of the fashionable
hotels, perhaps into society itself."

"One of a gang of blackmailers, then," I hazarded.

Garwood shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps," he acquiesced. "It is
automobile thieving that interests me, though. Why," he went on,
rising excitedly, "the gangs of these thieves are getting away
with half a million dollars' worth of high-priced cars every year.
The police seem to be powerless to stop it. We appeal to them, but
with no result. So, now we have taken things into our own hands."

"What are you doing in this case?" asked Kennedy.

"What the insurance companies have to do to recover stolen
automobiles," Garwood replied. "For, with all deference to your
friend, Deputy O'Connor, it is the insurance companies rather than
the police who get stolen cars back."

He had pulled out a postal card from a pigeon hole in his desk,
selecting it from several apparently similar. We read:

$250.00 REWARD

We will pay $100.00 for car, $150.00 additional for information
which will convict the thief. When last seen, driven by a woman,
name not known, who is described as dark-haired, well-dressed,
slight, apparently thirty years old. The car is a Dixon, 1912,
seven-passenger, touring, No. 193,222, license No. 200,859, New
York; dark red body, mohair top, brass lamps, has no wind shield;
rear axle brake band device has extra nut on turnbuckle not
painted. Car last seen near Prince Henry Hotel, New York City,
Friday, the 10th.

Communicate by telegraph or telephone, after notifying nearest
police department, with Douglas Garwood, New York City. "The
secret of it is," explained Garwood, as we finished reading, "that
there are innumerable people who keep their eyes open and like to
earn money easily. Thus we have several hundreds of amateur and
enthusiastic detectives watching all over the city and country for
any car that looks suspicious."

Kennedy thanked him for his courtesy, and we rose to go. "I shall
be glad to keep you informed of anything that turns up," he
promised.




CHAPTER XX

THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY


In the laboratory, Kennedy quietly set to work. He began by
tearing from the germ letter the piece of gelatine and first
examining it with a pocket lens. Then, with a sterile platinum
wire, he picked out several minute sections of the black spot on
the gelatine and placed them in agar, blood serum, and other media
on which they would be likely to grow.

"I shall have to wait until to-morrow to examine them properly,"
he remarked. "There are colonies of something there, all right,
but I must have them more fully developed."

A hurried telephone call late in the day from Miss Sears told us
that Mrs. Blake herself had begun to complain, and that Dr. Wilson
had been summoned but had been unable to give an opinion on the
nature of the malady.

Kennedy quickly decided on making a visit to the doctor, who lived
not far downtown from the laboratory.

Dr. Rae Wilson proved to be a nervous little woman, inclined, I
felt, to be dictatorial. I thought that secretly she felt a little
piqued at our having been taken into the Blakes' confidence before
herself, and Kennedy made every effort to smooth that aspect over
tactfully.

"Have you any idea what it can be?" he asked finally.

She shook her head noncommittally. "I have taken blood smears," she
answered, "but so far haven't been able to discover anything. I
shall have to have her under observation for a day or two before I
can answer that. Still, as Mrs. Blake is so ill, I have ordered
another trained nurse to relieve Miss Sears of the added work, a
very efficient nurse, a Miss Rogers."

Kennedy had risen to go. "You have had no word about your car?" he
asked casually.

"None yet. I'm not worrying. It was insured."

"Who is this arch criminal, Dr. Hopf?" I mused as we retraced our
steps to the laboratory. "Is Mrs. Blake stricken now by the same
trouble that seems to have affected Buster?"

"Only my examination will show," he said. "I shall let nothing
interfere with that now. It must be the starting point for any
work that I may do in the case."

We arrived at Kennedy's workshop of scientific crime and he
immediately plunged into work. Looking up he caught sight of me
standing helplessly idle.

"Walter," he remarked thoughtfully adjusting a microscope,
"suppose you run down and see Garwood. Perhaps he has something to
report. And by the way, while you are out, make inquiries about
the Blakes, young Baldwin, Miss Sears and this Dr. Wilson. I have
heard of her before, at least by name. Perhaps you may find
something interesting."

Glad to have a chance to seem to be doing something whether it
amounted to anything or not, I dropped in to see Garwood. So far
he had nothing to report except the usual number of false alarms.
From his office I went up to the Star where fortunately I found
one of the reporters who wrote society notes.

The Blakes, I found, as we already knew, to be well known and
moving in the highest social circles. As far as known they had no
particular enemies, other than those common to all people of great
wealth. Dr. Wilson had a large practice, built up in recent years,
and was one of the best known society physicians for women. Miss
Sears was unknown, as far as I could determine. As for Duncan
Baldwin, I found that he had become acquainted with Reginald Blake
in college, that he came of no particular family and seemed to
have no great means, although he was very popular in the best
circles. In fact he had had, thanks to his friend, a rather
meteoric rise in society, though it was reported that he was
somewhat involved in debt as a result.

I returned to the laboratory to find that Craig had taken out of a
cabinet a peculiar looking arrangement. It consisted of thirty-two
tubes, each about sixteen inches long, with S-turns, like a minute
radiator. It was altogether not over a cubic foot in size, and
enclosed in a glass cylinder. There were in it, perhaps, fifty
feet of tubes, a perfectly-closed tubular system which I noticed
Kennedy was keeping absolutely sterile in a germicidal solution of
some kind.

Inside the tubes and surrounding them was a saline solution which
was kept at a uniform temperature by a special heating apparatus.

Kennedy had placed the apparatus on the laboratory table and then
gently took the little dog from his basket and laid him beside it.
A few minutes later the poor little suffering Buster was
mercifully under the influence of an anesthetic.

Quickly Craig worked. First he attached the end of one of the
tubes by means of a little cannula to the carotid artery of the
dog. Then the other was attached to the jugular vein.

As he released the clamp which held the artery, the little dog's
feverishly beating heart spurted the arterial blood from the
carotid into the tubes holding the normal salt solution and that
pressure, in turn, pumped the salt solution which filled the tubes
into the jugular vein, thus replacing the arterial blood that had
poured into the tubes from the other end and maintaining the
normal hydrostatic conditions in the body circulation. The dog was
being kept alive, although perhaps a third of his blood was out of
his body.

"You see," he said at length, after we had watched the process a
few minutes, "what I have here is in reality an artificial kidney.
It is a system that has been devised by several doctors at Johns
Hopkins.

"If there is any toxin in the blood of this dog, the kidneys are
naturally endeavoring to eliminate it. Perhaps it is being
eliminated too slowly. In that case this arrangement which I have
here will aid them. We call it vividiffusion and it depends for
its action on the physical principle of osmosis, the passage of
substances of a certain kind through a porous membrane, such as
these tubes of celloidin.

"Thus any substance, any poison that is dialyzable is diffused
into the surrounding salt solution and the blood is passed back
into the body, with no air in it, no infection, and without
alteration. Clotting is prevented by the injection of a harmless
substance derived from leeches, known as hirudin. I prevent the
loss of anything in the blood which I want retained by placing in
the salt solution around the tubes an amount of that substance
equal to that held in solution by the blood. Of course that does
not apply to the colloidal substances in the blood which would not
pass by osmosis under any circumstances. But by such adjustments I
can remove and study any desired substance in the blood, provided
it is capable of diffusion. In fact this little apparatus has been
found in practice to compare favorably with the kidneys themselves
in removing even a lethal dose of poison."

I watched in amazement. He was actually cleaning the blood of the
dog and putting it back again, purified, into the little body. Far
from being cruel, as perhaps it might seem, it was in reality
probably the only method by which the animal could be saved, and
at the same time it was giving us a clue as to some elusive,
subtle substance used in the case.

"Indeed," Kennedy went on reflectively, "this process can be kept
up for several hours without injury to the dog, though I do not
think that will be necessary to relieve the unwonted strain that
has been put upon his natural organs. Finally, at the close of the
operation, serious loss of blood is overcome by driving back the
greater part of it into his body, closing up the artery and vein,
and taking good care of the animal so that he will make a quick
recovery."

For a long time I watched the fascinating process of seeing the
life blood coursing through the porous tubes in the salt solution,
while Kennedy gave his undivided attention to the success of the
delicate experiment. It was late when I left him, still at work
over Buster, and went up to our apartment to turn in, convinced
that nothing more would happen that night.

The next morning, with characteristic energy, Craig was at work
early, examining the cultures he had made from the black spots on
the gelatine.

By the look of perplexity on his face, I knew that he had
discovered something that instead of clearing the mystery up,
further deepened it.

"What do you find?" I asked anxiously.

"Walter," he exclaimed, laying aside the last of the slides which
he had been staining and looking at intently through the
microscope, "that stuff on the gelatine is entirely harmless.
There was nothing in it except common mold."

For the moment I did not comprehend. "Mold?" I repeated.

"Yes," he replied, "just common, ordinary mold such as grows on
the top of a jar of fruit or preserves when it is exposed to the
air."

I stifled an exclamation of incredulity. It seemed impossible that
the deadly germ note should be harmless, in view of the events
that had followed its receipt.

Just then the laboratory door was flung open and Reginald Blake,
pale and excited, entered. He had every mark of having been up all
night.

"What's the matter?" asked Craig.

"It's about my mother," he blurted out. "She seems to be getting
worse all the time. Miss Sears is alarmed, and Betty is almost ill
herself with worry. Dr. Wilson doesn't seem to know what it is
that affects her, and neither does the new nurse. Can you DO
something?"

There was a tone of appeal in his voice that was not like the
self-sufficient Reginald of the day before.

"Does there seem to be any immediate danger?" asked Kennedy.

"Perhaps not--I can't say," he urged. "But she is gradually
getting worse instead of better."

Kennedy thought a moment. "Has anything else happened?" he asked
slowly.

"N-no. That's enough, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is," replied Craig, trying to be reassuring. Then,
recollecting Betty, he added, "Reginald, go back and tell your
sister for me that she must positively make the greatest effort of
her life to control herself. Tell her that her mother needs her--
needs her well and brave. I shall be up at the house immediately.
Do the best you can. I depend on you."

Kennedy's words seemed to have a bracing effect on Reginald and a
few moments later he left, much calmer.

"I hope I have given him something to do which will keep him from
mussing things up again," remarked Kennedy, mindful of Reginald's
former excursion into detective work.

Meanwhile Craig plunged furiously into his study of the substances
he had isolated from the saline solution in which he had "washed"
the blood of the little Pekinese.

"There's no use doing anything in the dark," he explained. "Until
we know what it is we are fighting we can't very well fight."

For the moment I was overwhelmed by the impending tragedy that
seemed to be hanging over Mrs. Blake. The more I thought of it,
the more inexplicable became the discovery of the mold.

"That is all very well about the mold on the gelatine strip in the
letter," I insisted at length. "But, Craig, there must be
something wrong somewhere. Mere molds could not have made Buster
so ill, and now the infection, or whatever it is, has spread to
Mrs. Blake herself. What have you found out by studying Buster?"

He looked up from his close scrutiny of the material in one of the
test tubes which contained something he had recovered from the
saline solution of the diffusion apparatus.

I could read on his face that whatever it was, it was serious.
"What is it?" I repeated almost breathlessly.

"I suppose I might coin a word to describe it," he answered
slowly, measuring his phrases. "Perhaps it might be called
hyper-amino-acidemia."

I puckered my eyes at the mouth-filling term Kennedy smiled. "It
would mean," he explained, "a great quantity of the amino-acids,
non-coagulable, nitrogenous compounds in the blood. You know the
indols, the phenols, and the amins are produced both by
putrefactive bacteria and by the process of metabolism, the
burning up of the tissues in the process of utilizing the energy
that means life. But under normal circumstances, the amins are not
present in the blood in any such quantities as I have discovered
by this new method of diffusion."

He paused a moment, as if in deference to my inability to follow
him on such an abstruse topic, then resumed, "As far as I am able
to determine, this poison or toxin is an amin similar to that
secreted by certain cephalopods found in the neighborhood of
Naples. It is an aromatic amin. Smell it."

I bent over and inhaled the peculiar odor.

"Those creatures," he continued, "catch their prey by this highly
active poison secreted by the so-called salivary glands. Even a
little bit will kill a crab easily."

I was following him now with intense interest, thinking of the
astuteness of a mind capable of thinking of such a poison.

"Indeed, it is surprising," he resumed thoughtfully, "how many an
innocent substance can be changed by bacteria into a virulent
poison. In fact our poisons and our drugs are in many instances
the close relations of harmless compounds that represent the
intermediate steps in the daily process of metabolism."

"Then," I put in, "the toxin was produced by germs, after all?"

"I did not say that," he corrected. "It might have been. But I
find no germs in the blood of Buster. Nor did Dr. Wilson find any
in the blood smears which she took from Mrs. Blake."

He seemed to have thrown the whole thing back again into the limbo
of the unexplainable, and I felt nonplussed.

"The writer of that letter," he went on, waving the piece of
sterile platinum wire with which he had been transferring drops of
liquid in his search for germs, "was a much more skillful
bacteriologist than I thought, evidently. No, the trouble does not
seem to be from germs breathed in, or from germs at all--it is
from some kind of germ-free toxin that has been injected or
otherwise introduced."

Vaguely now I began to appreciate the terrible significance of
what he had discovered.

"But the letter?" I persisted mechanically.

"The writer of that was quite as shrewd a psychologist as
bacteriologist," pursued Craig impressively. "He calculated the
moral effect of the letter, then of Buster's illness, and finally
of reaching Mrs. Blake herself."

"You think Dr. Rae Wilson knows nothing of it yet?" I queried.

Kennedy appeared to consider his answer carefully. Then he said
slowly: "Almost any doctor with a microscope and the faintest
trace of a scientific education could recognize disease germs
either naturally or feloniously implanted. But when it comes to
the detection of concentrated, filtered, germ-free toxins, almost
any scientist might be baffled. Walter," he concluded, "this is
not mere blackmail, although perhaps the visit of that woman to
the Prince Henry--a desperate thing in itself, although she did
get away by her quick thinking--perhaps that shows that these
people are ready to stop at nothing. No, it goes deeper than
blackmail."

I stood aghast at the discovery of this new method of scientific
murder. The astute criminal, whoever he might be, had planned to
leave not even the slender clue that might be afforded by disease
germs. He was operating, not with disease itself, but with
something showing the ultimate effects, perhaps, of disease with
none of the preliminary symptoms, baffling even to the best of
physicians.

I scarcely knew what to say. Before I realized it, however, Craig
was at last ready for the promised visit to Mrs. Blake. We went
together, carrying Buster, in his basket, not recovered, to be
sure, but a very different little animal from the dying creature
that had been sent to us at the laboratory.




CHAPTER XXI

THE POISON BRACELET


We reached the Blake mansion and were promptly admitted. Miss
Betty, bearing up bravely under Reginald's reassurances, greeted
us before we were fairly inside the door, though she and her
brother were not able to conceal the fact that their mother was no
better. Miss Sears was out, for an airing, and the new nurse, Miss
Rogers, was in charge of the patient.

"How do you feel, this morning?" inquired Kennedy as we entered
the sun-parlor, where Mrs. Blake had first received us.

A single glance was enough to satisfy me of the seriousness of her
condition. She seemed to be in almost a stupor from which she
roused herself only with difficulty. It was as if some
overpowering toxin were gradually undermining her already weakened
constitution.

She nodded recognition, but nothing further.

Kennedy had set the dog basket down near her wheel-chair and she
caught sight of it.

"Buster?" she murmured, raising her eyes. "Is--he--all right?"

For answer, Craig simply raised the lid of the basket. Buster
already seemed to have recognized the voice of his mistress, and,
with an almost human instinct, to realize that though he himself
was still weak and ill, she needed encouragement.

As Mrs. Blake stretched out her slender hand, drawn with pain, to
his silky head, he gave a little yelp of delight and his little
red tongue eagerly caressed her hand.

It was as though the two understood each other. Although Mrs.
Blake, as yet, had no more idea what had happened to her pet, she
seemed to feel by some subtle means of thought transference that
the intelligent little animal was conveying to her a message of
hope. The caress, the sharp, joyous yelp, and the happy wagging of
the bushy tail seemed to brighten her up, at least for the moment,
almost as if she had received a new impetus.

"Buster!" she exclaimed, overjoyed to get her pet back again in so
much improved condition.

"I wouldn't exert myself too much, Mrs. Blake," cautioned Kennedy.

"Were--were there any germs in the letter?" she asked, as Reginald
and Betty stood on the other side of the chair, much encouraged,
apparently, at this show of throwing off the lethargy that had
seized her.

"Yes, but about as harmless as those would be on a piece of
cheese," Kennedy hastened. "But I--I feel so weak, so played out--
and my head--"

Her voice trailed off, a too evident reminder that her improvement
had been only momentary and prompted by the excitement of our
arrival.

Betty bent down solicitously and made her more comfortable as only
one woman can make another. Kennedy, meanwhile, had been talking
to Miss Rogers, and I could see that he was secretly taking her
measure.

"Has Dr. Wilson been here this morning?" I heard him ask.

"Not yet," she replied. "But we expect her soon."

"Professor Kennedy?" announced a servant.

"Yes?" answered Craig.

"There is someone on the telephone who wants to speak to you. He
said he had called the laboratory first and that they told him to
call you here."

Kennedy hurried after the servant, while Betty and Reginald joined
me, waiting, for we seemed to feel that something was about to
happen.

"One of the unofficial detectives has unearthed a clue," he
whispered to me a few moments later when he returned. "It was
Garwood." Then to the others he added, "A car, repainted, and with
the number changed, but otherwise answering the description of Dr.
Wilson's has been traced to the West Side. It is somewhere in the
neighborhood of a saloon and garage where drivers of taxicabs hang
out. Reginald, I wish you would come along with us."

To Betty's unspoken question Craig hastened to add, "I don't think
there is any immediate danger. If there is any change--let me
know. I shall call up soon. And meanwhile," he lowered his voice
to impress the instruction on her, "don't leave your mother for a
moment--not for a moment," he emphasized.

Reginald was ready and together we three set off to meet Garwood
at a subway station near the point where the car had been
reported. We had scarcely closed the front door, when we ran into
Duncan Baldwin, coming down the street, evidently bent on
inquiring how Mrs. Blake and Betty were.

"Much better," reassured Kennedy. "Come on, Baldwin. We can't have
too many on whom we can rely on an expedition like this."

"Like what?" he asked, evidently not comprehending.

"There's a clue, they think, to that car of Dr. Wilson's," hastily
explained Reginald, linking his arm into that of his friend and
falling in behind us, as Craig hurried ahead.

It did not take long to reach the subway, and as we waited for the
train, Craig remarked: "This is a pretty good example of how the
automobile is becoming one of the most dangerous of criminal
weapons. All one has to do nowadays, apparently, after committing
a crime, is to jump into a waiting car and breeze away, safe."

We met Garwood and under his guidance picked our way westward from
the better known streets in the heart of the city, to a section
that was anything but prepossessing.

The place which Garwood sought was a typical Raines Law hotel on a
corner, with a saloon on the first floor, and apparently the
requisite number of rooms above to give it a legal license.

We had separated a little so that we would not attract undue
attention. Kennedy and I entered the swinging doors boldly, while
the others continued across to the other corner to wait with
Garwood and take in the situation. It was a strange expedition and
Reginald was fidgeting while Duncan seemed nervous.

Among the group of chauffeurs lounging at the bar and in the back
room anyone who had ever had any dealings with the gangs of New
York might have recognized the faces of men whose pictures were in
the rogues' gallery and who were members of those various
aristocratic organizations of the underworld.

Kennedy glanced about at the motley crowd. "This is a place where
you need only to be introduced properly," he whispered to me, "to
have any kind of crime committed for you."

As we stood there, observing, without appearing to do so, through
an open window on the side street I could tell from the sounds
that there was a garage in the rear of the hotel.

We were startled to hear a sudden uproar from the street.

Garwood, impatient at our delay, had walked down past the garage
to reconnoiter. A car was being backed out hurriedly, and as it
turned and swung around the corner, his trained eye had recognized
it.

Instantly he had reasoned that it was an attempt to make a
getaway, and had raised an alarm.

Those nearest the door piled out, keen for any excitement. We,
too, dashed out on the street. There we saw passing an automobile,
swaying and lurching at the terrific speed with which its driver,
urged it up the avenue. As he flashed by he looked like an Italian
to me, perhaps a gunman.

Garwood had impressed a passing trolley car into service and was
pursuing the automobile in it, as it swayed on its tracks as
crazily as the motor did on the roadway, running with all the
power the motorman could apply.

A mounted policeman galloped past us, blazing away at the tires.
The avenue was stirred, as seldom even in its strenuous life, with
reports of shots, honking of horns, the clang of trolley bells and
the shouts of men.

The pursuers were losing when there came a rattle and roar from
the rear wheels which told that the tires were punctured and the
heavy car was riding on its rims. A huge brewery wagon crossing a
side street paused to see the fun, effectually blocking the road.

The car jolted to a stop. The chauffeur leaped out and a moment
later dived down into a cellar. In that congested district,
pursuit was useless.

"Only an accomplice," commented Kennedy. "Perhaps we can get him
some other way if we can catch the man--or woman--higher up."

Down the street now we could see Garwood surrounded by a curious
crowd but in possession of the car. I looked about for Duncan and
Reginald. They had apparently been swallowed up in the crowds of
idlers which seemed to be pouring out of nowhere, collecting to
gape at the excitement, after the manner of a New York crowd.

As I ran my eye over them, I caught sight of Reginald near the
corner where we had left him in an incipient fight with someone
who had a fancied grievance. A moment later we had rescued him.

"Where's Duncan?" he panted. "Did anything happen to him? Garwood
told us to stay here--but we got separated."

Policemen had appeared on the heels of the crowd and now, except
for a knot following Garwood, things seemed to be calming down.

The excitement over, and the people thinning out, Kennedy still
could not find any trace of Duncan. Finally he glanced in again
through the swinging doors. There was Duncan, evidently quite
upset by what had occurred, fortifying himself at the bar.

Suddenly from above came a heavy thud, as if someone had fallen on
the floor above us, followed by a suppressed shuffling of feet and
a cry of help.

Kennedy sprang toward a side door which led out into the hall to
the hotel room above. It was locked. Before any of the others he
ran out on the street and into the hall that way, taking the
stairs two at a time, past a little cubby-hole of an "office" and
down the upper hall to a door from which came the cry.

It was a peculiar room into which we burst, half bedroom, half
workshop, or rather laboratory, for on a deal table by a window
stood a rack of test-tubes, several beakers, and other
paraphernalia.

A chambermaid was shrieking over a woman who was lying lethargic
on the floor.

I looked more closely.

It was Dora Sears.

For the moment I could not imagine what had happened. Had the
events of the past few days worked on her mind and driven her into
temporary insanity? Or had the blackmailing gang of automobile
thieves, failing in extorting money by their original plan, seized
her?

Kennedy bent over and tried to lift her up. As he did so, the gold
bracelet, unclasped, clattered to the floor.

He picked it up and for a moment looked at it. It was hollow, but
in that part of it where it unclasped could be seen a minute
hypodermic needle and traces of a liquid.

"A poison bracelet," he muttered to himself, "one in which enough
of a virulent poison could be hidden so that in an emergency death
could cheat the law."

"But this Dr. Hopf," exclaimed Reginald, who stood behind us
looking from the insensible girl to the bracelet and slowly
comprehending what it all meant, "she alone knows where and who he
is!"

We looked at Kennedy. What was to be done? Was the criminal higher
up to escape because one of his tools had been cornered and had
taken the easiest way to get out?

Kennedy had taken down the receiver of the wall telephone in the
room. A moment later he was calling insistently for his
laboratory. One of the students in another part of the building
answered. Quickly he described the apparatus for vividiffusion and
how to handle it without rupturing any of the delicate tubes.

"The large one," he ordered, "with one hundred and ninety-two
tubes. And hurry."

Before the student appeared, came an ambulance which some one in
the excitement had summoned. Kennedy quickly commandeered both the
young doctor and what surgical material he had with him.

Briefly he explained what he proposed to do and before the student
arrived with the apparatus, they had placed the nurse in such a
position that they were ready for the operation.

The next room which was unoccupied had been thrown open to us and
there I waited with Reginald and Duncan, endeavoring to explain to
them the mysteries of the new process of washing the blood.

The minutes lengthened into hours, as the blood of the poisoned
girl coursed through its artificial channel, literally being
washed of the toxin from the poisoned bracelet.

Would it succeed? It had saved the life of Buster. But would it
bring back the unfortunate before us, long enough even for her to
yield her secret and enable us to catch the real criminal. What if
she died?

As Kennedy worked, the young men with me became more and more
fascinated, watching him. The vividiffusion apparatus was now in
full operation.

In the intervals when he left the apparatus in charge of the young
ambulance surgeon Kennedy was looking over the room. In a trunk
which was open he found several bundles of papers. As he ran his
eye over them quickly, he selected some and stuffed them into his
pocket, then went back to watch the working of the apparatus.

Reginald, who had been growing more and more nervous, at last
asked if he might call up Betty to find out how his mother was.

He came back from the telephone, his face wrinkled.

"Poor mother," he remarked anxiously, "do you think she will pull
through, Professor? Betty says that Dr. Wilson has given her no
idea yet about the nature of the trouble."

Kennedy thought a moment. "Of course," he said, "your mother has
had no such relative amount of the poison as Buster has had. I
think that undoubtedly she will recover by purely natural means. I
hope so. But if not, here is the apparatus," and he patted the
vividiffusion tubes in their glass case, "that will save her,
too."

As well as I could I explained to Reginald the nature of the toxin
that Kennedy had discovered. Duncan listened, putting in a
question now and then. But it was evident that his thoughts were
on something else, and now and then Reginald, breaking into his
old humor, rallied him about thinking of Betty.

A low exclamation from both Kennedy and the surgeon attracted us.

Dora Sears had moved.

The operation of the apparatus was stopped, the artery and vein
had been joined up, and she was slowly coming out from under the
effects of the anesthetic.

As we gathered about her, at a little distance, we heard her cry
in her delirium, "I--I would have--done--anything--for him."

We strained our ears. Was she talking of the blackmailer, Dr.
Hopf?

"Who?" asked Craig, bending over close to her ear.

"I--I would--have done anything," she repeated as if someone had
contradicted her. She went on, dreamily, ramblingly, "He--is--is--
my brother. I--"

She stopped through weakness.

"Where is Dr. Hopf?" asked Kennedy, trying to recall her fleeting
attention.

"Dr. Hopf? Dr. Hopf?" she repeated, then smiling to herself as
people will when they are leaving the borderline of anesthesia,
she repeated the name, "Hopf?"

"Yes," persisted Kennedy.

"There is no Dr. Hopf," she added. "Tell me--did--did they--"

"No Dr. Hopf?" Kennedy insisted.

She had lapsed again into half insensibility.

He rose and faced us, speaking rapidly.

"New York seems to have a mysterious and uncanny attraction for
odds and ends of humanity, among them the great army of
adventuresses. In fact there often seems to be something decidedly
adventurous about the nursing profession. This is a girl of
unusual education in medicine. Evidently she has traveled--her
letters show it. Many of them show that she has been in Italy.
Perhaps it was there that she heard of the drug that has been used
in this case. It was she who injected the germ-free toxin, first
into the dog, then into Mrs. Blake, she who wrote the blackmail
letter which was to have explained the death."

He paused. Evidently she had heard dimly, was straining every
effort to hear. In her effort she caught sight of our faces.

Suddenly, as if she had seen an apparition, she raised herself
with almost superhuman strength.

"Duncan!" she cried. "Duncan! Why--didn't you--get away--while
there was time--after you warned me?"

Kennedy had wheeled about and was facing us. He was holding in his
hand some of the letters he had taken from the trunk. Among others
was a folded piece of parchment that looked like a diploma. He
unfolded it and we bent over to read.

It was a diploma from the Central Western College of Nursing. As I
read the name written in, it was with a shock. It was not Dora
Sears, but Dora Baldwin.

"A very clever plot," he ground out, taking a step nearer us.
"With the aid of your sister and a disreputable gang of chauffeurs
you planned to hasten the death of Mrs. Blake, to hasten the
inheritance of the Blake fortune by your future wife. I think your
creditors will have less chance of collecting now than ever,
Duncan Baldwin."




CHAPTER XXII

THE DEVIL WORSHIPERS


Tragic though the end of the young nurse, Dora Baldwin, had been,
the scheme of her brother, in which she had become fatally
involved, was by no means as diabolical as that in the case that
confronted us a short time after that.

I recall this case particularly not only because it was so weird
but also because of the unique manner in which it began.

"I am damned--Professor Kennedy--damned!"

The words rang out as the cry of a lost soul. A terrible look of
inexpressible anguish and fear was written on the face of Craig's
visitor, as she uttered them and sank back, trembling, in the easy
chair, mentally and physically convulsed.

As nearly as I had been able to follow, Mrs. Veda Blair's story
had dealt mostly with a Professor and Madame Rapport and something
she called the "Red Lodge" of the "Temple of the Occult."

She was not exactly a young woman, although she was a very
attractive one. She was of an age that is, perhaps, even more
interesting than youth.

Veda Blair, I knew, had been, before her recent marriage to Seward
Blair, a Treacy, of an old, though somewhat unfortunate, family.
Both the Blairs and the Treacys had been intimate and old Seward
Blair, when he died about a year before, had left his fortune to
his son on the condition that he marry Veda Treacy.

"Sometimes," faltered Mrs. Blair, "it is as though I had two
souls. One of them is dispossessed of its body and the use of its
organs and is frantic at the sight of the other that has crept
in."

She ended her rambling story, sobbing the terrible words, "Oh--I
have committed the unpardonable sin--I am anathema--I am damned--
damned!"

She said nothing of what terrible thing she had done and Kennedy,
for the present, did not try to lead the conversation. But of all
the stories that I have heard poured forth in the confessional of
the detective's office, hers, I think, was the wildest.

Was she insane? At least I felt that she was sincere. Still, I
wondered what sort of hallucination Craig had to deal with, as
Veda Blair repeated the incoherent tale of her spiritual vagaries.

Almost, I had begun to fancy that this was a case for a doctor,
not for a detective, when suddenly she asked a most peculiar
question.

"Can people affect you for good or evil, merely by thinking about
you?" she queried. Then a shudder passed over her. "They may be
thinking about me now!" she murmured in terror.

Her fear was so real and her physical distress so evident that
Kennedy, who had been listening silently for the most part, rose
and hastened to reassure her.

"Not unless you make your own fears affect yourself and so play
into their hands," he said earnestly.

Veda looked at him a moment, then shook her head mournfully. "I
have seen Dr. Vaughn," she said slowly.

Dr. Gilbert Vaughn, I recollected, was a well-known alienist in
the city.

"He tried to tell me the same thing," she resumed doubtfully.
"But--oh--I know what I know! I have felt the death thought--and
he knows it!"

"What do you mean?" inquired Kennedy, leaning forward keenly.

"The death thought," she repeated, "a malicious psychic attack.
Some one is driving me to death by it. I thought I could fight it
off. I went away to escape it. Now I have come back--and I have
not escaped. There is always that disturbing influence--always--
directed against me. I know it will--kill me!"

I listened, startled. The death thought! What did it mean? What
terrible power was it? Was it hypnotism? What was this fearsome,
cruel belief, this modern witchcraft that could unnerve a rich and
educated woman? Surely, after all, I felt that this was not a case
for a doctor alone; it called for a detective.

"You see," she went on, heroically trying to control herself, "I
have always been interested in the mysterious, the strange, the
occult. In fact my father and my husband's father met through
their common interest. So, you see, I come naturally by it.

"Not long ago I heard of Professor and Madame Rapport and their
new Temple of the Occult. I went to it, and later Seward became
interested, too. We have been taken into a sort of inner circle,"
she continued fearfully, as though there were some evil power in
the very words themselves, "the Red Lodge."

"You have told Dr. Vaughn?" shot out Kennedy suddenly, his eyes
fixed on her face to see what it would betray.

Veda leaned forward, as if to tell a secret, then whispered in a
low voice, "He knows. Like us--he--he is a--Devil Worshiper!"

"What?" exclaimed Kennedy in wide-eyed astonishment.

"A Devil Worshiper," she repeated. "You haven't heard of the Red
Lodge?"

Kennedy nodded negatively. "Could you get us--initiated?" he
hazarded.

"P--perhaps," she hesitated, in a half-frightened tone. "I--I'll
try to get you in to-night."

She had risen, half dazed, as if her own temerity overwhelmed her.

"You--poor girl," blurted out Kennedy, his sympathies getting the
upper hand for the moment as he took the hand she extended mutely.
"Trust me. I will do all in my power, all in the power of modern
science to help you fight off this--influence."

There must have been something magnetic, hypnotic in his eye.

"I will stop here for you," she murmured, as she almost fled from
the room.

Personally, I cannot say that I liked the idea of spying. It is
not usually clean and wholesome. But I realized that occasionally
it was necessary.

"We are in for it now," remarked Kennedy half humorously, half
seriously, "to see the Devil in the twentieth century."

"And I," I added, "I am, I suppose, to be the reporter to Satan."

We said nothing more about it, but I thought much about it, and
the more I thought, the more incomprehensible the thing seemed. I
had heard of Devil Worship, but had always associated it with far-
off Indian and other heathen lands--in fact never among Caucasians
in modern times, except possibly in Paris. Was there such a cult
here in my own city? I felt skeptical.

That night, however, promptly at the appointed time, a cab called
for us, and in it was Veda Blair, nervous but determined.

"Seward has gone ahead," she explained. "I told him that a friend
had introduced you, that you had studied the occult abroad. I
trust you to carry it out."

Kennedy reassured her.

The curtains were drawn and we could see nothing outside, though
we must have been driven several miles, far out into the suburbs.

At last the cab stopped. As we left it we could see nothing of the
building, for the cab had entered a closed courtyard.

"Who enters the Red Lodge?" challenged a sepulchral voice at the
porte-cochere. "Give the password!"

"The Serpent's Tooth," Veda answered.

"Who are these?" asked the voice.

"Neophytes," she replied, and a whispered parley followed.

"Then enter!" announced the voice at length.

It was a large room into which we were first ushered, to be
inducted into the rites of Satan.

There seemed to be both men and women, perhaps half a dozen
votaries. Seward Blair was already present. As I met him, I did
not like the look in his eye; it was too stary. Dr. Vaughn was
there, too, talking in a low tone to Madame Rapport. He shot a
quick look at us. His were not eyes but gimlets that tried to bore
into your very soul. Chatting with Seward Blair was a Mrs.
Langhorne, a very beautiful woman. To-night she seemed to be
unnaturally excited.

All seemed to be on most intimate terms, and, as we waited a few
minutes, I could not help recalling a sentence from Huysmans: "The
worship of the Devil is no more insane than the worship of God.
The worshipers of Satan are mystics--mystics of an unclean sort,
it is true, but mystics none the less."

I did not agree with it, and did not repeat it, of course, but a
moment later I overheard Dr. Vaughn saying to Kennedy: "Hoffman
brought the Devil into modern life. Poe forgoes the aid of demons
and works patiently and precisely by the scientific method. But
the result is the same."

"Yes," agreed Kennedy for the sake of appearances, "in a sense, I
suppose, we are all devil worshipers in modern society--always
have been. It is fear that rules and we fear the bad--not the
good."

As we waited, I felt, more and more, the sense of the mysterious,
the secret, the unknown which have always exercised a powerful
attraction on the human mind. Even the aeroplane and the
submarine, the X-ray and wireless have not banished the occult.

In it, I felt, there was fascination for the frivolous and deep
appeal to the intellectual and spiritual. The Temple of the Occult
had evidently been designed to appeal to both types. I wondered
how, like Lucifer, it had fallen. The prime requisite, I could
guess already, however, was--money. Was it in its worship of the
root of all evil that it had fallen?

We passed soon into another room, hung entirely in red, with
weird, cabalistic signs all about, on the walls. It was uncanny,
creepy.

A huge reproduction in plaster of one of the most sardonic of
Notre Dame's gargoyles seemed to preside over everything--a
terrible figure in such an atmosphere.

As we entered, we were struck by the blinding glare of the light,
in contrast with the darkened room in which we had passed our
brief novitiate, if it might be called such.

Suddenly the lights were extinguished.

The great gargoyle shone with an infernal light of its own!

"Phosphorescent paint," whispered Kennedy to me.

Still, it did not detract from the weird effect to know what
caused it.

There was a startling noise in the general hush.

"Sata!" cried one of the devotees.

A door opened and there appeared the veritable priest of the
Devil--pale of face, nose sharp, mouth bitter, eyes glassy.

"That is Rapport," Vaughn whispered to me.

The worshipers crowded forward.

Without a word, he raised his long, lean forefinger and began to
single them out impressively. As he did so, each spoke, as if
imploring aid.

He came to Mrs. Langhorne.

"I have tried the charm," she cried earnestly, "and the one whom I
love still hates me, while the one I hate loves me!"

"Concentrate!" replied the priest, "concentrate! Think always 'I
love him. He must love me. I want him to love me. I love him. He
must love me.' Over and over again you must think it. Then the
other side, 'I hate him. He must leave me. I want him to leave me.
I hate him--hate him.'"

Around the circle he went.

At last his lean finger was outstretched at Veda. It seemed as if
some imp of the perverse were compelling her unwilling tongue to
unlock its secrets.

"Sometimes," she cried in a low, tremulous voice, "something seems
to seize me, as if by the hand and urge me onward. I cannot flee
from it."

"Defend yourself!" answered the priest subtly. "When you know that
some one is trying to kill you mentally, defend yourself! Work
against it by every means in your power. Discourage! Intimidate!
Destroy!"

I marveled at these cryptic utterances. They shadowed a modern
Black Art, of which I had had no conception--a recrudescence in
other language of the age-old dualism of good and evil. It was a
sort of mental malpractice.

"Over and over again," he went on speaking to her, "the same
thought is to be repeated against an enemy. 'You know you are
going to die! You know you are going to die!' Do it an hour, two
hours, at a time. Others can help you, all thinking in unison the
same thought."

What was this, I asked myself breathlessly--a new transcendental
toxicology?

Slowly, a strange mephitic vapor seemed to exhale into the room--
or was it my heightened imagination?




CHAPTER XXIII

THE PSYCHIC CURSE


There came a sudden noise--nameless--striking terror, low,
rattling. I stood rooted to the spot. What was it that held me?
Was it an atavistic joy in the horrible or was it merely a
blasphemous curiosity?

I scarcely dared to look.

At last I raised my eyes. There was a live snake, upraised, his
fangs striking out viciously--a rattler!

I would have drawn back and fled, but Craig caught my arm.

"Caged," he whispered monosyllabically.

I shuddered. This, at least, was no drawing-room diablerie.

"It is Ophis," intoned Rapport, "the Serpent--the one active form
in Nature that cannot be ungraceful!"

The appearance of the basilisk seemed to heighten the tension.

At last it broke loose and then followed the most terrible
blasphemies. The disciples, now all frenzied, surrounded closer
the priest, the gargoyle and the serpent.

They worshiped with howls and obscenities. Mad laughter mingled
with pale fear and wild scorn in turns were written on the hectic
faces about me.

They had risen--it became a dance, a reel.

The votaries seemed to spin about on their axes, as it were,
uttering a low, moaning chant as they whirled. It was a mania, the
spirit of demonism. Something unseen seemed to urge them on.

Disgusted and stifled at the surcharged atmosphere, I would have
tried to leave, but I seemed frozen to the spot. I could think of
nothing except Poe's Masque of the Red Death.

Above all the rest whirled Seward Blair himself. The laugh of the
fiend, for the moment, was in his mouth. An instant he stood--the
oracle of the Demon--devil-possessed. Around whirled the frantic
devotees, howling.

Shrilly he cried, "The Devil is in me!"

Forward staggered the devil dancer--tall, haggard, with deep
sunken eyes and matted hair, face now smeared with dirt and blood-
red with the reflection of the strange, unearthly phosphorescence.

He reeled slowly through the crowd, crooning a quatrain, in a low,
monotonous voice, his eyelids drooping and his head forward on his
breast:

 If the Red Slayer think he slays,
   Or the slain think he is slain,
  They know not well the subtle ways
   I keep and pass and turn again!

Entranced the whirling crowd paused and watched. One of their
number had received the "power."

He was swaying slowly to and fro.

"Look!" whispered Kennedy.

His fingers twitched, his head wagged uncannily. Perspiration
seemed to ooze from every pore. His breast heaved.

He gave a sudden yell--ear-piercing. Then followed a screech of
hellish laughter.

The dance had ended, the dancers spellbound at the sight.

He was whirling slowly, eyes protruding now, mouth foaming, chest
rising and falling like a bellows, muscles quivering.

Cries, vows, imprecations, prayers, all blended in an infernal
hubbub.

With a burst of ghastly, guttural laughter, he shrieked, "I AM the
Devil!"

His arms waved--cutting, sawing, hacking the air.

The votaries, trembling, scarcely moved, breathed, as he danced.

Suddenly he gave a great leap into the air--then fell, motionless.
They crowded around him. The fiendish look was gone--the demoniac
laughter stilled.

It was over.

The tension of the orgy had been too much for us. We parted, with
scarcely a word, and yet I could feel that among the rest there
was a sort of unholy companionship.

Silently, Kennedy and I drove away in the darkened cab, this time
with Seward and Veda Blair and Mrs. Langhorne.

For several minutes not a word was said. I was, however, much
occupied in watching the two women. It was not because of anything
they said or did. That was not necessary. But I felt that there
was a feud, something that set them against each other.

"How would Rapport use the death thought, I wonder?" asked Craig
speculatively, breaking the silence.

Blair answered quickly. "Suppose some one tried to break away, to
renounce the Lodge, expose its secrets. They would treat him so as
to make him harmless--perhaps insane, confused, afraid to talk,
paralyzed, or even to commit suicide or be killed in an accident.
They would put the death thought on him!"

Even in the prosaic jolting of the cab, away from the terrible
mysteries of the Red Lodge, one could feel the spell.

The cab stopped. Seward was on his feet in a moment and handing
Mrs. Langhorne out at her home. For a moment they paused on the
steps for an exchange of words.

In that moment I caught flitting over the face of Veda a look of
hatred, more intense, more real, more awful than any that had been
induced under the mysteries of the rites at the Lodge.

It was gone in an instant, and as Seward rejoined us I felt that,
with Mrs. Langhorne gone, there was less restraint. I wondered
whether it was she who had inspired the fear in Veda.

Although it was more comfortable, the rest of our journey was made
in silence and the Blairs dropped us at our apartment with many
expressions of cordiality as we left them to proceed to their own.

"Of one thing I'm sure," I remarked, entering the room where only
a few short hours before Mrs. Blair had related her strange tale.
"Whatever the cause of it, the devil dancers don't sham."

Kennedy did not reply. He was apparently wrapped up in the
consideration of the remarkable events of the evening.

As for myself, it was a state of affairs which, the day before, I
should have pronounced utterly beyond the wildest bounds of the
imagination of the most colorful writer. Yet here it was; I had
seen it.

I glanced up to find Kennedy standing by the light examining
something he had apparently picked up at the Red Lodge. I bent
over to look at it, too. It was a little glass tube.

"An ampoule, I believe the technical name of such a container is,"
he remarked, holding it closer to the light.

In it were the remains of a dried yellow substance, broken up
minutely, resembling crystals.

"Who dropped it?" I asked.

"Vaughn, I think," he replied. "At least, I saw him near Blair,
stooping over him, at the end, and I imagine this is what I saw
gleaming for an instant in the light."

Kennedy said nothing more, and for my part I was thoroughly at sea
and could make nothing out of it all.

"What object can such a man as Dr. Vaughn possibly have in
frequenting such a place?" I asked at length, adding, "And there's
that Mrs. Langhorne--she was interesting, too."

Kennedy made no direct reply. "I shall have them shadowed to-
morrow," he said briefly, "while I am at work in the laboratory
over this ampoule."

As usual, also, Craig had begun on his scientific studies long
before I was able to shake myself loose from the nightmares that
haunted me after our weird experience of the evening.

He had already given the order to an agency for the shadowing, and
his next move was to start me out, also, looking into the history
of those concerned in the case. As far as I was able to determine,
Dr. Vaughn had an excellent reputation, and I could find no reason
whatever for his connection with anything of the nature of the Red
Lodge. The Rapports seemed to be nearly unknown in New York,
although it was reported that they had come from Paris lately.
Mrs. Langhorne was a divorcee from one of the western states, but
little was known about her, except that she always seemed to be
well supplied with money. It seemed to be well known in the circle
in which Seward Blair moved that he was friendly with her, and I
had about reached the conclusion that she was unscrupulously
making use of his friendship, perhaps was not above such a thing
as blackmail.

Thus the day passed, and we heard no word from Veda Blair,
although that was explained by the shadows, whose trails crossed
in a most unexpected manner. Their reports showed that there was a
meeting at the Red Lodge during the late afternoon, at which all
had been present except Dr. Vaughn. We learned also from them the
exact location of the Lodge, in an old house just across the line
in Westchester.

It was evidently a long and troublesome analysis that Craig was
engaged in at the laboratory, for it was some hours after dinner
that night when he came into the apartment, and even then he said
nothing, but buried himself in some of the technical works with
which his library was stocked. He said little, but I gathered that
he was in great doubt about something, perhaps, as much as
anything, about how to proceed with so peculiar a case.

It was growing late, and Kennedy was still steeped in his books,
when the door of the apartment, which we happened to have left
unlocked, was suddenly thrown open and Seward Blair burst in on
us, wildly excited.

"Veda is gone!" he cried, before either of us could ask him what
was the matter.

"Gone?" repeated Kennedy. "How--where?"

"I don't know," Blair blurted out breathlessly. "We had been out
together this afternoon, and I returned with her. Then I went out
to the club after dinner for a while, and when I got back I missed
her--not quarter of an hour ago. I burst into her room--and there
I found this note. Read it. I don't know what to do. No one seems
to know what has become of her. I've called up all over and then
thought perhaps you might help me, might know some friend of hers
that I don't know, with whom she might have gone out."

Blair was plainly eager for us to help him. Kennedy took the paper
from him. On it, in a trembling hand, were scrawled some words,
evidently addressed to Blair himself:

"You would forgive me and pity me if you knew what I have been
through.

"When I refused to yield my will to the will of the Lodge I
suppose I aroused the enmity of the Lodge.

"To-night as I lay in bed, alone, I felt that my hour had come,
that mental forces that were almost irresistible were being
directed against me.

"I realized that I must fight not only for my sanity but for my
life.

"For hours I have fought that fight.

"But during those hours, some one, I won't say who, seemed to have
developed such psychic faculties of penetration that they were
able to make their bodies pass through the walls of my room.

"At last I am conquered. I pray that you--"

The writing broke off abruptly, as if she had left it in wild
flight.

"What does that mean?" asked Kennedy, "the 'will of the Lodge'?"

Blair looked at us keenly. I fancied that there was even something
accusatory in the look. "Perhaps it was some mental reservation on
her part," he suggested. "You do not know yourself of any reason
why she should fear anything, do you?" he asked pointedly.

Kennedy did not betray even by the motion of an eyelash that we
knew more than we should ostensibly.

There was a tap at the door. I sprang to open it, thinking
perhaps, after all, it was Veda herself.

Instead, a man, a stranger, stood there.

"Is this Professor Kennedy?" he asked, touching his hat.

Craig nodded.

"I am from the psychopathic ward of the City Hospital--an orderly,
sir," the man introduced.

"Yes," encouraged Craig, "what can I do for you?"

"A Mrs. Blair has just been brought in, sir, and we can't find her
husband. She's calling for you now."

Kennedy stared from the orderly to Seward Blair, startled,
speechless.

"What has happened?" asked Blair anxiously. "I am Mr. Blair."

The orderly shook his head. He had delivered his message. That was
all he knew.

"What do you suppose it is?" I asked, as we sped across town in a
taxicab. "Is it the curse that she dreaded?"

Kennedy said nothing and Blair appeared to hear nothing. His face
was drawn in tense lines.

The psychopathic ward is at once one of the most interesting and
one of the most depressing departments of a large city hospital,
harboring, as it does, all from the more or less harmless insane
to violent alcoholics and wrecked drug fiends.

Mrs. Blair, we learned, had been found hatless, without money,
dazed, having fallen, after an apparently aimless wandering in the
streets.

For the moment she lay exhausted on the white bed of the ward,
eyes glazed, pupils contracted, pulse now quick, now almost
evanescent, face drawn, breathing difficult, moaning now and then
in physical and mental agony.

Until she spoke it was impossible to tell what had happened, but
the ambulance surgeon had found a little red mark on her white
forearm and had pointed it out, evidently with the idea that she
was suffering from a drug.

At the mere sight of the mark, Blair stared as though hypnotized.
Leaning over to Kennedy, so that the others could not hear, he
whispered, "It is the mark of the serpent!"

Our arrival had been announced to the hospital physician, who
entered and stood for a moment looking at the patient.

"I think it is a drug--a poison," he said meditatively.

"You haven't found out yet what it is, then?" asked Craig.

The physician shook his head doubtfully. "Whatever it is," he said
slowly, "it is closely allied to the cyanide groups in its
rapacious activity. I haven't the slightest idea of its true
nature, but it seems to have a powerful affinity for important
nerve centers of respiration and muscular coordination, as well as
for disorganizing the blood. I should say that it produces death
by respiratory paralysis and convulsions. To my mind it is an
exact, though perhaps less active, counterpart of hydrocyanic
acid."

Kennedy had been listening intently at the start, but before the
physician had finished he had bent over and made a ligature
quickly with his handkerchief.

Then he dispatched a messenger with a note. Next he cut about the
minute wound on her arm until the blood flowed, cupping it to
increase the flow. Now and then he had them administer a little
stimulant.

He had worked rapidly, while Blair watched him with a sort of
fascination.

"Get Dr. Vaughn," ordered Craig, as soon as he had a breathing
spell after his quick work, adding, "and Professor and Madame
Rapport. Walter, attend to that, will you? I think you will find
an officer outside. You'll have to compel them to come, if they
won't come otherwise," he added, giving the address of the Lodge,
as we had found it.

Blair shot a quick look at him, as though Craig in his knowledge
were uncanny. Apparently, the address had been a secret which he
thought we did not know.

I managed to find an officer and dispatch him for the Rapports. A
hospital orderly, I thought, would serve to get Dr. Vaughn.




CHAPTER XXIV

THE SERPENT'S TOOTH


I had scarcely returned to the ward when, suddenly, an unnatural
strength seemed to be infused into Veda.

She had risen in bed.

"It shall not catch me!" she cried in a new paroxysm of nameless
terror. "No--no--it is pursuing me. I am never out of its grasp. I
have been thought six feet underground--I know it. There it is
again--still driving me--still driving me!

"Will it never stop? Will no one stop it? Save me! It--is the
death thought!"

She had risen convulsively and had drawn back in abject, cowering
terror. What was it she saw? Evidently it was very real and very
awful. It pursued her relentlessly.

As she lay there, rolling her eyes about, she caught sight of us
and recognized us for the first time, although she had been
calling for us.

"They had the thought on you, too, Professor Kennedy," she almost
screamed. "Hour after hour, Rapport and the rest repeated over and
over again, 'Why does not some one kill him? Why does he not die?'
They knew you--even when I brought you to the Red Lodge. They
thought you were a spy."

I turned to Kennedy. He had advanced and was leaning over to catch
every word. Blair was standing behind me and she had not seen her
husband yet. A quick glance showed me that he was trembling from
head to foot like a leaf, as though he, too, were pursued by the
nameless terror.

"What did they do?" Kennedy asked in a low tone.

Fearfully, gripping the bars of the iron bed, as though they were
some tangible support for her mind, she answered: "They would get
together. 'Now, all of you,' they said, 'unite yourselves in
thought against our enemy, against Kennedy, that he must leave off
persecuting us. He is ripe for destruction!'"

Kennedy glanced sidewise at me, with a significant look.

"God grant," she implored, "that none haunt me for what I have
done in my ignorance!"

Just then the door opened and my messenger entered, accompanied by
Dr. Vaughn.

I had turned to catch the expression on Blair's face just in time.
It was a look of abject appeal.

Before Dr. Vaughn could ask a question, or fairly take in the
situation, Kennedy had faced him.

"What was the purpose of all that elaborate mummery out at the Red
Lodge?" asked Kennedy pointblank.

I think I looked at Craig in no less amazement than Vaughn. In
spite of the dramatic scenes through which we had passed, the
spell of the occult had not fallen on him for an instant.

"Mummery?" repeated Dr. Vaughn, bending his penetrating eyes on
Kennedy, as if he would force him to betray himself first.

"Yes," reiterated Craig. "You know as well as I do that it has
been said that it is a well-established fact that the world wants
to be deceived and is willing to pay for the privilege."

Dr. Vaughn still gazed from one to the other of us defiantly.

"You know what I mean," persisted Kennedy, "the mumbo-jumbo--just
as the Haitian obi man sticks pins in a doll or melts a wax figure
of his enemy. That is supposed to be an outward sign. But back of
this terrible power that people believe moves in darkness and
mystery is something tangible--something real."

Dr. Vaughn looked up sharply at him, I think mistaking Kennedy's
meaning. If he did, all doubt that Kennedy attributed anything to
the supernatural was removed as he went on: "At first I had no
explanation of the curious events I have just witnessed, and the
more I thought about them, the more obscure did they seem.

"I have tried to reason the thing out," he continued thoughtfully.
"Did auto-suggestion, self-hypnotism explain what I have seen? Has
Veda Blair been driven almost to death by her own fears only?"

No one interrupted and he answered his own question. "Somehow the
idea that it was purely fear that had driven her on did not
satisfy me. As I said, I wanted something more tangible. I could
not help thinking that it was not merely subjective. There was
something objective, some force at work, something more than
psychic in the result achieved by this criminal mental marauder,
whoever it is."

I was following Kennedy's reasoning now closely. As he proceeded,
the point that he was making seemed more clear to me.

Persons of a certain type of mind could be really mentally
unbalanced by such methods which we had heard outlined, where the
mere fact of another trying to exert power over them became known
to them. They would, as a matter of fact, unbalance themselves,
thinking about and fighting off imaginary terrors.

Such people, I could readily see, might be quickly controlled, and
in the wake of such control would follow stifled love, wrecked
homes, ruined fortunes, suicide and even death.

Dr. Vaughn leaned forward critically. "What did you conclude,
then, was the explanation of what you saw last night?" he asked
sharply.

Kennedy met his question squarely, without flinching. "It looks to
me," he replied quietly, "like a sort of hystero-epilepsy. It is
well known, I believe, to demonologists--those who have studied
this sort of thing. They have recognized the contortions, the
screams, the wild, blasphemous talk, the cataleptic rigidity. They
are epileptiform."

Vaughn said nothing, but continued to weigh Kennedy as if in a
balance. I, who knew him, knew that it would take a greater than
Vaughn to find him wanting, once Kennedy chose to speak. As for
Vaughn, was he trying to hide behind some technicality in medical
ethics?

"Dr. Vaughn," continued Craig, as if goading him to the point of
breaking down his calm silence, "you are specialist enough to know
these things as well, better than I do. You must know that
epilepsy is one of the most peculiar diseases.

"The victim may be in good physical condition, apparently. In
fact, some hardly know that they have it. But it is something more
than merely the fits. Always there is something wrong mentally. It
is not the motor disturbance so much as the disturbance of
consciousness."

Kennedy was talking slowly, deliberately, so that none could drop
a link in the reasoning.

"Perhaps one in ten epileptics has insane periods, more or less,"
he went on, "and there is no more dangerous form of insanity.
Self-consciousness is lost, and in this state of automatism the
worst of crimes have been committed without the subsequent
knowledge of the patient. In that state they are no more
responsible than are the actors in one's dreams."

The hospital physician entered, accompanied by Craig's messenger,
breathless. Craig almost seized the package from his hands and
broke the seal.

"Ah--this is what I wanted," he exclaimed, with an air of relief,
forgetting for the time the exposition of the case that he was
engaged in. "Here I have some anti-crotalus venine, of Drs.
Flexner and Noguchi. Fortunately, in the city it is within easy
reach."

Quickly, with the aid of the physician he injected it into Veda's
arm.

"Of all substances in nature," he remarked, still at work over the
unfortunate woman, "none is so little known as the venom of
serpents."

It was a startling idea which the sentence had raised in my mind.
All at once I recalled the first remark of Seward Blair, in which
he had repeated the password that had admitted us into the Red
Lodge--"the Serpent's Tooth." Could it have been that she had
really been bitten at some of the orgies by the serpent which they
worshiped hideously hissing in its cage? I was sure that, at least
until they were compelled, none would say anything about it. Was
that the interpretation of the almost hypnotized look on Blair's
face?

"We know next to nothing of the composition of the protein bodies
in the venoms which have such terrific, quick physiological
effects," Kennedy was saying. "They have been studied, it is true,
but we cannot really say that they are understood--or even that
there are any adequate tests by which they can be recognized. The
fact is, that snake venoms are about the safest of poisons for the
criminal."

Kennedy had scarcely propounded this startling idea when a car was
heard outside. The Rapports had arrived, with the officer I had
sent after them, protesting and threatening.

They quieted down a bit as they entered, and after a quick glance
around saw who was present.

Professor Rapport gave one glance at the victim lying exhausted on
the bed, then drew back, melodramatically, and cried, "The
Serpent--the mark of the serpent!"

For a moment Kennedy gazed full in the eyes of them all.

"WAS it a snake bite?" he asked slowly, then, turning to Mrs.
Blair, after a quick glance, he went on rapidly, "The first thing
to ascertain is whether the mark consists of two isolated
punctures, from the poison-conducting teeth or fangs of the snake,
which are constructed like a hypodermic needle."

The hospital physician had bent over her at the words, and before
Kennedy could go on interrupted: "This was not a snake bite; it
was more likely from an all-glass hypodermic syringe with a
platinum-iridium needle."

Professor Rapport, priest of the Devil, advanced a step menacingly
toward Kennedy. "Remember," he said in a low, angry tone,
"remember--you are pledged to keep the secrets of the Red Lodge!"

Craig brushed aside the sophistry with a sentence. "I do not
recognize any secrets that I have to keep about the meeting this
afternoon to which you summoned the Blairs and Mrs. Langhorne,
according to reports from the shadows I had placed on Mrs.
Langhorne and Dr. Vaughn."

If there is such a thing as the evil eye, Rapport's must have been
a pair of them, as he realized that Kennedy had resorted to the
simple devices of shadowing the devotees.

A cry, almost a shriek, startled us. Kennedy's encounter with
Rapport had had an effect which none of us had considered. The
step or two in advance which the prophet had taken had brought him
into the line of vision of the still half-stupefied Veda lying
back of Kennedy on the hospital cot.

The mere sight of him, the sound of his voice and the mention of
the Red Lodge had been sufficient to penetrate that stupor. She
was sitting bolt upright, a ghastly, trembling specter. Slowly a
smile seemed to creep over the cruel face of the mystic. Was it
not a recognition of his hypnotic power?

Kennedy turned and laid a gentle hand on the quaking convulsed
figure of the woman. One could feel the electric tension in the
air, the battle of two powers for good or evil. Which would win--
the old fascination of the occult or the new power of science?

It was a dramatic moment. Yet not so dramatic as the outcome. To
my surprise, neither won.

Suddenly she caught sight of her husband. Her face changed. All
the prehistoric jealousy of which woman is capable seemed to blaze
forth.

"I will defend myself!" she cried. "I will fight back! She shall
not win--she shall not have you--no--she shall not--never!"

I recalled the strained feeling between the two women that I had
noticed in the cab. Was it Mrs. Langhorne who had been the
disturbing influence, whose power she feared, over herself and
over her husband?

Rapport had fallen back a step, but not from the mind of Kennedy.

"Here," challenged Craig, facing the group and drawing from his
pocket the glass ampoule, "I picked this up at the Red Lodge last
night."

He held it out in his hand before the Rapports so that they could
not help but see it. Were they merely good actors? They betrayed
nothing, at least by face or action.

"It is crotalin," he announced, "the venom of the rattlesnake--
crotalus horridus. It has been noticed that persons suffering from
certain diseases of which epilepsy is one, after having been
bitten by a rattlesnake, if they recover from the snake bite, are
cured of the disease."

Kennedy was forging straight ahead now in his exposure.
"Crotalin," he continued, "is one of the new drugs used in the
treatment of epilepsy. But it is a powerful two-edged instrument.
Some one who knew the drug, who perhaps had used it, has tried an
artificial bite of a rattler on Veda Blair, not for epilepsy, but
for another, diabolical purpose, thinking to cover up the crime,
either as the result of the so-called death thought of the Lodge
or as the bite of the real rattler at the Lodge."

Kennedy had at last got under Dr. Vaughn's guard. All his
reticence was gone.

"I joined the cult," he confessed. "I did it in order to observe
and treat one of my patients for epilepsy. I justified myself. I
said, 'I will be the exposer, not the accomplice, of this modern
Satanism.' I joined it and--"

"There is no use trying to shield anyone, Vaughn," rapped out
Kennedy, scarcely taking time to listen. "An epileptic of the most
dangerous criminal type has arranged this whole elaborate setting
as a plot to get rid of the wife who brought him his fortune and
now stands in the way of his unholy love of Mrs. Langhorne. He
used you to get the poison with which you treated him. He used the
Rapports with money to play on her mysticism by their so-called
death thought, while he watched his opportunity to inject the
fatal crotalin."

Craig faced the criminal, whose eyes now showed more plainly than
words his deranged mental condition, and in a low tone added, "The
Devil is in you, Seward Blair!"




CHAPTER XXV

THE "HAPPY DUST"


Veda Blair's rescue from the strange use that was made of the
venom came at a time when the city was aroused as it never had
been before over the nation-wide agitation against drugs.

Already, it will be recalled, Kennedy and I had had some recent
experience with dope fiends of various kinds, but this case I set
down because it drew us more intimately into the crusade.

"I've called on you, Professor Kennedy, to see if I can't interest
you in the campaign I am planning against drugs."

Mrs. Claydon Sutphen, social leader and suffragist, had scarcely
more than introduced herself when she launched earnestly into the
reason for her visit to us.

"You don't realize it, perhaps," she continued rapidly, "but very
often a little silver bottle of tablets is as much a necessary to
some women of the smart set as cosmetics."

"I've heard of such cases," nodded Craig encouragingly.

"Well, you see I became interested in the subject," she added,
"when I saw some of my own friends going down. That's how I came
to plan the campaign in the first place."

She paused, evidently nervous. "I've been threatened, too," she
went on, "but I'm not going to give up the fight. People think
that drugs are a curse only to the underworld, but they have no
idea what inroads the habit has made in the upper world, too. Oh,
it is awful!" she exclaimed.

Suddenly, she leaned over and whispered, "Why, there's my own
sister, Mrs. Garrett. She began taking drugs after an operation,
and now they have a terrible hold on her. I needn't try to conceal
anything. It's all been published in the papers--everybody knows
it. Think of it--divorced, disgraced, all through these cursed
drugs! Dr. Coleman, our family physician, has done everything
known to break up the habit, but he hasn't succeeded."

Dr. Coleman, I knew, was a famous society physician. If he had
failed, I wondered why she thought a detective might succeed. But
it was evidently another purpose she had in mind in introducing
the subject.

"So you can understand what it all means to me, personally," she
resumed, with a sigh. "I've studied the thing--I've been forced to
study it. Why, now the exploiters are even making drug fiends of
mere--children!"

Mrs. Sutphen spread out a crumpled sheet of note paper before us
on which was written something in a trembling scrawl. "For
instance, here's a letter I received only yesterday."

Kennedy glanced over it carefully. It was signed "A Friend," and
read:

"I have heard of your drug war in the newspapers and wish to help
you, only I don't dare to do so openly. But I can assure you that
if you will investigate what I am about to tell you, you will soon
be on the trail of those higher up in this terrible drug business.
There is a little center of the traffic on West 66th Street, just
off Broadway. I cannot tell you more, but if you can investigate
it, you will be doing more good than you can possibly realize now.
There is one girl there, whom they call 'Snowbird.' If you could
only get hold of her quietly and place her in a sanitarium you
might save her yet."

Craig was more than ordinarily interested. "And the children--what
did you mean by that?"

"Why, it's literally true," asserted Mrs. Sutphen in a horrified
tone. "Some of the victims are actually school children. Up there
in 66th Street we have found a man named Armstrong, who seems to
be very friendly with this young girl whom they call 'Snowbird.'
Her real name, by the way, is Sawtelle, I believe. She can't be
over eighteen, a mere child, yet she's a slave to the stuff."

"Oh, then you have actually already acted on the hint in the
letter?" asked Craig.

"Yes," she replied, "I've had one of the agents of our Anti-Drug
Society, a social worker, investigating the neighborhood."

Kennedy nodded for her to go on.

"I've even investigated myself a little, and now I want to employ
some one to break the thing up. My husband had heard of you and so
here I am. Can you help me?"

There was a note of appeal in her voice that was irresistible to a
man who had the heart of Kennedy.

"Tell me just what you have discovered so far," he asked simply.

"Well," she replied slowly, "after my agent verified the contents
of the letter, I watched until I saw this girl--she's a mere
child, as I said--going to a cabaret in the neighborhood. What
struck me was that I saw her go in looking like a wreck and come
out a beautiful creature, with bright eyes, flushed cheeks, almost
youthful again. A most remarkable girl she is, too," mused Mrs.
Sutphen, "who always wears a white gown, white hat, white shoes
and white stockings. It must be a mania with her."

Mrs. Sutphen seemed to have exhausted her small store of
information, and as she rose to go Kennedy rose also. "I shall be
glad to look into the case, Mrs. Sutphen," he promised. "I'm sure
there is something that can be done--there must be."

"Thank you, ever so much," she murmured, as she paused at the
door, something still on her mind. "And perhaps, too," she added,
"you may run across my sister, Mrs. Garrett."

"Indeed," he assured her, "if there is anything I can possibly do
that will assist you personally, I shall be only too happy to do
it."

"Thank you again, ever so much," she repeated with just a little
choke in her voice.

For several moments Kennedy sat contemplating the anonymous letter
which she had left with him, studying both its contents and the
handwriting.

"We must go over the ground up there again," he remarked finally.
"Perhaps we can do better than Mrs. Sutphen and her drug
investigator have done."

Half an hour later we had arrived and were sauntering along the
street in question, walking slowly up and down in the now fast-
gathering dusk. It was a typical cheap apartment block of
variegated character, with people sitting idly on the narrow front
steps and children spilling out into the roadway in imminent
danger of their young lives from every passing automobile.

On the crowded sidewalk a creation in white hurtled past us. One
glance at the tense face in the flickering arc light was enough
for Kennedy. He pulled my arm and we turned and followed at a safe
distance.

She looked like a girl who could not have been more than eighteen,
if she was as old as that. She was pretty, too, but already her
face was beginning to look old and worn from the use of drugs. It
was unmistakable.

In spite of the fact that she was hurrying, it was not difficult
to follow her in the crowd, as she picked her way in and out, and
finally turned into Broadway where the white lights were welcoming
the night.

Under the glare of a huge electric sign she stopped a moment, then
entered one of the most notorious of the cabarets.

We entered also at a discreet distance and sat down at a table.

"Don't look around, Walter," whispered Craig, as the waiter took
our order, "but to your right is Mrs. Sutphen."

If he had mentioned any other name in the world, I could not have
been more surprised. I waited impatiently until I could pick her
out from the corner of my eye. Sure enough, it was Mrs. Sutphen
and another woman. What they were doing there I could not imagine,
for neither had the look of habitues of such a place.

I followed Kennedy's eye and found that he was gazing furtively at
a flashily dressed young man who was sitting alone at the far end
in a sort of booth upholstered in leather.

The girl in white, whom I was now sure was Miss Sawtelle, went
over and greeted him. It was too far to see just what happened,
but the young woman after sitting down rose and left almost
immediately. As nearly as I could make out, she had got something
from him which she had dropped into her handbag and was now
hugging the handbag close to herself almost as if it were gold.

We sat for a few minutes debating just what to do, when Mrs.
Sutphen and her friend rose. As she passed out, a quick, covert
glance told us to follow. We did so and the two turned into
Broadway.

"Let me present you to Miss McCann," introduced Mrs. Sutphen as we
caught up with them. "Miss McCann is a social worker and trained
investigator whom I'm employing."

We bowed, but before we could ask a question, Mrs. Sutphen cried
excitedly: "I think I have a clue, anyway. We've traced the source
of the drugs at least as far as that young fellow, 'Whitecap,'
whom you saw in there."

I had not recognized his face, although I had undoubtedly seen
pictures of him before. But no sooner had I heard the name than I
recognized it as that of one of the most notorious gang leaders on
the West Side.

Not only that, but Whitecap's gang played an important part in
local politics. There was scarcely a form of crime or vice to
which Whitecap and his followers could not turn a skilled hand,
whether it was swinging an election, running a gambling club, or
dispensing "dope."

"You see," she explained, "even before I saw you, my suspicions
were aroused and I determined to obtain some of the stuff they are
using up here, if possible. I realized it would be useless for me
to try to get it myself, so I got Miss McCann from the
Neighborhood House to try it. She got it and has turned the bottle
over to me."

"May I see it?" asked Craig eagerly.

Mrs. Sutphen reached hastily into her handbag, drew forth a small
brown glass bottle and handed it to him. Craig retreated into one
of the less dark side streets. There he pulled out the paraffinned
cork from the bottle, picked out a piece of cotton stuffed in the
neck of the bottle and poured out some flat tablets that showed a
glistening white in the palm of his hand. For an instant he
regarded them.

"I may keep these?" he asked.

"Certainly," replied Mrs. Sutphen. "That's what I had Miss McCann
get them for."

Kennedy dropped the bottle into his pocket.

"So that was the gang leader, 'Whitecap,'" he remarked as we
turned again to Broadway.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Sutphen. "At certain hours, I believe he can
be found at that cabaret selling this stuff, whatever it is, to
anyone who comes properly introduced. The thing seems to be so
open and notorious that it amounts to a scandal."

We parted a moment later, Mrs. Sutphen and Miss McCann to go to
the settlement house, Craig and I to continue our investigations.

"First of all, Walter," he said as we swung aboard an uptown car,
"I want to stop at the laboratory."

In his den, which had been the scene of so many triumphs, Kennedy
began a hasty examination of the tablets, powdering one and
testing it with one chemical after another.

"What are they?" I asked at length when he seemed to have found
the right reaction which gave him the clue.

"Happy dust," he answered briefly.

"Happy dust?" I repeated, looking at him a moment in doubt as to
whether he was joking or serious. "What is that?"

"The Tenderloin name for heroin--a comparatively new derivative of
morphine. It is really morphine treated with acetic acid which
renders it more powerful than morphine alone."

"How do they take them? What's the effect?" I asked.

"The person who uses heroin usually powders the tablets and snuffs
the powder up the nose," he answered. "In a short time, perhaps
only two or three weeks, one can become a confirmed victim of
'happy dust.' And while one is under its influence he is morally,
physically and mentally irresponsible."

Kennedy was putting away the paraphernalia he had used, meanwhile
talking about the drug. "One of the worst aspects of it, too," he
continued, "is the desire of the user to share his experience with
some one else. This passing on of the habit, which seems to be one
of the strongest desires of the drug fiend, makes him even more
dangerous to society than he would otherwise be. It makes it
harder for anyone once addicted to a drug to shake it off, for his
friends will give him no chance. The only thing to do is to get
the victim out of his environment and into an entirely new scene."

The laboratory table cleared again, Kennedy had dropped into a
deep study.

"Now, why was Mrs. Sutphen there?" he asked aloud. "I can't think
it was solely through her interest for that girl they call
Snowbird. She was interested in her, but she made no attempt to
interfere or to follow her. No, there must have been another
reason."

"You don't think she's a dope fiend herself, do you?" I asked
hurriedly.

Kennedy smiled. "Hardly, Walter. If she has any obsession on the
subject, it is more likely to lead her to actual fanaticism
against all stimulants and narcotics and everything connected with
them. No, you might possibly persuade me that two and two equal
five--but not seventeen. It's not very late. I think we might make
another visit to that cabaret and see whether the same thing is
going on yet."




CHAPTER XXVI

THE BINET TEST


We rode downtown again and again sauntered in, this time with the
theater crowd. Our first visit had been so quiet and
unostentatious that the second attracted no attention or comment
from the waiters, or anyone else.

As we sat down we glanced over, and there in his corner still was
Whitecap. Apparently his supply of the dope was inexhaustible, for
he was still dispensing it. As we watched the tenderloin habitues
come and go, I came soon to recognize the signs by the mere look
on the face--the pasty skin, the vacant eye, the nervous quiver of
the muscles as though every organ and every nerve were crying out
for more of the favorite nepenthe. Time and again I noticed the
victims as they sat at the tables, growing more and more haggard
and worn, until they could stand it no longer. Then they would
retire, sometimes after a visit across the floor to Whitecap, more
often directly, for they had stocked themselves up with the drug
evidently after the first visit to him. But always they would come
back, changed in appearance, with what seemed to be a new lease of
life, but nevertheless still as recognizable as drug victims.

It was not long, as we waited, before another woman, older than
Miss Sawtelle, but dressed in an extreme fashion, hurried into the
cabaret and with scarcely a look to right or left went directly to
Whitecap's corner. I noticed that she, too, had the look.

There was a surreptitious passing of a bottle in exchange for a
treasury note, and she dropped into the seat beside him.

Before he could interfere, she had opened the bottle, crushed a
tablet or two in a napkin, and was holding it to her face as
though breathing the most exquisite perfume. With one quick
inspiration of her breath after another, she was snuffing the
powder up her nose.

Whitecap with an angry gesture pulled the napkin from her face,
and one could fancy his snarl under his breath, "Say--do you want
to get me in wrong here?"

But it was too late. Some at least of the happy dust had taken
effect, at least enough to relieve the terrible pangs she must
have been suffering.

As she rose and retired, with a hasty apology to Whitecap for her
indiscretion, Kennedy turned to me and exclaimed, "Think of it.
The deadliest of all habits is the simplest. No hypodermic; no
pipe; no paraphernalia of any kind. It's terrible."

She returned to sit down and enjoy herself, careful not to obtrude
herself on Whitecap lest he might become angry at the mere sight
of her and treasure his anger up against the next time when she
would need the drug.

Already there was the most marvelous change in her. She seemed
captivated by the music, the dancing, the life which a few moments
before she had totally disregarded.

She was seated alone, not far from us, and as she glanced about
Kennedy caught her eye. She allowed her gaze to rest on us for a
moment, the signal for a mild flirtation which ended in our
exchange of tables and we found ourselves opposite the drug fiend,
who was following up the taking of the dope by a thin-stemmed
glass of a liqueur.

I do not recall the conversation, but it was one of those
inconsequential talks that Bohemians consider so brilliant and
everybody else so vapid. As we skimmed from one subject to
another, treating the big facts of life as if they were mere
incidents and the little as if they overshadowed all else, I could
see that Craig, who had a faculty of probing into the very soul of
anyone, when he chose, was gradually leading around to a subject
which I knew he wanted, above all others, to discuss.

It was not long before, as the most natural remark in the world
following something he had made her say, just as a clever
prestidigitator forces a card, he asked, "What was it I saw you
snuffing over in the booth--happy dust?"

She did not even take the trouble to deny it, but nodded a brazen
"Yes." "How did you come to use it first?" he asked, careful not
to give offense in either tone or manner.

"The usual way, I suppose," she replied with a laugh that sounded
harsh and grating. "I was ill and I found out what it was the
doctor was giving me."

"And then?"

"Oh, I thought I would use it only as long as it served my purpose
and, when that was over, give it up."

"But--?" prompted Craig hypnotically.

"Instead, I was soon using six, eight, ten tablets of heroin a
day. I found that I needed that amount in order to live. Then it
went up by leaps to twenty, thirty, forty."

"Suppose you couldn't get it, what then?"

"Couldn't get it?" she repeated with an unspeakable horror. "Once
I thought I'd try to stop. But my heart skipped beats; then it
seemed to pound away, as if trying to break through my ribs. I
don't think heroin is like other drugs. When one has her 'coke'--
that's cocaine--taken away, she feels like a rag. Fill her up and
she can do anything again. But, heroin--I think one might murder
to get it!"

The expression on the woman's face was almost tragic. I verily
believe that she meant it.

"Why," she cried, "if anyone had told me a year ago that the time
would ever come when I would value some tiny white tablets above
anything else in the world, yes, and even above my immortal soul,
I would have thought him a lunatic."

It was getting late, and as the woman showed no disposition to
leave, Kennedy and I excused ourselves.

Outside Craig looked at me keenly. "Can you guess who that was?"

"Although she didn't tell us her name," I replied, "I am morally
certain that it was Mrs. Garrett."

"Precisely," he answered, "and what a shame, too, for she must
evidently once have been a woman of great education and
refinement."

He shook his head sadly. "Walter, there isn't likely to be
anything that we can do for some hours now. I have a little
experiment I'd like to make. Suppose you publish for me a story in
the Star about the campaign against drugs. Tell about what we have
seen to-night, mention the cabaret by indirection and Whitecap
directly. Then we can sit back and see what happens. We've got to
throw a scare into them somehow, if we are going to smoke out
anyone higher up than Whitecap. But you'll have to be careful, for
if they suspect us our usefulness in the case will be over."

Together, Kennedy and I worked over our story far into the night
down at the Star office, and the following day waited to see
whether anything came of it.

It was with a great deal of interest tempered by fear that we
dropped into the cabaret the following evening. Fortunately no one
suspected us. In fact, having been there the night before, we had
established ourselves, as it were, and were welcomed as old
patrons and good spenders.

I noticed, however, that Whitecap was not there. The story had
been read by such of the dope fiends as had not fallen too far to
keep abreast of the times and these and the waiters were busy
quietly warning off a line of haggard-eyed, disappointed patrons
who came around, as usual.

Some of them were so obviously dependent on Whitecap that I almost
regretted having written the story, for they must have been
suffering the tortures of the damned.

It was in the midst of a reverie of this sort that a low
exclamation from Kennedy recalled my attention. There was Snowbird
with a man considerably older than herself. They had just come in
and were looking about frantically for Whitecap. But Whitecap had
been too frightened by the story in the Star to sell any more of
the magic happy dust openly in the cabaret, at least.

The pair, nerve-racked and exhausted, sat down mournfully in a
seat near us, and as they talked earnestly in low tones we had an
excellent opportunity for studying Armstrong for the first time.

He was not a bad-looking man, or even a weak one. In back of the
dissipation of the drugs one fancied he could read the story of a
brilliant life wrecked. But there was little left to admire or
respect. As the couple talked earnestly, the one so old, the other
so young in vice, I had to keep a tight rein on myself to prevent
my sympathy for the wretched girl getting the better of common
sense and kicking the older man out of doors.

Finally Armstrong rose to go, with a final imploring glance from
the girl. Obviously she had persuaded him to forage about to
secure the heroin, by hook or crook, now that the accustomed
source of supply was cut off so suddenly.

It was also really our first chance to study the girl carefully
under the light, for her entrance and exit the night before had
been so hurried that we had seen comparatively little of her.
Craig was watching her narrowly. Not only were the effects of the
drug plainly evident on her face, but it was apparent that the
snuffing the powdered tablets was destroying the bones in her
nose, through shrinkage of the blood vessels, as well as
undermining the nervous system and causing the brain to totter.

I was wondering whether Armstrong knew of any depot for the secret
distribution of the drug. I could not believe that Whitecap was
either the chief distributer or the financial head of the illegal
traffic. I wondered who indeed was the man higher up. Was he an
importer of the drug, or was he the representative of some
chemical company not averse to making an illegal dollar now and
then by dragging down his fellow man?

Kennedy and I were trying to act as if we were enjoying the
cabaret show and not too much interested in the little drama that
was being acted before us. I think little Miss Sawtelle noticed,
however, that we were looking often her way. I was amazed, too, on
studying her more closely to find that there was something
indefinably queer about her, aside from the marked effect of the
drugs she had been taking. What it was I was at a loss to
determine, but I felt sure from the expression on Kennedy's face
that he had noticed it also.

I was on the point of asking him if he, too, observed anything
queer in the girl, when Armstrong hurried in and handed her a
small package, then almost without a word stalked out again,
evidently as much to Snowbird's surprise as to our own.

She had literally seized the package, as though she were drowning
and grasping at a life buoy. Even the surprise at his hasty
departure could not prevent her, however, from literally tearing
the wrapper off, and in the sheltering shadow of the table cloth
pouring forth the little white pellets in her lap, counting them
as a miser counts his gold,

"The old thief!" she exclaimed aloud. "He's held out twenty-five!"

I don't know which it was that amazed me most, the almost childish
petulance and ungovernable temper of the girl which made her cry
out in spite of her surroundings and the circumstances, or the
petty rapacity of the man who could stoop to such a low level as
to rob her in this seeming underhand manner.

There was no time for useless repining now. The call of outraged
nature for its daily and hourly quota of poison was too
imperative. She dumped the pellets back into the bottle hastily,
and disappeared.

When she came back, it was with that expression I had come to know
so well. At least for a few hours there was a respite for her from
the terrific pangs she had been suffering. She was almost happy,
smiling. Even that false happiness, I felt, was superior to
Armstrong's moral sense blunted by drugs. I had begun to realize
how lying, stealing, crimes of all sorts might be laid at the door
of this great evil.

In her haste to get where she could snuff the heroin she had
forgotten a light wrap lying on her chair. As she returned for it,
it fell to the floor. Instantly Kennedy was on his feet, bending
over to pick it up.

She thanked him, and the smile lingered a moment on her face. It
was enough. It gave Kennedy the chance to pursue a conversation,
and in the free and easy atmosphere of the cabaret to invite her
to sit over at our table.

At least all her nervousness was gone and she chatted vivaciously.
Kennedy said little. He was too busy watching her. It was quite
the opposite of the case of Mrs. Garrett. Yet I was at a loss to
define what it was that I sensed.

Still the minutes sped past and we seemed to be getting on
famously. Unlike his action in the case of the older woman where
he had been sounding the depths of her heart and mind, in this
case his idea seemed to be to allow the childish prattle to come
out and perhaps explain itself.

However, at the end of half an hour when we seemed to be getting
no further along, Kennedy did not protest at her desire to leave
us, "to keep a date," as she expressed it.

"Waiter, the check, please," ordered Kennedy leisurely.

When he received it, he seemed to be in no great hurry to pay it,
but went over one item after another, then added up the footing
again.

"Strange how some of these waiters grow rich?" Craig remarked
finally with a gay smile.

The idea of waiters and money quickly brought some petty
reminiscences to her mind. While she was still talking, Craig
casually pulled a pencil out of his pocket and scribbled some
figures on the back of the waiter's check.

From where I was sitting beside him, I could see that he had
written some figures similar to the following:

5183 47395 654726 2964375 47293815 924738651 2146073859

"Here's a stunt," he remarked, breaking into the conversation at a
convenient point. "Can you repeat these numbers after me?"

Without waiting for her to make excuse, he said quickly "5183."
"5183," she repeated mechanically.

"47395," came in rapid succession, to which she replied, perhaps a
little slower than before,

"47395."

"Now, 654726," he said.

"654726," she repeated, I thought with some hesitation.

"Again, 2964375," he shot out.

"269," she hesitated, "73--" she stopped.

It was evident that she had reached the limit.

Kennedy smiled, paid the check and we parted at the door.

"What was all that rigmarole?" I inquired as the white figure
disappeared down the street.

"Part of the Binet test, seeing how many digits one can remember.
An adult ought to remember from eight to ten, in any order. But
she has the mentality of a child. That is the queer thing about
her. Chronologically she may be eighteen years or so old. Mentally
she is scarcely more than eight. Mrs. Sutphen was right. They have
made a fiend out of a mere child--a defective who never had a
chance against them."




CHAPTER XXVII

THE LIE DETECTOR


As the horror of it all dawned on me, I hated Armstrong worse than
ever, hated Whitecap, hated the man higher up, whoever he might
be, who was enriching himself out of the defective, as well as the
weakling, and the vicious--all three typified by Snowbird,
Armstrong and Whitecap.

Having no other place to go, pending further developments of the
publicity we had given the drug war in the Star, Kennedy and I
decided on a walk home in the bracing night air.

We had scarcely entered the apartment when the hall boy called to
us frantically: "Some one's been trying to get you all over town,
Professor Kennedy. Here's the message. I wrote it down. An attempt
has been made to poison Mrs. Sutphen. They said at the other end
of the line that you'd know."

We faced each other aghast.

"My God!" exclaimed Kennedy. "Has that been the effect of our
story, Walter? Instead of smoking out anyone--we've almost killed
some one."

As fast as a cab could whisk us around to Mrs. Sutphen's we
hurried.

"I warned her that if she mixed up in any such fight as this she
might expect almost anything," remarked Mr. Sutphen nervously, as
he met us in the reception room. "She's all right, now, I guess,
but if it hadn't been for the prompt work of the ambulance surgeon
I sent for, Dr. Coleman says she would have died in fifteen
minutes."

"How did it happen?" asked Craig.

"Why, she usually drinks a glass of vichy and milk before
retiring," replied Mr. Sutphen. "We don't know yet whether it was
the vichy or the milk that was poisoned, but Dr. Coleman thinks it
was chloral in one or the other, and so did the ambulance surgeon.
I tell you I was scared. I tried to get Coleman, but he was out on
a case, and I happened to think of the hospitals as probably the
quickest. Dr. Coleman came in just as the young surgeon was
bringing her around. He--oh, here he is now."

The famous doctor was just coming downstairs. He saw us, but, I
suppose, inasmuch as we did not belong to the Sutphen and Coleman
set, ignored us. "Mrs. Sutphen will be all right now," he said
reassuringly as he drew on his gloves. "The nurse has arrived, and
I have given her instructions what to do. And, by the way, my dear
Sutphen, I should advise you to deal firmly with her in that
matter about which her name is appearing in the papers. Women
nowadays don't seem to realize the dangers they run in mixing in
in all these reforms. I have ordered an analysis of both the milk
and vichy, but that will do little good unless we can find out who
poisoned it. And there are so many chances for things like that,
life is so complex nowadays--"

He passed out with scarcely a nod at us. Kennedy did not attempt
to question him. He was thinking rapidly.

"Walter, we have no time to lose," he exclaimed, seizing a
telephone that stood on a stand near by. "This is the time for
action. Hello--Police Headquarters, First Deputy O'Connor,
please."

As Kennedy waited I tried to figure out how it could have
happened. I wondered whether it might not have been Mrs. Garrett.
Would she stop at anything if she feared the loss of her favorite
drug? But then there were so many others and so many ways of
"getting" anybody who interfered with the drug traffic that it
seemed impossible to figure it out by pure deduction.

"Hello, O'Connor," I heard Kennedy say; "you read that story in
the Star this morning about the drug fiends at that Broadway
cabaret? Yes? Well, Jameson and I wrote it. It's part of the drug
war that Mrs. Sutphen has been waging. O'Connor, she's been
poisoned--oh, no--she's all right now. But I want you to send out
and arrest Whitecap and that fellow Armstrong immediately. I'm
going to put them through a scientific third degree up in the
laboratory to-night. Thank you. No--no matter how late it is,
bring them up."

Dr. Coleman had gone long since, Mr. Sutphen had absolutely no
interest further than the recovery of Mrs. Sutphen just now, and
Mrs. Sutphen was resting quietly and could not be seen.
Accordingly Kennedy and I hastened up to the laboratory to wait
until O'Connor could "deliver the goods."

It was not long before one of O'Connor's men came in with
Whitecap.

"While we're waiting," said Craig, "I wish you would just try this
little cut-out puzzle."

I don't know what Whitecap thought, but I know I looked at Craig's
invitation to "play blocks" as a joke scarcely higher in order
than the number repetition of Snowbird. Whitecap did it, however,
sullenly, and under compulsion, in, I should say about two
minutes.

"I have Armstrong here myself," called out the voice of our old
friend O'Connor, as he burst into the room.

"Good!" exclaimed Kennedy. "I shall be ready for him in just a
second. Have Whitecap held here in the anteroom while you bring
Armstrong into the laboratory. By the way, Walter, that was
another of the Binet tests, putting a man at solving puzzles. It
involves reflective judgment, one of the factors in executive
ability. If Whitecap had been defective, it would have taken him
five minutes to do that puzzle, if at all. So you see he is not in
the class with Miss Sawtelle. The test shows him to be shrewd. He
doesn't even touch his own dope. Now for Armstrong."

I knew enough of the underworld to set Whitecap down, however, as
a "lobbygow"--an agent for some one higher up, recruiting both the
gangs and the ranks of street women.

Before us, as O'Connor led in Armstrong, was a little machine with
a big black cylinder. By means of wires and electrodes Kennedy
attached it to Armstrong's chest.

"Now, Armstrong," he began in an even tone, "I want you to tell
the truth--the whole truth. You have been getting heroin tablets
from Whitecap."

"Yes, sir," replied the dope fiend defiantly.

"To-day you had to get them elsewhere."

No answer.

"Never mind," persisted Kennedy, still calm, "I know. Why,
Armstrong, you even robbed that girl of twenty-five tablets."

"I did not," shot out the answer.

"There were twenty-five short," accused Kennedy.

The two faced each other. Craig repeated his remark.

"Yes," replied Armstrong, "I held out the tablets, but it was not
for myself, I can get all I want. I did it because I didn't want
her to get above seventy-five a day. I have tried every way to
break her of the habit that has got me--and failed. But seventy-
five--is the limit!"

"A pretty story!" exclaimed O'Connor.

Craig laid his hand on his arm to check him, as he examined a
record registered on the cylinder of the machine.

"By the way, Armstrong, I want you to write me out a note that I
can use to get a hundred heroin tablets. You can write it all but
the name of the place where I can get them."

Armstrong was on the point of demurring, but the last sentence
reassured him. He would reveal nothing by it--yet.

Still the man was trembling like a leaf. He wrote:

"Give Whitecap one hundred shocks--A Victim."

For a moment Kennedy studied the note carefully. "Oh--er--I
forgot, Armstrong, but a few days ago an anonymous letter was sent
to Mrs. Sutphen, signed 'A Friend.' Do you know anything about
it?"

"A note?" the man repeated. "Mrs. Sutphen? I don't know anything
about any note, or Mrs. Sutphen either."

Kennedy was still studying his record. "This," he remarked slowly,
"is what I call my psychophysical test for falsehood. Lying, when
it is practiced by an expert, is not easily detected by the most
careful scrutiny of the liar's appearance and manner.

"However, successful means have been developed for the detection
of falsehood by the study of experimental psychology. Walter, I
think you will recall the test I used once, the psychophysical
factor of the character and rapidity of the mental process known
as the association of ideas?"

I nodded acquiescence.

"Well," he resumed, "in criminal jurisprudence, I find an even
more simple and more subjective test which has been recently
devised. Professor Stoerring of Bonn has found out that feelings
of pleasure and pain produce well-defined changes in respiration.
Similar effects are produced by lying, according to the famous
Professor Benussi of Graz.

"These effects are unerring, unequivocal. The utterance of a false
statement increases respiration; of a true statement decreases.
The importance and scope of these discoveries are obvious."

Craig was figuring rapidly on a piece of paper. "This is a certain
and objective criterion," he continued as he figured, "between
truth and falsehood. Even when a clever liar endeavors to escape
detection by breathing irregularly, it is likely to fail, for
Benussi has investigated and found that voluntary changes in
respiration don't alter the result. You see, the quotient obtained
by dividing the time of inspiration by the time of expiration
gives me the result."

He looked up suddenly. "Armstrong, you are telling the truth about
some things--downright lies about others. You are a drug fiend--
but I will be lenient with you, for one reason. Contrary to
everything that I would have expected, you are really trying to
save that poor half-witted girl whom you love from the terrible
habit that has gripped you. That is why you held out the quarter
of the one hundred tablets. That is why you wrote the note to Mrs.
Sutphen, hoping that she might be treated in some institution."

Kennedy paused as a look of incredulity passed over Armstrong's
face.

"Another thing you said was true," added Kennedy. "You can get all
the heroin you want. Armstrong, you will put the address of that
place on the outside of the note, or both you and Whitecap go to
jail. Snowbird will be left to her own devices--she can get all
the 'snow,' as some of you fiends call it, that she wants from
those who might exploit her."

"Please, Mr. Kennedy," pleaded Armstrong.

"No," interrupted Craig, before the drug fiend could finish. "That
is final. I must have the name of that place."

In a shaky hand Armstrong wrote again. Hastily Craig stuffed the
note into his pocket, and ten minutes later we were mounting the
steps of a big brownstone house on a fashionable side street just
around the corner from Fifth Avenue.

As the door was opened by an obsequious colored servant, Craig
handed him the scrap of paper signed by the password, "A Victim."

Imitating the cough of a confirmed dope user, Craig was led into a
large waiting room.

"You're in pretty bad shape, sah," commented the servant.

Kennedy nudged me and, taking the cue, I coughed myself red in the
face.

"Yes," he said. "Hurry--please."

The servant knocked at a door, and as it was opened we caught a
glimpse of Mrs. Garrett in negligee.

"What is it, Sam?" she asked.

"Two gentlemen for some heroin tablets, ma'am."

"Tell them to go to the chemical works--not to my office, Sam,"
growled a man's voice inside.

With a quick motion, Kennedy had Mrs. Garrett by the wrist.

"I knew it," he ground out. "It was all a fake about how you got
the habit. You wanted to get it, so you could get and hold him.
And neither one of you would stop at anything, not even the murder
of your sister, to prevent the ruin of the devilish business you
have built up in manufacturing and marketing the stuff."

He pulled the note from the hand of the surprised negro. "I had
the right address, the place where you sell hundreds of ounces of
the stuff a week--but I preferred to come to the doctor's office
where I could find you both."

Kennedy had firmly twisted her wrist until, with a little scream
of pain, she let go the door handle. Then he gently pushed her
aside, and the next instant Craig had his hand inside the collar
of Dr. Coleman, society physician, proprietor of the Coleman
Chemical Works downtown, the real leader of the drug gang that was
debauching whole sections of the metropolis.




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE FAMILY SKELETON


Surprised though we were at the unmasking of Dr. Coleman, there
was nothing to do but to follow the thing out. In such cases we
usually ran into the greatest difficulty--organized vice. This was
no exception.

Even when cases involved only a clever individual or a prominent
family, it was the same. I recall, for example, the case of a
well-known family in a New York suburb, which was particularly
difficult. It began in a rather unusual manner, too.

"Mr. Kennedy--I am ruined--ruined."

It was early one morning that the telephone rang and I answered
it. A very excited German, breathless and incoherent, was
evidently at the other end of the wire.

I handed the receiver to Craig and picked up the morning paper
lying on the table.

"Minturn--dead?" I heard Craig exclaim. "In the paper this
morning? I'll be down to see you directly."

Kennedy almost tore the paper from me. In the next to the end
column where late news usually is dropped was a brief account of
the sudden death of Owen Minturn, one of the foremost criminal
lawyers of the city, in Josephson's Baths downtown.

It ended: "It is believed by the coroner that Mr. Minturn was
shocked to death and evidence is being sought to show that two
hundred and forty volts of electricity had been thrown into the
attorney's body while he was in the electric bath. Joseph
Josephson, the proprietor of the bath, who operated the
switchboard, is being held, pending the completion of the
inquiry."

As Kennedy hastily ran his eye over the paragraphs, he became more
and more excited himself.

"Walter," he cried, as he finished, "I don't believe that that was
an accident at all."

"Why?" I asked.

He already had his hat on, and I knew he was going to Josephson's
breakfastless. I followed reluctantly.

"Because," he answered, as we hustled along in the early morning
crowd, "it was only yesterday afternoon that I saw Minturn at his
office and he made an appointment with me for this very morning.
He was a very secretive man, but he did tell me this much, that he
feared his life was in danger and that it was in some way
connected with that Pearcy case up in Stratfield, Connecticut,
where he has an estate. You have read of the case?"

Indeed I had. It had seemed to me to be a particularly
inexplicable affair. Apparently a whole family had been poisoned
and a few days before old Mr. Randall Pearcy, a retired
manufacturer, had died after a brief but mysterious illness.

Pearcy had been married a year or so ago to Annette Oakleigh, a
Broadway comic opera singer, who was his second wife. By his first
marriage he had had two children, a son, Warner, and a daughter,
Isabel.

Warner Pearcy, I had heard, had blazed a vermilion trail along the
Great White Way, but his sister was of the opposite temperament,
interested in social work, and had attracted much attention by
organizing a settlement in the slums of Stratfield for the uplift
of the workers in the Pearcy and other mills.

Broadway, as well as Stratfield, had already woven a fantastic
background, for the mystery and hints had been broadly made that
Annette Oakleigh had been indiscreetly intimate with a young
physician in the town, a Dr. Gunther, a friend, by the way, of
Minturn. "There has been no trial yet," went on Kennedy, "but
Minturn seems to have appeared before the coroner's jury at
Stratfield and to have asserted the innocence of Mrs. Pearcy and
that of Dr. Gunther so well that, although the jury brought in a
verdict of murder by poison by some one unknown, there has been no
mention of the name of anyone else. The coroner simply adjourned
the inquest so that a more careful analysis might be made of the
vital organs. And now comes this second tragedy in New York."

"What was the poison?" I asked. "Have they found out yet?"

"They are pretty sure, so Minturn told me, that it was lead
poisoning. The fact not generally known is," he added in a lower
tone, "that the cases were not confined to the Pearcy house. They
had even extended to Minturn's too, although about that he said
little yesterday. The estates up there adjoin, you know."

Owen Minturn, I recalled, had gained a formidable reputation by
his successful handling of cases from the lowest strata of society
to the highest. Indeed it was a byword that his appearance in
court indicated two things--the guilt of the accused and a verdict
of acquittal.

"Of course," Craig pursued as we were jolted from station to
station downtown, "you know they say that Minturn never kept a
record of a case. But written records were as nothing compared to
what that man must have carried only in his head."

It was a common saying that, if Minturn should tell all he knew,
he might hang half a dozen prominent men in society. That was not
strictly true, perhaps, but it was certain that a revelation of
the things confided to him by clients which were never put down on
paper would have caused a series of explosions that would have
wrecked at least some portions of the social and financial world.
He had heard much and told little, for he had been a sort of
"father confessor."

Had Minturn, I wondered, known the name of the real criminal?

Josephson's was a popular bath on Forty-second Street, where many
of the "sun-dodgers" were accustomed to recuperate during the day
from their arduous pursuit of pleasure at night and prepare for
the resumption of their toil during the coming night. It was more
than that, however, for it had a reputation for being conducted
really on a high plane.

We met Josephson downstairs. He had been released under bail,
though the place was temporarily closed and watched over by the
agents of the coroner and the police. Josephson appeared to be a
man of some education and quite different from what I had imagined
from hearing him over the telephone.

"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," he exclaimed, "who now will come to my baths?
Last night they were crowded, but to-day--"

He ended with an expressive gesture of his hands.

"One customer I have surely lost, young Mr. Pearcy," he went on.

"Warner Pearcy?" asked Craig. "Was he here last night?"

"Nearly every night," replied Josephson, now glib enough as his
first excitement subsided and his command of English returned. "He
was a neighbor of Mr. Minturn's, I hear. Oh, what luck!" growled
Josephson as the name recalled him to his present troubles.

"Well," remarked Kennedy with an attempt at reassurance as if to
gain the masseur's confidence, "I know as well as you that it is
often amazing what a tremendous shock a man may receive and yet
not be killed, and no less amazing how small a shock may kill. It
all depends on circumstances."

Josephson shot a covert look at Kennedy. "Yes," he reiterated,
"but I cannot see how it COULD be. If the lights had become short-
circuited with the bath, that might have thrown a current into the
bath. But they were not. I know it."

"Still," pursued Kennedy, watching him keenly, "it is not all a
question of current. To kill, the shock must pass through a vital
organ--the brain, the heart, the upper spinal cord. So, a small
shock may kill and a large one may not. If it passes in one foot
and out by the other, the current isn't likely to be as dangerous
as if it passes in by a hand or foot and then out by a foot or
hand. In one case it passes through no vital organ; in the other
it is very likely to do so. You see, the current can flow through
the body only when it has a place of entrance and a place of exit.
In all cases of accident from electric light wires, the victim is
touching some conductor--damp earth, salty earth, water, something
that gives the current an outlet and--"

"But even if the lights had been short-circuited," interrupted
Josephson, "Mr. Minturn would have escaped injury unless he had
touched the taps of the bath. Oh, no, sir, accidents in the
medical use of electricity are rare. They don't happen here in my
establishment," he maintained stoutly. "The trouble was that the
coroner, without any knowledge of the physiological effects of
electricity on the body, simply jumped at once to the conclusion
that it was the electric bath that did it."

"Then it was for medical treatment that Mr. Minturn was taking the
bath?" asked Kennedy, quickly taking up the point.

"Yes, of course," answered the masseur, eager to explain. "You are
acquainted with the latest treatment for lead poisoning by means
of the electric bath?"

Kennedy nodded. "I know that Sir Thomas Oliver, the English
authority who has written much on dangerous trades, has tried it
with marked success."

"Well, sir, that was why Mr. Minturn was here. He came here
introduced by a Dr. Gunther of Stratfield."

"Indeed?" remarked Kennedy colorlessly, though I could see that it
interested him, for evidently Minturn had said nothing of being
himself a sufferer from the poison. "May I see the bath?"

"Surely," said Josephson, leading the way upstairs.

It was an oaken tub with metal rods on the two long sides, from
which depended prismatic carbon rods. Kennedy examined it closely.

"This is what we call a hydro-electric bath," Josephson explained.
"Those rods on the sides are the electrodes. You see there are no
metal parts in the tub itself. The rods are attached by wiring to
a wall switch out here."

He pointed to the next room. Kennedy examined the switch with
care.

"From it," went on Josephson, "wires lead to an accumulator
battery of perhaps thirty volts. It uses very little current. Dr.
Gunther tested it and found it all right."

Craig leaned over the bath, and from the carbon electrodes scraped
off a white powder in minute crystals.

"Ordinarily," Josephson pursued, "lead is eliminated by the skin
and kidneys. But now, as you know, it is being helped along by
electrolysis. I talked to Dr. Gunther about it. It is his opinion
that it is probably eliminated as a chloride from the tissues of
the body to the electrodes in the bath in which the patient is
wholly or partly immersed. On the positive electrodes we get the
peroxide. On the negative there is a spongy metallic form of lead.
But it is only a small amount."

"The body has been removed?" asked Craig.

"Not yet," the masseur replied. "The coroner has ordered it kept
here under guard until he makes up his mind what disposition to
have made of it."

We were next ushered into a little room on the same floor, at the
door of which was posted an official from the coroner.

"First of all," remarked Craig, as he drew back the sheet and
began, a minute examination of the earthly remains of the great
lawyer, "there are to be considered the safeguards of the human
body against the passage through it of a fatal electric current--
the high electric resistance of the body itself. It is
particularly high when the current must pass through joints such
as wrists, knees, elbows, and quite high when the bones of the
head are concerned. Still, there might have been an incautious
application of the current to the head, especially when the
subject is a person of advanced age or latent cerebral disease,
though I don't know that that fits Mr. Minturn. That's strange,"
he muttered, looking up, puzzled. "I can find no mark of a burn on
the body--absolutely no mark of anything."

"That's what I say," put in Josephson, much pleased by what
Kennedy said, for he had been waiting anxiously to see what Craig
discovered on his own examination. "It's impossible."

"It's all the more remarkable," went on Craig, half to himself and
ignoring Josephson, "because burns due to electric currents are
totally unlike those produced in other ways. They occur at the
point of contact, usually about the arms and hands, or the head.
Electricity is much to be feared when it involves the cranial
cavity." He completed his examination of the head which once had
carried secrets which themselves must have been incandescent.

"Then, too, such burns are most often something more than
superficial, for considerable heat is developed which leads to
massive destruction and carbonization of the tissues to a
considerable depth. I have seen actual losses of substance--a lump
of killed flesh surrounded by healthy tissues. Besides, such burns
show an unexpected indolence when compared to the violent pains of
ordinary burns. Perhaps that is due to the destruction of the
nerve endings. How did Minturn die? Was he alone? Was he dead when
he was discovered?"

"He was alone," replied Josephson, slowly endeavoring to tell it
exactly as he had seen it, "but that's the strange part of it. He
seemed to be suffering from a convulsion. I think he complained at
first of a feeling of tightness of his throat and a twitching of
the muscles of his hands and feet. Anyhow, he called for help. I
was up here and we rushed in. Dr. Gunther had just brought him and
then had gone away, after introducing him, and showing him the
bath."

Josephson proceeded slowly, evidently having been warned that
anything he said might be used against him. "We carried him, when
he was this way, into this very room. But it was only for a short
time. Then came a violent convulsion. It seemed to extend rapidly
all over his body. His legs were rigid, his feet bent, his head
back. Why, he was resting only on his heels and the back of his
head. You see, Mr. Kennedy, that simply could not be the electric
shock."

"Hardly," commented Kennedy, looking again at the body. "It looks
more like a tetanus convulsion. Yet there does not seem to be any
trace of a recent wound that might have caused lockjaw. How did he
look?"

"Oh, his face finally became livid," replied Josephson. "He had a
ghastly, grinning expression, his eyes were wide, there was foam
on his mouth, and his breathing was difficult."

"Not like tetanus, either," revised Craig. "There the convulsion
usually begins with the face and progresses to the other muscles.
Here it seems to have gone the other way."

"That lasted a minute or so," resumed the masseur. "Then he sank
back--perfectly limp. I thought he was dead. But he was not. A
cold sweat broke out all over him and he was as if in a deep
sleep."

"What did you do?" prompted Kennedy.

"I didn't know what to do. I called an ambulance. But the moment
the door opened, his body seemed to stiffen again. He had one
other convulsion--and when he grew limp he was dead."




CHAPTER XXIX

THE LEAD POISONER


It was a gruesome recital and I was glad to leave the baths
finally with Kennedy. Josephson was quite evidently relieved at
the attitude Craig had taken toward the coroner's conclusion that
Minturn had been shocked to death. As far as I could see, however,
it added to rather than cleared up the mystery.

Craig went directly uptown to his laboratory, in contrast with our
journey down, in abstracted silence, which was his manner when he
was trying to reason out some particularly knotty problem.

As Kennedy placed the white crystals which he had scraped off the
electrodes of the tub on a piece of dark paper in the laboratory,
he wet the tip of his finger and touched just the minutest grain
to his tongue.

The look on his face told me that something unexpected had
happened. He held a similar minute speck of the powder out to me.

It was an intensely bitter taste and very persistent, for even
after we had rinsed out our mouths it seemed to remain, clinging
persistently to the tongue.

He placed some of the grains in some pure water. They dissolved
only slightly, if at all. But in a tube in which he mixed a little
ether and chloroform they dissolved fairly readily.

Next, without a word, he poured just a drop of strong sulphuric
acid on the crystals. There was not a change in them.

Quickly he reached up into the rack and took down a bottle labeled
"Potassium Bichromate."

"Let us see what an oxidizing agent will do," he remarked.

As he gently added the bichromate, there came a most marvelous,
kaleidoscopic change. From being almost colorless, the crystals
turned instantly to a deep blue, then rapidly to purple, lilac,
red, and then the red slowly faded away and they became colorless
again.

"What is it?" I asked, fascinated. "Lead?"

"N-no," he replied, the lines of his forehead deepening. "No. This
is sulphate of strychnine."

"Sulphate of strychnine?" I repeated in astonishment.

"Yes," he reiterated slowly. "I might have suspected that from the
convulsions, particularly when Josephson said that the noise and
excitement of the arrival of the ambulance brought on the fatal
paroxysm. That is symptomatic. But I didn't fully realize it until
I got up here and tasted the stuff. Then I suspected, for that
taste is characteristic. Even one part diluted seventy thousand
times gives that decided bitter taste."

"That's all very well," I remarked, recalling the intense
bitterness yet on my tongue. "But how do you suppose it was
possible for anyone to administer it? It seems to me that he would
have said something, if he had swallowed even the minutest part of
it. He must have known it. Yet apparently he didn't. At least he
said nothing about it--or else Josephson is concealing something."

"Did he swallow it--necessarily?" queried Kennedy, in a tone
calculated to show me that the chemical world, at least, was full
of a number of things, and there was much to learn.

"Well, I suppose if it had been given hypodermically, it would
have a more violent effect," I persisted, trying to figure out a
way that the poison might have been given.

"Even more unlikely," objected Craig, with a delight at
discovering a new mystery that to me seemed almost fiendish. "No,
he would certainly have felt a needle, have cried out and said
something about it, if anyone had tried that. This poisoned needle
business isn't as easy as some people seem to think nowadays."

"Then he might have absorbed it from the water," I insisted,
recalling a recent case of Kennedy's and adding, "by osmosis."

"You saw how difficult it was to dissolve in water," Craig
rejected quietly.

"Well, then," I concluded in desperation. "How could it have been
introduced?"

"I have a theory," was all he would say, reaching for the railway
guide, "but it will take me up to Stratfield to prove it."

His plan gave us a little respite and we paused long enough to
lunch, for which breathing space I was duly thankful. The forenoon
saw us on the train, Kennedy carrying a large and cumbersome
package which he brought down with him from the laboratory and
which we took turns in carrying, though he gave no hint of its
contents.

We arrived in Stratfield, a very pretty little mill town, in the
middle of the afternoon, and with very little trouble were
directed to the Pearcy house, after Kennedy had checked the parcel
with the station agent.

Mrs. Pearcy, to whom we introduced ourselves as reporters of the
Star, was a tall blonde. I could not help thinking that she made a
particularly dashing widow. With her at the time was Isabel
Pearcy, a slender girl whose sensitive lips and large, earnest
eyes indicated a fine, high-strung nature.

Even before we had introduced ourselves, I could not help thinking
that there was a sort of hostility between the women. Certainly it
was evident that there was as much difference in temperament as
between the butterfly and the bee.

"No," replied the elder woman quickly to a request from Kennedy
for an interview, "there is nothing that I care to say to the
newspapers. They have said too much already about this--
unfortunate affair."

Whether it was imagination or not, I fancied that there was an air
of reserve about both women. It struck me as a most peculiar
household. What was it? Was each suspicious of the other? Was each
concealing something?

I managed to steal a glance at Kennedy's face to see whether there
was anything to confirm my own impression. He was watching Mrs.
Pearcy closely as she spoke. In fact his next few questions,
inconsequential as they were, seemed addressed to her solely for
the purpose of getting her to speak.

I followed his eyes and found that he was watching her mouth, in
reality. As she answered I noted her beautiful white teeth.
Kennedy himself had trained me to notice small things, and at the
time, though I thought it was trivial, I recall noticing on her
gums, where they joined the teeth, a peculiar bluish-black line.

Kennedy had been careful to address only Mrs. Pearcy at first, and
as he continued questioning her, she seemed to realize that he was
trying to lead her along.

"I must positively refuse to talk any more," she repeated finally,
rising. "I am not to be tricked into saying anything."

She had left the room, evidently expecting that Isabel would
follow. She did not. In fact I felt that Miss Pearcy was visibly
relieved by the departure of her stepmother. She seemed anxious to
ask us something and now took the first opportunity.

"Tell me," she said eagerly, "how did Mr. Minturn die? What do
they really think of it in New York?"

"They think it is poisoning," replied Craig, noting the look on
her face.

She betrayed nothing, as far as I could see, except a natural
neighborly interest. "Poisoning?" she repeated. "By what?"

"Lead poisoning," he replied evasively.

She said nothing. It was evident that, slip of a girl though she
was, she was quite the match of anyone who attempted leading
questions. Kennedy changed his method.

"You will pardon me," he said apologetically, "for recalling what
must be distressing. But we newspapermen often have to do things
and ask questions that are distasteful. I believe it is rumored
that your father suffered from lead poisoning?"

"Oh, I don't know what it was--none of us do," she cried, almost
pathetically. "I had been living at the settlement until lately.
When father grew worse, I came home. He had such strange visions--
hallucinations, I suppose you would call them. In the daytime he
would be so very morose and melancholy. Then, too, there were
terrible pains in his stomach, and his eyesight began to fail.
Yes, I believe that Dr. Gunther did say it was lead poisoning.
But--they have said so many things--so many things," she repeated,
plainly distressed at the subject of her recent bereavement.

"Your brother is not at home?" asked Kennedy, quickly changing the
subject.

"No," she answered, then with a flash as though lifting the veil
of a confidence, added: "You know, neither Warner nor I have lived
here much this year. He has been in New York most of the time and
I have been at the settlement, as I already told you."

She hesitated, as if wondering whether she should say more, then
added quickly: "It has been repeated often enough; there is no
reason why I shouldn't say it to you. Neither of us exactly
approved of father's marriage."

She checked herself and glanced about, somewhat with the air of
one who has suddenly considered the possibility of being
overheard.

"May I have a glass of water?" asked Kennedy suddenly.

"Why, certainly," she answered, going to the door, apparently
eager for an excuse to find out whether there was some one on the
other side of it.

There was not, nor any indication that there had been.

"Evidently she does not have any suspicions of THAT," remarked
Kennedy in an undertone, half to himself.

I had no chance to question him, for she returned almost
immediately. Instead of drinking the water, however, he held it
carefully up to the light. It was slightly turbid.

"You drink the water from the tap?" he asked, as he poured some of
it into a sterilized vial which he drew quickly from his vest
pocket.

"Certainly," she replied, for the moment nonplussed at his strange
actions. "Everybody drinks the town water in Stratfield."

A few more questions, none of which were of importance, and
Kennedy and I excused ourselves.

At the gate, instead of turning toward the town, however, Kennedy
went on and entered the grounds of the Minturn house next door.
The lawyer, I had understood, was a widower and, though he lived
in Stratfield only part of the time, still maintained his house
there.

We rang the bell and a middle-aged housekeeper answered.

"I am from the water company," he began politely. "We are testing
the water, perhaps will supply consumers with filters. Can you let
me have a sample?"

She did not demur, but invited us in. As she drew the water, Craig
watched her hands closely. She seemed to have difficulty in
holding the glass, and as she handed it to him, I noticed a
peculiar hanging down of the wrist. Kennedy poured the sample into
a second vial, and I noticed that it was turbid, too. With no
mention of the tragedy to her employer, he excused himself, and we
walked slowly back to the road.

Between the two houses Kennedy paused, and for several moments
appeared to be studying them.

We walked slowly back along the road to the town. As we passed the
local drug store, Kennedy turned and sauntered in.

He found it easy enough to get into conversation with the
druggist, after making a small purchase, and in the course of a
few minutes we found ourselves gossiping behind the partition that
shut off the arcana of the prescription counter from the rest of
the store.

Gradually Kennedy led the conversation around to the point which
he wanted, and asked, "I wish you'd let me fix up a little
sulphureted hydrogen."

"Go ahead," granted the druggist good-naturedly. "I guess you can
do it. You know as much about drugs as I do. I can stand the
smell, if you can."

Kennedy smiled and set to work.

Slowly he passed the gas through the samples of water he had taken
from the two houses. As he did so the gas, bubbling through, made
a blackish precipitate.

"What is it?" asked the druggist curiously.

"Lead sulphide," replied Kennedy, stroking his chin. "This is an
extremely delicate test. Why, one can get a distinct brownish
tinge if lead is present in even incredibly minute quantities."

He continued to work over the vials ranged on the table before
him.

"The water contains, I should say, from ten to fifteen hundredths
of a grain of lead to the gallon," he remarked finally.

"Where did it come from?" asked the druggist, unable longer to
restrain his curiosity.

"I got it up at Pearcy's," Kennedy replied frankly, turning to
observe whether the druggist might betray any knowledge of it.

"That's strange," he replied in genuine surprise. "Our water in
Stratfield is supplied by a company to a large area, and it has
always seemed to me to be of great organic purity."

"But the pipes are of lead, are they not?" asked Kennedy.

"Y-yes," answered the druggist, "I think in most places the
service pipes are of lead. But," he added earnestly as he saw the
implication of his admission, "water has never to my knowledge
been found to attack the pipes so as to affect its quality
injuriously."

He turned his own faucet and drew a glassful. "It is normally
quite clear," he added, holding the glass up.

It was in fact perfectly clear, and when he passed some of the gas
through it nothing happened at all.

Just then a man lounged into the store.

"Hello, Doctor," greeted the druggist. "Here are a couple of
fellows that have been investigating the water up at Pearcy's.
They've found lead in it. That ought to interest you. This is Dr.
Gunther," he introduced, turning to us.

It was an unexpected encounter, one I imagine that Kennedy might
have preferred to take place under other circumstances. But he was
equal to the occasion.

"We've been sent up here to look into the case for the New York
Star," Kennedy said quickly. "I intended to come around to see
you, but you have saved me the trouble."

Dr. Gunther looked from one of us to the other. "Seems to me the
New York papers ought to have enough to do without sending men all
over the country making news," he grunted.

"Well," drawled Kennedy quietly, "there seems to be a most
remarkable situation up there at Pearcy's and Minturn's, too. As
nearly as I can make out several people there are suffering from
unmistakable signs of lead poisoning. There are the pains in the
stomach, the colic, and then on the gums is that characteristic
line of plumbic sulphide, the distinctive mark produced by lead.
There is the wrist-drop, the eyesight affected, the partial
paralysis, the hallucinations and a condition in old Pearcy's case
almost bordering on insanity--to enumerate the symptoms that seem
to be present in varying degrees in various persons in the two
houses."

Gunther looked at Kennedy, as if in doubt just how to take him.

"That's what the coroner says, too--lead poisoning," put in the
druggist, himself as keen as anyone else for a piece of local
news, and evidently not averse to stimulating talk from Dr.
Gunther, who had been Pearcy's physician.

"That all seems to be true enough," replied Gunther at length
guardedly. "I recognized that some time ago."

"Why do you think it affects each so differently?" asked the
druggist.

Dr. Gunther settled himself easily back in a chair to speak as one
having authority. "Well," he began slowly, "Miss Pearcy, of
course, hasn't been living there much until lately. As for the
others, perhaps this gentleman here from the Star knows that lead,
once absorbed, may remain latent in the system and then make
itself felt. It is like arsenic, an accumulative poison, slowly
collecting in the body until the limit is reached, or until the
body, becoming weakened from some other cause, gives way to it."

He shifted his position slowly, and went on, as if defending the
course of action he had taken in the case.

"Then, too, you know, there is an individual as well as family and
sex susceptibility to lead. Women are especially liable to lead
poisoning, but then perhaps in this case Mrs. Pearcy comes of a
family that is very resistant. There are many factors. Personally,
I don't think Pearcy himself was resistant. Perhaps Minturn was
not, either. At any rate, after Pearcy's death, it was I who
advised Minturn to take the electrolysis cure in New York. I took
him down there," added Gunther. "Confound it, I wish I had stayed
with him. But I always found Josephson perfectly reliable in
hydrotherapy with other patients I sent to him, and I understood
that he had been very successful with cases sent to him by many
physicians in the city." He paused and I waited anxiously to see
whether Kennedy would make some reference to the discovery of the
strychnine salts.

"Have you any idea how the lead poisoning could have been caused?"
asked Kennedy instead.

Dr. Gunther shook his head. "It is a puzzle to me," he answered.
"I am sure of only one thing. It could not be from working in
lead, for it is needless to say that none of them worked."

"Food?" Craig suggested.

The doctor considered. "I had thought of that. I know that many
cases of lead poisoning have been traced to the presence of the
stuff in ordinary foods, drugs and drinks. I have examined the
foods, especially the bread. They don't use canned goods. I even
went so far as to examine the kitchen ware to see if there could
be anything wrong with the glazing. They don't drink wines and
beers, into which now and then the stuff seems to get."

"You seem to have a good grasp of the subject," flattered Kennedy,
as we rose to go. "I can hardly blame you for neglecting the
water, since everyone here seems to be so sure of the purity of
the supply."

Gunther said nothing. I was not surprised, for, at the very least,
no one likes to have an outsider come in and put his finger
directly on the raw spot. What more there might be to it, I could
only conjecture.

We left the druggist's and Kennedy, glancing at his watch,
remarked: "If you will go down to the station, Walter, and get
that package we left there, I shall be much obliged to you. I want
to make just one more stop, at the office of the water company,
and I think I shall just about have time for it. There's a pretty
good restaurant across the street. Meet me there, and by that time
I shall know whether to carry out a little plan I have outlined or
not."




CHAPTER XXX

THE ELECTROLYTIC MURDER


We dined leisurely, which seemed strange to me, for it was not
Kennedy's custom to let moments fly uselessly when he was on a
case. However, I soon found out why it was. He was waiting for
darkness.

As soon as the lights began to glow in the little stores on the
main street, we sallied forth, taking the direction of the Pearcy
and Minturn houses.

On the way he dropped into the hardware store and purchased a
light spade and one of the small pocket electric flashlights,
about which he wrapped a piece of cardboard in such a way as to
make a most effective dark lantern.

We trudged along in silence, occasionally changing from carrying
the heavy package to the light spade.

Both the Pearcy and Minturn houses were in nearly total darkness
when we arrived. They set well back from the road and were
plentifully shielded by shrubbery. Then, too, at night it was not
a much frequented neighborhood. We could easily hear the footsteps
of anyone approaching on the walk, and an occasional automobile
gliding past did not worry us in the least.

"I have calculated carefully from an examination of the water
company's map," said Craig, "just where the water pipe of the two
houses branches off from the main in the road."

After a measurement or two from some landmark, we set to work a
few feet inside, under cover of the bushes and the shadows, like
two grave diggers.

Kennedy had been wielding the spade vigorously for a few minutes
when it touched something metallic. There, just beneath the frost
line, we came upon the service pipe.

He widened the hole, and carefully scraped off the damp earth that
adhered to the pipe. Next he found a valve where he shut off the
water and cut out a small piece of the pipe.

"I hope they don't suspect anything like this in the houses with
their water cut off," he remarked as he carefully split the piece
open lengthwise and examined it under the light.

On the interior of the pipe could be seen patchy lumps of white
which projected about an eighth of an inch above the internal
surface. As the pipe dried in the warm night air, they could
easily be brushed off as a white powder.

"What is it--strychnine?" I asked.

"No," he replied, regarding it thoughtfully with some
satisfaction. "That is lead carbonate. There can be no doubt that
the turbidity of the water was due to this powder in suspension. A
little dissolves in the water, while the scales and incrustations
in fine particles are carried along in the current. As a matter of
fact the amount necessary to make the water poisonous need not be
large."

He applied a little instrument to the cut ends of the pipe. As I
bent over, I could see the needle on its dial deflected just a
bit.

"My voltmeter," he said, reading it, "shows that there is a
current of about 1.8 volts passing through this pipe all the
time."

"Electrolysis of water pipes!" I exclaimed, thinking of statements
I had heard by engineers. "That's what they mean by stray or
vagabond currents, isn't it?"

He had seized the lantern and was eagerly following up and down
the line of the water pipe. At last he stopped, with a low
exclamation, at a point where an electric light wire supplying the
Minturn cottage crossed overhead. Fastened inconspicuously to the
trunk of a tree which served as a support for the wire was another
wire which led down from it and was buried in the ground.

Craig turned up the soft earth as fast as he could, until he
reached the pipe at this point. There was the buried wire wound
several times around it.

As quickly and as neatly as he could he inserted a connection
between the severed ends of the pipe to restore the flow of water
to the houses, turned on the water and covered up the holes he had
dug. Then he unwrapped the package which we had tugged about all
day, and in a narrow path between the bushes which led to the
point where the wire had tapped the electric light feed he placed
in a shallow hole in the ground a peculiar apparatus.

As nearly as I could make it out, it consisted of two flat
platforms between which, covered over and projected, was a slip of
paper which moved forward, actuated by clockwork, and pressed on
by a sort of stylus. Then he covered it over lightly with dirt so
that, unless anyone had been looking for it, it would never be
noticed.

It was late when we reached the city again, but Kennedy had one
more piece of work and that devolved on me. All the way down on
the train he had been writing and rewriting something.

"Walter," he said, as the train pulled into the station, "I want
that published in to-morrow's papers."

I looked over what he had written. It was one of the most
sensational stories I have ever fathered, beginning, "Latest of
the victims of the unknown poisoner of whole families in
Stratfield, Connecticut, is Miss Isabel Pearcy, whose father,
Randall Pearcy, died last week."

I knew that it was a "plant" of some kind, for so far he had
discovered no evidence that Miss Pearcy had been affected. What
his purpose was, I could not guess, but I got the story printed.

The next morning early Kennedy was quietly at work in the
laboratory.

"What is this treatment of lead poisoning by electrolysis?" I
asked, now that there had come a lull when I might get an
intelligible answer. "How does it work?"

"Brand new, Walter," replied Kennedy. "It has been discovered that
ions will flow directly through the membranes."

"Ions?" I repeated. "What are ions?"

"Travelers," he answered, smiling, "so named by Faraday from the
Greek verb, io, to go. They are little positive and negative
charges of electricity of which molecules are composed. You know
some believe now that matter is really composed of electrical
energy. I think I can explain it best by a simile I use with my
classes. It is as though you had a ballroom in which the dancers
in couples represent the neutral molecules. There are a certain
number of isolated ladies and gentlemen--dissociated ions--" "Who
don't know these new dances?" I interrupted.

"They all know this dance," he laughed. "But, to be serious in the
simile, suppose at one end of the room there is a large mirror and
at the other a buffet with cigars and champagne. What happens to
the dissociated ions?"

"Well, I suppose you want me to say that the ladies gather about
the mirror and the men about the buffet."

"Exactly. And some of the dancing partners separate and follow the
crowd. Well, that room presents a picture of what happens in an
electrolytic solution at the moment when the electric current is
passing through it."

"Thanks," I laughed. "That was quite adequate to my immature
understanding."

Kennedy continued at work, checking up and arranging his data
until the middle of the afternoon, when he went up to Stratfield.

Having nothing better to do, I wandered out about town in the hope
of running across some one with whom to while away the hours until
Kennedy returned. I found out that, since yesterday, Broadway had
woven an entirely new background for the mystery. Now it was
rumored that the lawyer Minturn himself had been on very intimate
terms with Mrs. Pearcy. I did not pay much attention to the rumor,
for I knew that Broadway is constitutionally unable to believe
that anybody is straight.

Kennedy had commissioned me to keep in touch with Josephson and I
finally managed to get around to the Baths, to find them still
closed.

As I was talking with him, a very muddy and dusty car pulled up at
the door and a young man whose face was marred by the red
congested blood vessels that are in some a mark of dissipation
burst in on us.

"What--closed up yet--Joe?" he asked. "Haven't they taken
Minturn's body away?"

"Yes, it was sent up to Stratfield to-day," replied the masseur,
"but the coroner seems to want to worry me all he can."

"Too bad. I was up almost all last night, and to-day I have been
out in my car--tired to death. Thought I might get some rest here.
Where are you sending the boys--to the Longacre?"

"Yes. They'll take good care of you till I open up again. Hope to
see you back again, then, Mr. Pearcy," he added, as the young man
turned and hurried out to his car again. "That was that young
Pearcy, you know. Nice boy--but living the life too fast. What's
Kennedy doing--anything?"

I did not like the jaunty bravado of the masseur which now seemed
to be returning, since nothing definite had taken shape. I
determined that he should not pump me, as he evidently was trying
to do. I had at least fulfilled Kennedy's commission and felt that
the sooner I left Josephson the better for both of us.

I was surprised at dinner to receive a wire from Craig saying that
he was bringing down Dr. Gunther, Mrs. Pearcy and Isabel to New
York and asking me to have Warner Pearcy and Josephson at the
laboratory at nine o'clock.

By strategy I managed to persuade Pearcy to come, and as for
Josephson, he could not very well escape, though I saw that as
long as nothing more had happened, he was more interested in
"fixing" the police so that he could resume business than anything
else.

As we entered the laboratory that night, Kennedy, who had left his
party at a downtown hotel to freshen up, met us each at the door.
Instead of conducting us in front of his laboratory table, which
was the natural way, he led us singly around through the narrow
space back of it.

I recall that as I followed him, I half imagined that the floor
gave way just a bit, and there flashed over me, by a queer
association of ideas, the recollection of having visited an
amusement park not long before where merely stepping on an
innocent-looking section of the flooring had resulted in a
tremendous knocking and banging beneath, much to the delight of
the lovers of slap-stick humor. This was serious business,
however, and I quickly banished the frivolous thought from my
mind.

"The discovery of poison, and its identification," began Craig at
last when we had all arrived and were seated about him, "often
involves not only the use of chemistry but also a knowledge of the
chemical effect of the poison on the body, and the gross as well
as microscopic changes which it produces in various tissues and
organs--changes, some due to mere contact, others to the actual
chemicophysiological reaction between the poison and the body."

His hand was resting on the poles of a large battery, as he
proceeded: "Every day the medical detective plays a more and more
important part in the detection of crime, and I might say that,
except in the case of crime complicated by a lunacy plea, his work
has earned the respect of the courts and of detectives, while in
the case of insanity the discredit is the fault rather of the law
itself. The ways in which the doctor can be of use in untangling
the facts in many forms of crime have become so numerous that the
profession of medical detective may almost be called a specialty."

Kennedy repeated what he had already told me about electrolysis,
then placed between the poles of the battery a large piece of raw
beef.

He covered the negative electrode with blotting paper and soaked
it in a beaker near at hand.

"This solution," he explained, "is composed of potassium iodide.
In this other beaker I have a mixture of ordinary starch."

He soaked the positive electrode in the starch and then jammed the
two against the soft red meat. Then he applied the current.

A few moments later he withdrew the positive electrode. Both it
and the meat under it were blue!

"What has happened?" he asked. "The iodine ions have actually
passed through the beef to the positive pole and the paper on the
electrode. Here we have starch iodide."

It was a startling idea, this of the introduction of a substance
by electrolysis.

"I may say," he resumed, "that the medical view of electricity is
changing, due in large measure to the genius of the Frenchman, Dr.
Leduc. The body, we know, is composed largely of water, with salts
of soda and potash. It is an excellent electrolyte. Yet most
doctors regard the introduction of substances by the electric
current as insignificant or nonexistent. But on the contrary the
introduction of drugs by electrolysis is regular and far from
being insignificant may very easily bring about death.

"That action," he went on, looking from one of us to another, "may
be therapeutic, as in the cure for lead poisoning by removing the
lead, or it may be toxic--as in the case of actually introducing
such a poison as strychnine into the body by the same forces that
will remove the lead."

He paused a moment, to enforce the point which had already been
suggested. I glanced about hastily. If anyone in his little
audience was guilty, no one betrayed it, for all were following
him, fascinated. Yet in the wildly throbbing brain of some one of
them the guilty knowledge must be seared indelibly. Would the mere
accusation be enough to dissociate the truth from, that brain or
would Kennedy have to resort to other means?

"Some one," he went on, in a low, tense voice, leaning forward,
"some one who knew this effect placed strychnine salts on one of
the electrodes of the bath which Owen Minturn was to use."

He did not pause. Evidently he was planning to let the force of
his exposure be cumulative, until from its sheer momentum it
carried everything before it.

"Walter," he ordered quickly. "Lend me a hand."

Together we moved the laboratory table as he directed.

There, in the floor, concealed by the shadow, he had placed the
same apparatus which I had seen him bury in the path between the
Pearcy and Minturn estates at Stratfield.

We scarcely breathed.

"This," he explained rapidly, "is what is known as a kinograph--
the invention of Professor HeleShaw of London. It enables me to
identify a person by his or her walk. Each of you as you entered
this room has passed over this apparatus and has left a different
mark on the paper which registers."

For a moment he stopped, as if gathering strength for the final
assault.

"Until late this afternoon I had this kinograph secreted at a
certain place in Stratfield. Some one had tampered with the leaden
water pipes and the electric light cable. Fearful that the lead
poisoning brought on by electrolysis might not produce its result
in the intended victim, that person took advantage of the new
discoveries in electrolysis to complete that work by introducing
the deadly strychnine during the very process of cure of the lead
poisoning."

He slapped down a copy of a newspaper. "In the news this morning I
told just enough of what I had discovered and colored it in such a
way that I was sure I would arouse apprehension. I did it because
I wanted to make the criminal revisit the real scene of the crime.
There was a double motive now--to remove the evidence and to check
the spread of the poisoning."

He reached over, tore off the paper with a quick, decisive motion,
and laid it beside another strip, a little discolored by moisture,
as though the damp earth had touched it.

"That person, alarmed lest something in the cleverly laid plot,
might be discovered, went to a certain spot to remove the traces
of the diabolical work which were hidden there. My kinograph shows
the footsteps, shows as plainly as if I had been present, the
exact person who tried to obliterate the evidence,"

An ashen pallor seemed to spread over the face of Miss Pearcy, as
Kennedy shot out the words.

"That person," he emphasized, "had planned to put out of the way
one who had brought disgrace on the Pearcy family. It was an act
of private justice."

Mrs. Pearcy could stand the strain no longer. She had broken down
and was weeping incoherently. I strained my ears to catch what she
was murmuring. It was Minturn's name, not Gunther's, that was on
her lips.

"But," cried Kennedy, raising an accusatory finger from the
kinograph tracing and pointing it like the finger of Fate itself,
"but the self-appointed avenger forgot that the leaden water pipe
was common to the two houses. Old Mr. Pearcy, the wronged, died
first. Isabel has guessed the family skeleton--has tried hard to
shield you, but, Warner Pearcy, you are the murderer!"




CHAPTER XXXI

THE EUGENIC BRIDE


Scandal, such as that which Kennedy unearthed in this Pearcy case,
was never much to his liking, yet he seemed destined, about this
period of his career, to have a good deal of it.

We had scarcely finished with the indictment that followed the
arrest of young Pearcy, when we were confronted by a situation
which was as unique as it was intensely modern.

"There's absolutely no insanity in Eugenia's family," I heard a
young man remark to Kennedy, as my key turned in the lock of the
laboratory door.

For a moment I hesitated about breaking in on a confidential
conference, then reflected that, as they had probably already
heard me at the lock, I had better go in and excuse myself.

As I swung the door open, I saw a young man pacing up and down the
laboratory nervously, too preoccupied even to notice the slight
noise I had made.

He paused in his nervous walk and faced Kennedy, his back to me.

"Kennedy," he said huskily, "I wouldn't care if there was insanity
in her family--for, my God!--the tragedy of it all now--I love
her!"

He turned, following Kennedy's eyes in my direction, and I saw on
his face the most haggard, haunting look of anxiety that I had
ever seen on a young person.

Instantly I recognized from the pictures I had seen in the
newspapers young Quincy Atherton, the last of this famous line of
the family, who had attracted a great deal of attention several
months previously by what the newspapers had called his search
through society for a "eugenics bride," to infuse new blood into
the Atherton stock.

"You need have no fear that Mr. Jameson will be like the other
newspaper men," reassured Craig, as he introduced us, mindful of
the prejudice which the unpleasant notoriety of Atherton's
marriage had already engendered in his mind.

I recalled that when I had first heard of Atherton's "eugenic
marriage," I had instinctively felt a prejudice against the very
idea of such cold, calculating, materialistic, scientific mating,
as if one of the last fixed points were disappearing in the chaos
of the social and sex upheaval.

Now, I saw that one great fact of life must always remain. We
might ride in hydroaeroplanes, delve into the very soul by
psychanalysis, perhaps even run our machines by the internal
forces of radium--even marry according to Galton or Mendel. But
there would always be love, deep passionate love of the man for
the woman, love which all the discoveries of science might perhaps
direct a little less blindly, but the consuming flame of which not
all the coldness of science could ever quench. No tampering with
the roots of human nature could ever change the roots.

I must say that I rather liked young Atherton. He had a frank,
open face, the most prominent feature of which was his somewhat
aristocratic nose. Otherwise he impressed one as being the victim
of heredity in faults, if at all serious, against which he was
struggling heroically.

It was a most pathetic story which he told, a story of how his
family had degenerated from the strong stock of his ancestors
until he was the last of the line. He told of his education, how
he had fallen, a rather wild youth bent in the footsteps of his
father who had been a notoriously good clubfellow, under the
influence of a college professor, Dr. Crafts, a classmate of his
father's, of how the professor had carefully and persistently
fostered in him an idea that had completely changed him.

"Crafts always said it was a case of eugenics against euthenics,"
remarked Atherton, "of birth against environment. He would tell me
over and over that birth gave me the clay, and it wasn't such bad
clay after all, but that environment would shape the vessel."

Then Atherton launched into a description of how he had striven to
find a girl who had the strong qualities his family germ plasm
seemed to have lost, mainly, I gathered, resistance to a taint
much like manic depressive insanity. And as he talked, it was
borne in on me that, after all, contrary to my first prejudice,
there was nothing very romantic indeed about disregarding the
plain teachings of science on the subject of marriage and one's
children.

In his search for a bride, Dr. Crafts, who had founded a sort of
Eugenics Bureau, had come to advise him. Others may have looked up
their brides in Bradstreet's, or at least the Social Register.
Atherton had gone higher, had been overjoyed to find that a girl
he had met in the West, Eugenia Gilman, measured up to what his
friend told him were the latest teachings of science. He had been
overjoyed because, long before Crafts had told him, he had found
out that he loved her deeply.

"And now," he went on, half choking with emotion, "she is
apparently suffering from just the same sort of depression as I
myself might suffer from if the recessive trait became active."

"What do you mean, for instance?" asked Craig.

"Well, for one thing, she has the delusion that my relatives are
persecuting her."

"Persecuting her?" repeated Craig, stifling the remark that that
was not in itself a new thing in this or any other family. "How?"

"Oh, making her feel that, after all, it is Atherton family rather
than Gilman health that counts--little remarks that when our baby
is born, they hope it will resemble Quincy rather than Eugenia,
and all that sort of thing, only worse and more cutting, until the
thing has begun to prey on her mind."

"I see," remarked Kennedy thoughtfully. "But don't you think this
is a case for a--a doctor, rather than a detective?"

Atherton glanced up quickly. "Kennedy," he answered slowly, "where
millions of dollars are involved, no one can guess to what lengths
the human mind will go--no one, except you."

"Then you have suspicions of something worse?"

"Y-yes--but nothing definite. Now, take this case. If I should die
childless, after my wife, the Atherton estate would descend to my
nearest relative, Burroughs Atherton, a cousin."

"Unless you willed it to--"

"I have already drawn a will," he interrupted, "and in case I
survive Eugenia and die childless, the money goes to the founding
of a larger Eugenics Bureau, to prevent in the future, as much as
possible, tragedies such as this of which I find myself a part. If
the case is reversed, Eugenia will get her third and the remainder
will go to the Bureau or the Foundation, as I call the new
venture. But," and here young Atherton leaned forward and fixed
his large eyes keenly on us, "Burroughs might break the will. He
might show that I was of unsound mind, or that Eugenia was, too."

"Are there no other relatives?"

"Burroughs is the nearest," he replied, then added frankly, "I
have a second cousin, a young lady named Edith Atherton, with whom
both Burroughs and I used to be very friendly."

It was evident from the way he spoke that he had thought a great
deal about Edith Atherton, and still thought well of her.

"Your wife thinks it is Burroughs who is persecuting her?" asked
Kennedy.

Atherton shrugged his shoulders.

"Does she get along badly with Edith? She knows her I presume?"

"Of course. The fact is that since the death of her mother, Edith
has been living with us. She is a splendid girl, and all alone in
the world now, and I had hopes that in New York she might meet
some one and marry well."

Kennedy was looking squarely at Atherton, wondering whether he
might ask a question without seeming impertinent. Atherton caught
the look, read it, and answered quite frankly, "To tell the truth,
I suppose I might have married Edith, before I met Eugenia, if
Professor Crafts had not dissuaded me. But it wouldn't have been
real love--nor wise. You know," he went on more frankly, now that
the first hesitation was over and he realized that if he were to
gain anything at all by Kennedy's services, there must be the
utmost candor between them, "you know cousins may marry if the
stocks are known to be strong. But if there is a defect, it is
almost sure to be intensified. And so I--I gave up the idea--never
had it, in fact, so strongly as to propose to her. And when I met
Eugenia all the Athertons on the family tree couldn't have bucked
up against the combination."

He was deadly in earnest as he arose from the chair into which he
had dropped after I came in.

"Oh, it's terrible--this haunting fear, this obsession that I have
had, that, in spite of all I have tried to do, some one, somehow,
will defeat me. Then comes the situation, just at a time when
Eugenia and I feel that we have won against Fate, and she in
particular needs all the consideration and care in the world--and-
-and I am defeated."

Atherton was again pacing the laboratory.

"I have my car waiting outside," he pleaded. "I wish you would go
with me to see Eugenia--now."

It was impossible to resist him. Kennedy rose and I followed, not
without a trace of misgiving.

The Atherton mansion was one of the old houses of the city, a
somber stone dwelling with a garden about it on a downtown square,
on which business was already encroaching. We were admitted by a
servant who seemed to walk over the polished floors with stealthy
step as if there was something sacred about even the Atherton
silence. As we waited in a high-ceilinged drawing-room with
exquisite old tapestries on the walls, I could not help feeling
myself the influence of wealth and birth that seemed to cry out
from every object of art in the house.

On the longer wall of the room, I saw a group of paintings. One, I
noted especially, must have been Atherton's ancestor, the founder
of the line. There was the same nose in Atherton, for instance, a
striking instance of heredity. I studied the face carefully. There
was every element of strength in it, and I thought instinctively
that, whatever might have been the effects of in-breeding and bad
alliances, there must still be some of that strength left in the
present descendant of the house of Atherton. The more I thought
about the house, the portrait, the whole case, the more unable was
I to get out of my head a feeling that though I had not been in
such a position before, I had at least read or heard something of
which it vaguely reminded me.

Eugenia Atherton was reclining listlessly in her room in a deep
leather easy chair, when Atherton took us up at last. She did not
rise to greet us, but I noted that she was attired in what Kennedy
once called, as we strolled up the Avenue, "the expensive
sloppiness of the present styles." In her case the looseness with
which her clothes hung was exaggerated by the lack of energy with
which she wore them.

She had been a beautiful girl, I knew. In fact, one could see that
she must have been. Now, however, she showed marks of change. Her
eyes were large, and protruding, not with the fire of passion
which is often associated with large eyes, but dully, set in a
puffy face, a trifle florid. Her hands seemed, when she moved
them, to shake with an involuntary tremor, and in spite of the
fact that one almost could feel that her heart and lungs were
speeding with energy, she had lost weight and no longer had the
full, rounded figure of health. Her manner showed severe mental
disturbance, indifference, depression, a distressing
deterioration. All her attractive Western breeziness was gone. One
felt the tragedy of it only too keenly.

"I have asked Professor Kennedy, a specialist, to call, my dear,"
said Atherton gently, without mentioning what the specialty was.

"Another one?" she queried languorously.

There was a colorless indifference in the tone which was almost
tragic. She said the words slowly and deliberately, as though even
her mind worked that way.

From the first, I saw that Kennedy had been observing Eugenia
Atherton keenly. And in the role of specialist in nervous diseases
he was enabled to do what otherwise would have been difficult to
accomplish.

Gradually, from observing her mental condition of indifference
which made conversation extremely difficult as well as profitless,
he began to consider her physical condition. I knew him well
enough to gather from his manner alone as he went on that what had
seemed at the start to be merely a curious case, because it
concerned the Athertons, was looming up in his mind as unusual in
itself, and was interesting him because it baffled him.

Craig had just discovered that her pulse was abnormally high, and
that consequently she had a high temperature, and was sweating
profusely.

"Would you mind turning your head, Mrs. Atherton?" he asked.

She turned slowly, half way, her eyes fixed vacantly on the floor
until we could see the once striking profile.

"No, all the way around, if you please," added Kennedy.

She offered no objection, not the slightest resistance. As she
turned her head as far as she could, Kennedy quickly placed his
forefinger and thumb gently on her throat, the once beautiful
throat, now with skin harsh and rough. Softly he moved his fingers
just a fraction of an inch over the so-called "Adam's apple" and
around it for a little distance.

"Thank you," he said. "Now around to the other side."

He made no other remark as he repeated the process, but I fancied
I could tell that he had had an instant suspicion of something the
moment he touched her throat.

He rose abstractedly, bowed, and we started to leave the room,
uncertain whether she knew or cared. Quincy had fixed his eyes
silently on Craig, as if imploring him to speak, but I knew how
unlikely that was until he had confirmed his suspicion to the last
slightest detail.

We were passing through a dressing room in the suite when we met a
tall young woman, whose face I instantly recognized, not because I
had ever seen it before, but because she had the Atherton nose so
prominently developed.

"My cousin, Edith," introduced Quincy.

We bowed and stood for a moment chatting. There seemed to be no
reason why we should leave the suite, since Mrs. Atherton paid so
little attention to us even when we had been in the same room. Yet
a slight movement in her room told me that in spite of her
lethargy she seemed to know that we were there and to recognize
who had joined us.

Edith Atherton was a noticeable woman, a woman of temperament, not
beautiful exactly, but with a stateliness about her, an aloofness.
The more I studied her face, with its thin sensitive lips and
commanding, almost imperious eyes, the more there seemed to be
something peculiar about her. She was dressed very simply in
black, but it was the simplicity that costs. One thing was quite
evident--her pride in the family of Atherton.

And as we talked, it seemed to be that she, much more than Eugenia
in her former blooming health, was a part of the somber house.
There came over me again the impression I had received before that
I had read or heard something like this case before.

She did not linger long, but continued her stately way into the
room where Eugenia sat. And at once it flashed over me what my
impression, indefinable, half formed, was. I could not help
thinking, as I saw her pass, of the lady Madeline in "The Fall of
the House of Usher."




CHAPTER XXXII

THE GERM PLASM


I regarded her with utter astonishment and yet found it impossible
to account for such a feeling. I looked at Atherton, but on his
face I could see nothing but a sort of questioning fear that only
increased my illusion, as if he, too, had only a vague, haunting
premonition of something terrible impending. Almost I began to
wonder whether the Atherton house might not crumble under the
fierceness of a sudden whirlwind, while the two women in this
case, one representing the wasted past, the other the blasted
future, dragged Atherton down, as the whole scene dissolved into
some ghostly tarn. It was only for a moment, and then I saw that
the more practical Kennedy had been examining some bottles on the
lady's dresser before which we had paused.

One was a plain bottle of pellets which might have been some
homeopathic remedy.

"Whatever it is that is the matter with Eugenia," remarked
Atherton, "it seems to have baffled the doctors so far."

Kennedy said nothing, but I saw that he had clumsily overturned
the bottle and absently set it up again, as though his thoughts
were far away. Yet with a cleverness that would have done credit
to a professor of legerdemain he had managed to extract two or
three of the pellets.

"Yes," he said, as he moved slowly toward the staircase in the
wide hall, "most baffling."

Atherton was plainly disappointed. Evidently he had expected
Kennedy to arrive at the truth and set matters right by some
sudden piece of wizardry, and it was with difficulty that he
refrained from saying so.

"I should like to meet Burroughs Atherton," he remarked as we
stood in the wide hall on the first floor of the big house. "Is he
a frequent visitor?"

"Not frequent," hastened Quincy Atherton, in a tone that showed
some satisfaction in saying it. "However, by a lucky chance he has
promised to call to-night--a mere courtesy, I believe, to Edith,
since she has come to town on a visit."

"Good!" exclaimed Kennedy. "Now, I leave it to you, Atherton, to
make some plausible excuse for our meeting Burroughs here."

"I can do that easily."

"I shall be here early," pursued Kennedy as we left.

Back again in the laboratory to which Atherton insisted on
accompanying us in his car, Kennedy busied himself for a few
minutes, crushing up one of the tablets and trying one or two
reactions with some of the powder dissolved, while I looked on
curiously.

"Craig," I remarked contemplatively, after a while, "how about
Atherton himself? Is he really free from the--er--stigmata, I
suppose you call them, of insanity?"

"You mean, may the whole trouble lie with him?" he asked, not
looking up from his work.

"Yes--and the effect on her be a sort of reflex, say, perhaps the
effect of having sold herself for money and position. In other
words, does she, did she, ever love him? We don't know that. Might
it not prey on her mind, until with the kind help of his precious
relatives even Nature herself could not stand the strain--
especially in the delicate condition in which she now finds
herself?"

I must admit that I felt the utmost sympathy for the poor girl
whom we had just seen such a pitiable wreck.

Kennedy closed his eyes tightly until they wrinkled at the
corners.

"I think I have found out the immediate cause of her trouble," he
said simply, ignoring my suggestion.

"What is it?" I asked eagerly.

"I can't imagine how they could have failed to guess it, except
that they never would have suspected to look for anything
resembling exophthalmic goiter in a person of her stamina," he
answered, pronouncing the word slowly. "You have heard of the
thyroid gland in the neck?"

"Yes?" I queried, for it was a mere name to me.

"It is a vascular organ lying under the chin with a sort of little
isthmus joining the two parts on either side of the windpipe," he
explained. "Well, when there is any deterioration of those glands
through any cause, all sorts of complications may arise. The
thyroid is one of the so-called ductless glands, like the adrenals
above the kidneys, the pineal gland and the pituitary body. In
normal activity they discharge into the blood substances which are
carried to other organs and are now known to be absolutely
essential.

"The substances which they secrete are called 'hormones'--those
chemical messengers, as it were, by which many of the processes of
the body are regulated. In fact, no field of experimental
physiology is richer in interest than this. It seems that few
ordinary drugs approach in their effects on metabolism the
hormones of the thyroid. In excess they produce such diseases as
exophthalmic goiter, and goiter is concerned with the enlargement
of the glands and surrounding tissues beyond anything like natural
size. Then, too, a defect in the glands causes the disease known
as myxedema in adults and cretinism in children. Most of all, the
gland seems to tell on the germ plasm of the body, especially in
women."

I listened in amazement, hardly knowing what to think. Did his
discovery portend something diabolical, or was it purely a defect
in nature which Dr. Crafts of the Eugenics Bureau had overlooked?

"One thing at a time, Walter," cautioned Kennedy, when I put the
question to him, scarcely expecting an answer yet.

That night in the old Atherton mansion, while we waited for
Borroughs to arrive, Kennedy, whose fertile mind had contrived to
kill at least two birds with one stone, busied himself by cutting
in on the regular telephone line and placing an extension of his
own in a closet in the library. To it he attached an ordinary
telephone receiver fastened to an arrangement which was strange to
me. As nearly as I can describe it, between the diaphragm of the
regular receiver and a brownish cylinder, like that of a
phonograph, and with a needle attached, was fitted an air chamber
of small size, open to the outer air by a small hole to prevent
compression.

The work was completed expeditiously, but we had plenty of time to
wait, for Borroughs Atherton evidently did not consider that an
evening had fairly begun until nine o'clock.

He arrived at last, however, rather tall, slight of figure,
narrow-shouldered, designed for the latest models of imported
fabrics. It was evident merely by shaking hands with Burroughs
that he thought both the Athertons and the Burroughses just the
right combination. He was one of those few men against whom I
conceive an instinctive prejudice, and in this case I felt
positive that, whatever faults the Atherton germ plasm might
contain, he had combined others from the determiners of that of
the other ancestors he boasted. I could not help feeling that
Eugenia Atherton was in about as unpleasant an atmosphere of
social miasma as could be imagined.

Burroughs asked politely after Eugenia, but it was evident that
the real deference was paid to Edith Atherton and that they got
along very well together. Burroughs excused himself early, and we
followed soon after.

"I think I shall go around to this Eugenics Bureau of Dr. Crafts,"
remarked Kennedy the next day, after a night's consideration of
the case.

The Bureau occupied a floor in a dwelling house uptown which had
been remodeled into an office building. Huge cabinets were stacked
up against the walls, and in them several women were engaged in
filing blanks and card records. Another part of the office
consisted of an extensive library on eugenic subjects.

Dr. Crafts, in charge of the work, whom we found in a little
office in front partitioned off by ground glass, was an old man
with an alert, vigorous mind on whom the effects of plain living
and high thinking showed plainly. He was looking over some new
blanks with a young woman who seemed to be working with him,
directing the force of clerks as well as the "field workers," who
were gathering the vast mass of information which was being
studied. As we introduced ourselves, he introduced Dr. Maude
Schofield.

"I have heard of your eugenic marriage contests," began Kennedy,
"more especially of what you have done for Mr. Quincy Atherton."

"Well--not exactly a contest in that case, at least," corrected
Dr. Crafts with an indulgent smile for a layman.

"No," put in Dr. Schofield, "the Eugenics Bureau isn't a human
stock farm."

"I see," commented Kennedy, who had no such idea, anyhow. He was
always lenient with anyone who had what he often referred to as
the "illusion of grandeur."

"We advise people sometimes regarding the desirability or the
undesirability of marriage," mollified Dr. Crafts. "This is a sort
of clearing house for scientific race investigation and
improvement."

"At any rate," persisted Kennedy, "after investigation, I
understand, you advised in favor of his marriage with Miss
Gilman."

"Yes, Eugenia Gilman seemed to measure well up to the requirements
in such a match. Her branch of the Gilmans has always been of the
vigorous, pioneering type, as well as intellectual. Her father was
one of the foremost thinkers in the West; in fact had long held
ideas on the betterment of the race. You see that in the choice of
a name for his daughter--Eugenia."

"Then there were no recessive traits in her family," asked Kennedy
quickly, "of the same sort that you find in the Athertons?"

"None that we could discover," answered Dr. Crafts positively.

"No epilepsy, no insanity of any form?"

"No. Of course, you understand that almost no one is what might be
called eugenically perfect. Strictly speaking, perhaps not over
two or three per cent. of the population even approximates that
standard. But it seemed to me that in everything essential in this
case, weakness latent in Atherton was mating strength in Eugenia
and the same way on her part for an entirely different set of
traits."

"Still," considered Kennedy, "there might have been something
latent in her family germ plasm back of the time through which you
could trace it?"

Dr. Crafts shrugged his shoulders. "There often is, I must admit,
something we can't discover because it lies too far back in the
past."

"And likely to crop out after skipping generations," put in Maude
Schofield.

She evidently did not take the same liberal view in the practical
application of the matter expressed by her chief. I set it down to
the ardor of youth in a new cause, which often becomes the saner
conservatism of maturity.

"Of course, you found it much easier than usual to get at the true
family history of the Athertons," pursued Kennedy. "It is an old
family and has been prominent for generations."

"Naturally," assented Dr. Crafts.

"You know Burroughs Atherton on both lines of descent?" asked
Kennedy, changing the subject abruptly.

"Yes, fairly well," answered Crafts.

"Now, for example," went on Craig, "how would you advise him to
marry?"

I saw at once that he was taking this subterfuge as a way of
securing information which might otherwise have been withheld if
asked for directly. Maude Schofield also saw it, I fancied, but
this time said nothing. "They had a grandfather who was a manic
depressive on the Atherton side," said Crafts slowly. "Now, no
attempt has ever been made to breed that defect out of the family.
In the case of Burroughs, it is perhaps a little worse, for the
other side of his ancestry is not free from the taint of
alcoholism."

"And Edith Atherton?"

"The same way. They both carry it. I won't go into the Mendelian
law on the subject. We are clearing up much that is obscure. But
as to Burroughs, he should marry, if at all, some one without that
particular taint. I believe that in a few generations by proper
mating most taints might be bred out of families."

Maude Schofield evidently did not agree with Dr. Crafts on some
point, and, noticing it, he seemed to be in the position both of
explaining his contention to us and of defending it before his
fair assistant.

"It is my opinion, as far as I have gone with the data," he added,
"that there is hope for many of those whose family history shows
certain nervous taints. A sweeping prohibition of such marriages
would be futile, perhaps injurious. It is necessary that the
mating be carefully made, however, to prevent intensifying the
taint. You see, though I am a eugenist I am not an extremist."

He paused, then resumed argumentatively: "Then there are other
questions, too, like that of genius with its close relation to
manic depressive insanity. Also, there is decrease enough in the
birth rate, without adding an excuse for it. No, that a young man
like Atherton should take the subject seriously, instead of
spending his time in wild dissipation, like his father, is
certainly creditable, argues in itself that there still must exist
some strength in his stock.

"And, of course," he continued warmly, "when I say that weakness
in a trait--not in all traits, by any means--should marry strength
and that strength may marry weakness, I don't mean that all
matches should be like that. If we are too strict we may prohibit
practically all marriages. In Atherton's case, as in many another,
I felt that I should interpret the rule as sanely as possible."

"Strength should marry strength, and weakness should never marry,"
persisted Maude Schofield. "Nothing short of that will satisfy the
true eugenist."

"Theoretically," objected Crafts. "But Atherton was going to
marry, anyhow. The only thing for me to do was to lay down a rule
which he might follow safely. Besides, any other rule meant sure
disaster."

"It was the only rule with half a chance of being followed and at
any rate," drawled Kennedy, as the eugenists wrangled, "what
difference does it make in this case? As nearly as I can make out
it is Mrs. Atherton herself, not Atherton, who is ill."

Maude Schofield had risen to return to supervising a clerk who
needed help. She left us, still unconvinced.

"That is a very clever girl," remarked Kennedy as she shut the
door and he scanned Dr. Crafts' face dosely.

"Very," assented the Doctor.

"The Schofields come of good stock?" hazarded Kennedy.

"Very," assented Dr. Crafts again.

Evidently he did not care to talk about individual cases, and I
felt that the rule was a safe one, to prevent Eugenics from
becoming Gossip. Kennedy thanked him for his courtesy, and we left
apparently on the best of terms both with Crafts and his
assistant.




CHAPTER XXXIII

THE SEX CONTROL


I did not see Kennedy again that day until late in the afternoon,
when he came into the laboratory carrying a small package.

"Theory is one thing, practice is another," he remarked, as he
threw his hat and coat into a chair.

"Which means--in this case?" I prompted.

"Why, I have just seen Atherton. Of course I didn't repeat our
conversation of this morning, and I'm glad I didn't. He almost
makes me think you are right, Walter. He's obsessed by the fear of
Burroughs. Why, he even told me that Burroughs had gone so far as
to take a leaf out of his book, so to speak, get in touch with the
Eugenics Bureau as if to follow his footsteps, but really to pump
them about Atherton himself. Atherton says it's all Burroughs'
plan to break his will and that the fellow has even gone so far as
to cultivate the acquaintance of Maude Schofield, knowing that he
will get no sympathy from Crafts."

"First it was Edith Atherton, now it is Maude Schofield that he
hitches up with Burroughs," I commented. "Seems to me that I have
heard that one of the first signs of insanity is belief that
everyone about the victim is conspiring against him. I haven't any
love for any of them--but I must be fair."

"Well," said Kennedy, unwrapping the package, "there IS this much
to it. Atherton says Burroughs and Maude Schofield have been seen
together more than once--and not at intellectual gatherings
either. Burroughs is a fascinating fellow to a woman, if he wants
to be, and the Schofields are at least the social equals of the
Burroughs. Besides," he added, "in spite of eugenics, feminism,
and all the rest--sex, like murder, will out. There's no use
having any false ideas about THAT. Atherton may see red--but,
then, he was quite excited."

"Over what?" I asked, perplexed more than ever at the turn of
events.

"He called me up in the first place. 'Can't you do something?' he
implored. 'Eugenia is getting worse all the time.' She is, too. I
saw her for a moment, and she was even more vacant than
yesterday."

The thought of the poor girl in the big house somehow brought over
me again my first impression of Poe's story.

Kennedy had unwrapped the package which proved to be the
instrument he had left in the closet at Atherton's. It was, as I
had observed, like an ordinary wax cylinder phonograph record.

"You see," explained Kennedy, "it is nothing more than a
successful application at last of, say, one of those phonographs
you have seen in offices for taking dictation, placed so that the
feebler vibrations of the telephone affect it. Let us see what we
have here."

He had attached the cylinder to an ordinary phonograph, and after
a number of routine calls had been run off, he came to this, in
voices which we could only guess at but not recognize, for no
names were used.

"How is she to-day?"

"Not much changed--perhaps not so well."

"It's all right, though. That is natural. It is working well. I
think you might increase the dose, one tablet."

"You're sure it is all right?" (with anxiety).

"Oh, positively--it has been done in Europe."

"I hope so. It must be a boy--and an ATHERTON?"

"Never fear."

That was all. Who was it? The voices were unfamiliar to me,
especially when repeated mechanically. Besides they may have been
disguised. At any rate we had learned something. Some one was
trying to control the sex of the expected Atherton heir. But that
was about all. Who it was, we knew no better, apparently, than
before.

Kennedy did not seem to care much, however. Quickly he got Quincy
Atherton on the wire and arranged for Atherton to have Dr. Crafts
meet us at the house at eight o'clock that night, with Maude
Schofield. Then he asked that Burroughs Atherton be there, and of
course, Edith and Eugenia.

We arrived almost as the clock was striking, Kennedy carrying the
phonograph record and another blank record, and a boy tugging
along the machine itself. Dr. Crafts was the next to appear,
expressing surprise at meeting us, and I thought a bit annoyed,
for he mentioned that it had been with reluctance that he had had
to give up some work he had planned for the evening. Maude
Schofield, who came with him, looked bored. Knowing that she
disapproved of the match with Eugenia, I was not surprised.
Burroughs arrived, not as late as I had expected, but almost
insultingly supercilious at finding so many strangers at what
Atherton had told him was to be a family conference, in order to
get him to come. Last of all Edith Atherton descended the
staircase, the personification of dignity, bowing to each with a
studied graciousness, as if distributing largess, but greeting
Burroughs with an air that plainly showed how much thicker was
blood than water. Eugenia remained upstairs, lethargic, almost
cataleptic, as Atherton told us when we arrived.

"I trust you are not going to keep us long, Quincy," yawned
Burroughs, looking ostentatiously at his watch.

"Only long enough for Professor Kennedy to say a few words about
Eugenia," replied Atherton nervously, bowing to Kennedy.

Kennedy cleared his throat slowly.

"I don't know that I have much to say," began Kennedy, still
seated. "I suppose Mr. Atherton has told you I have been much
interested in the peculiar state of health of Mrs. Atherton?"

No one spoke, and he went on easily: "There is something I might
say, however, about the--er--what I call the chemistry of
insanity. Among the present wonders of science, as you doubtless
know, none stirs the imagination so powerfully as the doctrine
that at least some forms of insanity are the result of chemical
changes in the blood. For instance, ill temper, intoxication, many
things are due to chemical changes in the blood acting on the
brain.

"Go further back. Take typhoid fever with its delirium, influenza
with its suicide mania. All due to toxins--poisons. Chemistry--
chemistry--all of them chemistry."

Craig had begun carefully so as to win their attention. He had it
as he went on: "Do we not brew within ourselves poisons which
enter the circulation and pervade the system? A sudden emotion
upsets the chemistry of the body. Or poisonous food. Or a drug. It
affects many things. But we could never have had this chemical
theory unless we had had physiological chemistry--and some carry
it so far as to say that the brain secretes thought, just as the
liver secretes bile, that thoughts are the results of molecular
changes."

"You are, then, a materialist of the most pronounced type,"
asserted Dr. Crafts.

Kennedy had been reaching over to a table, toying with the
phonograph. As Crafts spoke he moved a key, and I suspected that
it was in order to catch the words.

"Not entirely," he said. "No more than some eugenists."

"In our field," put in Maude Schofield, "I might express the
thought this way--the sociologist has had his day; now it is the
biologist, the eugenist."

"That expresses it," commented Kennedy, still tinkering with the
record. "Yet it does not mean that because we have new ideas, they
abolish the old. Often they only explain, amplify, supplement. For
instance," he said, looking up at Edith Atherton, "take heredity.
Our knowledge seems new, but is it? Marriages have always been
dictated by a sort of eugenics. Society is founded on that."

"Precisely," she answered. "The best families have always married
into the best families. These modern notions simply recognize what
the best people have always thought--except that it seems to me,"
she added with a sarcastic flourish, "people of no ancestry are
trying to force themselves in among their betters."

"Very true, Edith," drawled Burroughs, "but we did not have to be
brought here by Quincy to learn that."

Quincy Atherton had risen during the discussion and had approached
Kennedy. Craig continued to finger the phonograph abstractedly, as
he looked up.

"About this--this insanity theory," he whispered eagerly. "You
think that the suspicions I had have been justified?"

I had been watching Kennedy's hand. As soon as Atherton had
started to speak, I saw that Craig, as before, had moved the key,
evidently registering what he said, as he had in the case of the
others during the discussion.

"One moment, Atherton," he whispered in reply, "I'm coming to
that. Now," he resumed aloud, "there is a disease, or a number of
diseases, to which my remarks about insanity a while ago might
apply very well. They have been known for some time to arise from
various affections of the thyroid glands in the neck. These
glands, strange to say, if acted on in certain ways can cause
degenerations of mind and body, which are well known, but in spite
of much study are still very little understood. For example, there
is a definite interrelation between them and sex--especially in
woman."

Rapidly he sketched what he had already told me of the thyroid and
the hormones. "These hormones," added Kennedy, "are closely
related to many reactions in the body, such as even the mother's
secretion of milk at the proper time and then only. That and many
other functions are due to the presence and character of these
chemical secretions from the thyroid and other ductless glands. It
is a fascinating study. For we know that anything that will upset-
-reduce or increase--the hormones is a matter intimately concerned
with health. Such changes," he said earnestly, leaning forward,
"might be aimed directly at the very heart of what otherwise would
be a true eugenic marriage. It is even possible that loss of sex
itself might be made to follow deep changes of the thyroid."

He stopped a moment. Even if he had accomplished nothing else he
had struck a note which had caused the Athertons to forget their
former superciliousness.

"If there is an oversupply of thyroid hormones," continued Craig,
"that excess will produce many changes, for instance a condition
very much like exophthalmic goiter. And," he said, straightening
up, "I find that Eugenia Atherton has within her blood an undue
proportion of these thyroid hormones. Now, is it overfunction of
the glands, hyper-secretion--or is it something else?"

No one moved as Kennedy skillfully led his disclosure along step
by step.

"That question," he began again slowly, shifting his position in
the chair, "raises in my mind, at least, a question which has
often occurred to me before. Is it possible for a person, taking
advantage of the scientific knowledge we have gained, to devise
and successfully execute a murder without fear of discovery? In
other words, can a person be removed with that technical nicety of
detail which will leave no clue and will be set down as something
entirely natural, though unfortunate?"

It was a terrible idea he was framing, and he dwelt on it so that
we might accept it at its full value. "As one doctor has said," he
added, "although toxicologists and chemists have not always
possessed infallible tests for practical use, it is at present a
pretty certain observation that every poison leaves its mark. But
then on the other hand, students of criminology have said that a
skilled physician or surgeon is about the only person now capable
of carrying out a really scientific murder.

"Which is true? It seems to me, at least in the latter case, that
the very nicety of the handiwork must often serve as a clue in
itself. The trained hand leaves the peculiar mark characteristic
of its training. No matter how shrewdly the deed is planned, the
execution of it is daily becoming a more and more difficult feat,
thanks to our increasing knowledge of microbiology and pathology."

He had risen, as he finished the sentence, every eye fixed on him,
as if he had been a master hypnotist.

"Perhaps," he said, taking off the cylinder from the phonograph
and placing on one which I knew was that which had lain in the
library closet over night, "perhaps some of the things I have said
will explain or be explained by the record on this cylinder."

He had started the machine. So magical was the effect on the
little audience that I am tempted to repeat what I had already
heard, but had not myself yet been able to explain:

"How is she to-day?"

"Not much changed--perhaps not so well."

"It's all right, though. That is natural. It is working well. I
think you might increase the dose one tablet."

"You're sure it is all right?"

"Oh, positively--it has been done in Europe."

"I hope so. It must be a boy--and an ATHERTON."

"Never fear."

No one moved a muscle. If there was anyone in the room guilty of
playing on the feelings and the health of an unfortunate woman,
that person must have had superb control of his own feelings.

"As you know," resumed Kennedy thoughtfully, "there are and have
been many theories of sex control. One of the latest, but by no
means the only one, is that it can be done by use of the extracts
of various glands administered to the mother. I do not know with
what scientific authority it was stated, but I do know that some
one has recently said that adrenalin, derived from the suprarenal
glands, induces boys to develop--cholin, from the bile of the
liver, girls. It makes no difference--in this case. There may have
been a show of science. But it was to cover up a crime. Some one
has been administering to Eugenia Atherton tablets of thyroid
extract--ostensibly to aid her in fulfilling the dearest ambition
of her soul--to become the mother of a new line of Athertons which
might bear the same relation to the future of the country as the
great family of the Edwards mothered by Elizabeth Tuttle."

He was bending over the two phonograph cylinders now, rapidly
comparing the new one which he had made and that which he had just
allowed to reel off its astounding revelation.

"When a voice speaks into a phonograph," he said, half to himself,
"its modulations received on the diaphragm are written by a needle
point upon the surface of a cylinder or disk in a series of fine
waving or zigzag lines of infinitely varying depth or breadth. Dr.
Marage and others have been able to distinguish vocal sounds by
the naked eye on phonograph records. Mr. Edison has studied them
with the microscope in his world-wide search for the perfect
voice.

"In fact, now it is possible to identify voices by the records
they make, to get at the precise meaning of each slightest
variation of the lines with mathematical accuracy. They can no
more be falsified than handwriting can be forged so that modern
science cannot detect it or than typewriting can be concealed and
attributed to another machine. The voice is like a finger print, a
portrait parle--unescapable."

He glanced up, then back again. "This microscope shows me," he
said, "that the voices on that cylinder you heard are identical
with two on this record which I have just made in this room."

"Walter," he said, motioning to me, "look."

I glanced into the eyepiece and saw a series of lines and curves,
peculiar waves lapping together and making an appearance in some
spots almost like tooth marks. Although I did not understand the
details of the thing, I could readily see that by study one might
learn as much about it as about loops, whorls, and arches on
finger tips.

"The upper and lower lines," he explained, "with long regular
waves, on that highly magnified section of the record, are formed
by the voice with no overtones. The three lines in the middle,
with rhythmic ripples, show the overtones."

He paused a moment and faced us. "Many a person," he resumed, "is
a biotype in whom a full complement of what are called inhibitions
never develops. That is part of your eugenics. Throughout life,
and in spite of the best of training, that person reacts now and
then to a certain stimulus directly. A man stands high; once a
year he falls with a lethal quantity of alcohol. A woman,
brilliant, accomplished, slips away and spends a day with a lover
as unlike herself as can be imagined.

"The voice that interests me most on these records," he went on,
emphasizing the words with one of the cylinders which he still
held, "is that of a person who has been working on the family
pride of another. That person has persuaded the other to
administer to Eugenia an extract because 'it must be a boy and an
Atherton.' That person is a high-class defective, born with a
criminal instinct, reacting to it in an artful way. Thank God, the
love of a man whom theoretical eugenics condemned, roused us in--"

A cry at the door brought us all to our feet, with hearts thumping
as if they were bursting.

It was Eugenia Atherton, wild-eyed, erect, staring.

I stood aghast at the vision. Was she really to be the Lady
Madeline in this fall of the House of Atherton?

"Edith--I--I missed you. I heard voices. Is--is it true--what this
man--says? Is my--my baby--"

Quincy Atherton leaped forward and caught her as she reeled.
Quickly Craig threw open a window for air, and as he did so leaned
far out and blew shrilly on a police whistle.

The young man looked up from Eugenia, over whom he was bending,
scarcely heeding what else went on about him. Still, there was no
trace of anger on his face, in spite of the great wrong that had
been done him. There was room for only one great emotion--only
anxiety for the poor girl who had suffered so cruelly merely for
taking his name.

Kennedy saw the unspoken question in his eyes.

"Eugenia is a pure normal, as Dr. Crafts told you," he said
gently. "A few weeks, perhaps only days, of treatment--the thyroid
will revert to its normal state--and Eugenia Gilman will be the
mother of a new house of Atherton which may eclipse even the proud
record of the founder of the old."

"Who blew the whistle?" demanded a gruff voice at the door, as a
tall bluecoat puffed past the scandalized butler.

"Arrest that woman," pointed Kennedy. "She is the poisoner. Either
as wife of Burroughs, whom she fascinates and controls as she does
Edith, she planned to break the will of Quincy or, in the other
event, to administer the fortune as head of the Eugenics
Foundation after the death of Dr. Crafts, who would have followed
Eugenia and Quincy Atherton."

I followed the direction of Kennedy's accusing finger. Maude
Schofield's face betrayed more than even her tongue could have
confessed.




CHAPTER XXXIV

THE BILLIONAIRE BABY


Coming to us directly as a result of the talk that the Atherton
case provoked was another that involved the happiness of a wealthy
family to a no less degree.

"I suppose you have heard of the 'billionaire baby,' Morton
Hazleton III?" asked Kennedy of me one afternoon shortly
afterward.

The mere mention of the name conjured up in my mind a picture of
the lusty two-year-old heir of two fortunes, as the feature
articles in the Star had described that little scion of wealth--
his luxurious nursery, his magnificent toys, his own motor car, a
trained nurse and a detective on guard every hour of the day and
night, every possible precaution for his health and safety.

"Gad, what a lucky kid!" I exclaimed involuntarily.

"Oh, I don't know about that," put in Kennedy. "The fortune may be
exaggerated. His happiness is, I'm sure."

He had pulled from his pocketbook a card and handed it to me. It
read: "Gilbert Butler, American representative, Lloyd's."

"Lloyd's?" I queried. "What has Lloyd's to do with the billion-
dollar baby?"

"Very much. The child has been insured with them for some fabulous
sum against accident, including kidnaping."

"Yes?" I prompted, "sensing" a story.

"Well, there seem to have been threats of some kind, I understand.
Mr. Butler has called on me once already to-day to retain my
services and is going to--ah--there he is again now."

Kennedy had answered the door buzzer himself, and Mr. Butler, a
tall, sloping-shouldered Englishman, entered.

"Has anything new developed?" asked Kennedy, introducing me.

"I can't say," replied Butler dubiously. "I rather think we have
found something that may have a bearing on the case. You know Miss
Haversham, Veronica Haversham?"

"The actress and professional beauty? Yes--at least I have seen
her. Why?"

"We hear that Morton Hazleton knows her, anyhow," remarked Butler
dryly.

"Well?"

"Then you don't know the gossip?" he cut in. "She is said to be in
a sanitarium near the city. I'll have to find that out for you.
It's a fast set she has been traveling with lately, including not
only Hazleton, but Dr. Maudsley, the Hazleton physician, and one
or two others, who if they were poorer might be called desperate
characters."

"Does Mrs. Hazleton know of--of his reputed intimacy?"

"I can't say that, either. I presume that she is no fool."

Morton Hazleton, Jr., I knew, belonged to a rather smart group of
young men. He had been mentioned in several near-scandals, but as
far as I knew there had been nothing quite as public and definite
as this one.

"Wouldn't that account for her fears?" I asked.

"Hardly," replied Butler, shaking his head. "You see, Mrs.
Hazleton is a nervous wreck, but it's about the baby, and caused,
she says, by her fears for its safety. It came to us only in a
roundabout way, through a servant in the house who keeps us in
touch. The curious feature is that we can seem to get nothing
definite from her about her fears. They may be groundless."

Butler shrugged his shoulders and proceeded, "And they may be
well-founded. But we prefer to run no chances in a case of this
kind. The child, you know, is guarded in the house. In his
perambulator he is doubly guarded, and when he goes out for his
airing in the automobile, two men, the chauffeur and a detective,
are always there, besides his nurse, and often his mother or
grandmother. Even in the nursery suite they have iron shutters
which can be pulled down and padlocked at night and are
constructed so as to give plenty of fresh air even to a scientific
baby. Master Hazleton was the best sort of risk, we thought. But
now--we don't know."

"You can protect yourselves, though," suggested Kennedy.

"Yes, we have, under the policy, the right to take certain
measures to protect ourselves in addition to the precautions taken
by the Hazletons. We have added our own detective to those already
on duty. But we--we don't know what to guard against," he
concluded, perplexed. "We'd like to know--that's all. It's too big
a risk."

"I may see Mrs. Hazleton?" mused Kennedy.

"Yes. Under the circumstances she can scarcely refuse to see
anyone we send. I've arranged already for you to meet her within
an hour. Is that all right?"

"Certainly."

The Hazleton home in winter in the city was uptown, facing the
river. The large grounds adjoining made the Hazletons quite
independent of the daily infant parade which one sees along
Riverside Drive.

As we entered the grounds we could almost feel the very atmosphere
on guard. We did not see the little subject of so much concern,
but I remembered his much heralded advent, when his grandparents
had settled a cold million on him, just as a reward for coming
into the world. Evidently, Morton, Sr., had hoped that Morton,
Jr., would calm down, now that there was a third generation to
consider. It seemed that he had not. I wondered if that had really
been the occasion of the threats or whatever it was that had
caused Mrs. Hazleton's fears, and whether Veronica Haversham or
any of the fast set around her had had anything to do with it.

Millicent Hazleton was a very pretty little woman, in whom one saw
instinctively the artistic temperament. She had been an actress,
too, when young Morton Hazleton married her, and at first, at
least, they had seemed very devoted to each other.

We were admitted to see her in her own library, a tastefully
furnished room on the second floor of the house, facing a garden
at the side.

"Mrs. Hazleton," began Butler, smoothing the way for us, "of
course you realize that we are working in your interests.
Professor Kennedy, therefore, in a sense, represents both of us."

"I am quite sure I shall be delighted to help you," she said with
an absent expression, though not ungraciously.

Butler, having introduced us, courteously withdrew. "I leave this
entirely in your hands," he said, as he excused himself. "If you
want me to do anything more, call on me."

I must say that I was much surprised at the way she had received
us. Was there in it, I wondered, an element of fear lest if she
refused to talk suspicion might grow even greater? One could see
anxiety plainly enough on her face, as she waited for Kennedy to
begin.

A few moments of general conversation then followed.

"Just what is it you fear?" he asked, after having gradually led
around to the subject. "Have there been any threatening letters?"

"N-no," she hesitated, "at least nothing--definite."

"Gossip?" he hinted.

"No." She said it so positively that I fancied it might be taken
for a plain "Yes."

"Then what is it?" he asked, very deferentially, but firmly.

She had been looking out at the garden. "You couldn't understand,"
she remarked. "No detective--" she stopped.

"You may be sure, Mrs. Hazleton, that I have not come here
unnecessarily to intrude," he reassured her. "It is exactly as Mr.
Butler put it. We--want to help you."

I fancied there seemed to be something compelling about his
manner. It was at once sympathetic and persuasive. Quite evidently
he was taking pains to break down the prejudice in her mind which
she had already shown toward the ordinary detective.

"You would think me crazy," she remarked slowly. "But it is just
a--a dream--just dreams."

I don't think she had intended to say anything, for she stopped
short and looked at him quickly as if to make sure whether he
could understand. As for myself, I must say I felt a little
skeptical. To my surprise, Kennedy seemed to take the statement at
its face value.

"Ah," he remarked, "an anxiety dream? You will pardon me, Mrs.
Hazleton, but before we go further let me tell you frankly that I
am much more than an ordinary detective. If you will permit me, I
should rather have you think of me as a psychologist, a
specialist, one who has come to set your mind at rest rather than
to worm things from you by devious methods against which you have
to be on guard. It is just for such an unusual case as yours that
Mr. Butler has called me in. By the way, as our interview may last
a few minutes, would you mind sitting down? I think you'll find it
easier to talk if you can get your mind perfectly at rest, and for
the moment trust to the nurse and the detectives who are guarding
the garden, I am sure, perfectly."

She had been standing by the window during the interview and was
quite evidently growing more and more nervous. With a bow Kennedy
placed her at her ease on a chaise lounge.

"Now," he continued, standing near her, but out of sight, "you
must try to remain free from all external influences and
impressions. Don't move. Avoid every use of a muscle. Don't let
anything distract you. Just concentrate your attention on your
psychic activities. Don't suppress one idea as unimportant,
irrelevant, or nonsensical. Simply tell me what occurs to you in
connection with the dreams--everything," emphasized Craig.

I could not help feeling surprised to find that she accepted
Kennedy's deferential commands, for after all that was what they
amounted to. Almost I felt that she was turning to him for help,
that he had broken down some barrier to her confidence. He seemed
to exert a sort of hypnotic influence over her.

"I have had cases before which involved dreams," he was saying
quietly and reassuringly. "Believe me, I do not share the world's
opinion that dreams are nothing. Nor yet do I believe in them
superstitiously. I can readily understand how a dream can play a
mighty part in shaping the feelings of a high-tensioned woman.
Might I ask exactly what it is you fear in your dreams?"

She sank her head back in the cushions, and for a moment closed
her eyes, half in weariness, half in tacit obedience to him. "Oh,
I have such horrible dreams," she said at length, "full of anxiety
and fear for Morton and little Morton. I can't explain it. But
they are so horrible."

Kennedy said nothing. She was talking freely at last.

"Only last night," she went on, "I dreamt that Morton was dead. I
could see the funeral, all the preparations, and the procession.
It seemed that in the crowd there was a woman. I could not see her
face, but she had fallen down and the crowd was around her. Then
Dr. Maudsley appeared. Then all of a sudden the dream changed. I
thought I was on the sand, at the seashore, or perhaps a lake. I
was with Junior and it seemed as if he were wading in the water,
his head bobbing up and down in the waves. It was like a desert,
too--the sand. I turned, and there was a lion behind me. I did not
seem to be afraid of him, although I was so close that I could
almost feel his shaggy mane. Yet I feared that he might bite
Junior. The next I knew I was running with the child in my arms. I
escaped--and--oh, the relief!"

She sank back, half exhausted, half terrified still by the
recollection.

"In your dream when Dr. Maudsley appeared," asked Kennedy,
evidently interested in filling in the gap, "what did he do?"

"Do?" she repeated. "In the dream? Nothing."

"Are you sure?" he asked, shooting a quick glance at her.

"Yes. That part of the dream became indistinct. I'm sure he did
nothing, except shoulder through the crowd. I think he had just
entered. Then that part of the dream seemed to end and the second
part began."

Piece by piece Kennedy went over it, putting it together as if it
were a mosaic.

"Now, the woman. You say her face was hidden?"

She hesitated. "N--no. I saw it. But it was no one I knew."

Kennedy did not dwell on the contradiction, but added, "And the
crowd?"

"Strangers, too."

"Dr. Maudsley is your family physician?" he questioned.

"Yes."

"Did he call--er--yesterday?"

"He calls every day to supervise the nurse who has Junior in
charge."

"Could one always be true to oneself in the face of any
temptation?" he asked suddenly.

It was a bold question. Yet such had been the gradual manner of
his leading up to it that, before she knew it, she had answered
quite frankly, "Yes--if one always thought of home and her child,
I cannot see how one could help controlling herself."

She seemed to catch her breath, almost as though the words had
escaped her before she knew it.

"Is there anything besides your dream that alarms you," he asked,
changing the subject quickly, "any suspicion of--say the
servants?"

"No," she said, watching him now. "But some time ago we caught a
burglar upstairs here. He managed to escape. That has made me
nervous. I didn't think it was possible."

"Anything else?"

"No," she said positively, this time on her guard.

Kennedy saw that she had made up her mind to say no more.

"Mrs. Hazleton," he said, rising. "I can hardly thank you too much
for the manner in which you have met my questions. It will make it
much easier for me to quiet your fears. And if anything else
occurs to you, you may rest assured I shall violate no confidences
in your telling me."

I could not help the feeling, however, that there was just a
little air of relief on her face as we left.




CHAPTER XXXV

THE PSYCHANALYSIS


"H--M," mused Kennedy as we walked along after leaving the house.
"There were several 'complexes,' as they are called, there--the
most interesting and important being the erotic, as usual. Now,
take the lion in the dream, with his mane. That, I suspect, was
Dr. Maudsley. If you are acquainted with him, you will recall his
heavy, almost tawny beard."

Kennedy seemed to be revolving something in his mind and I did not
interrupt. I had known him too long to feel that even a dream
might not have its value with him. Indeed, several times before he
had given me glimpses into the fascinating possibilities of the
new psychology.

"In spite of the work of thousands of years, little progress has
been made in the scientific understanding of dreams," he remarked
a few moments later. "Freud, of Vienna--you recall the name?--has
done most, I think in that direction."

I recalled something of the theories of the Freudists, but said
nothing.

"It is an unpleasant feature of his philosophy," he went on, "but
Freud finds the conclusion irresistible that all humanity
underneath the shell is sensuous and sensual in nature.
Practically all dreams betray some delight of the senses and
sexual dreams are a large proportion. There is, according to the
theory, always a wish hidden or expressed in a dream. The dream is
one of three things, the open, the disguised or the distorted
fulfillment of a wish, sometimes recognized, sometimes repressed.

"Anxiety dreams are among the most interesting and important
Anxiety may originate in psycho-sexual excitement, the repressed
libido, as the Freudists call it. Neurotic fear has its origin in
sexual life and corresponds to a libido which has been turned away
from its object and has not succeeded in being applied. All so-
called day dreams of women are erotic; of men they are either
ambition or love.

"Often dreams, apparently harmless, turn out to be sinister if we
take pains to interpret them. All have the mark of the beast. For
example, there was that unknown woman who had fallen down and was
surrounded by a crowd. If a woman dreams that, it is sexual. It
can mean only a fallen woman. That is the symbolism. The crowd
always denotes a secret.

"Take also the dream of death. If there is no sorrow felt, then
there is another cause for it. But if there is sorrow, then the
dreamer really desires death or absence. I expect to have you
quarrel with that. But read Freud, and remember that in childhood
death is synonymous with being away. Thus for example, if a girl
dreams that her mother is dead, perhaps it means only that she
wishes her away so that she can enjoy some pleasure that her
strict parent, by her presence, denies.

"Then there was that dream about the baby in the water. That, I
think, was a dream of birth. You see, I asked her practically to
repeat the dreams because there were several gaps. At such points
one usually finds first hesitation, then something that shows one
of the main complexes. Perhaps the subject grows angry at the
discovery.

"Now, from the tangle of the dream thought, I find that she fears
that her husband is too intimate with another woman, and that
perhaps unconsciously she has turned to Dr. Maudsley for sympathy.
Dr. Maudsley, as I said, is not only bearded, but somewhat of a
social lion. He had called on her the day before. Of such stuff
are all dream lions when there is no fear. But she shows that she
has been guilty of no wrongdoing--she escaped, and felt relieved."

"I'm glad of that," I put in. "I don't like these scandals. On the
Star when I have to report them, I do it always under protest. I
don't know what your psychanalysis is going to show in the end,
but I for one have the greatest sympathy for that poor little
woman in the big house alone, surrounded by and dependent on
servants, while her husband is out collecting scandals."

"Which suggests our next step," he said, turning the subject. "I
hope that Butler has found out the retreat of Veronica Haversham."

We discovered Miss Haversham at last at Dr. Klemm's sanitarium, up
in the hills of Westchester County, a delightful place with a
reputation for its rest cures. Dr. Klemm was an old friend of
Kennedy's, having had some connection with the medical school at
the University.

She had gone up there rather suddenly, it seemed, to recuperate.
At least that was what was given out, though there seemed to be
much mystery about her, and she was taking no treatment as far as
was known.

"Who is her physician?" asked Kennedy of Dr. Klemm as we sat in
his luxurious office.

"A Dr. Maudsley of the city."

Kennedy glanced quickly at me in time to check an exclamation.

"I wonder if I could see her?"

"Why, of course--if she is willing," replied Dr. Klemm.

"I will have to have some excuse," ruminated Kennedy. "Tell her I
am a specialist in nervous troubles from the city, have been
visiting one of the other patients, anything."

Dr. Klemm pulled down a switch on a large oblong oak box on his
desk, asked for Miss Haversham, and waited a moment.

"What is that?" I asked.

"A vocaphone," replied Kennedy. "This sanitarium is quite up to
date, Klemm."

The doctor nodded and smiled. "Yes, Kennedy," he replied.
"Communicating with every suite of rooms we have the vocaphone. I
find it very convenient to have these microphones, as I suppose
you would call them, catching your words without talking into them
directly as you have to do in the telephone and then at the other
end emitting the words without the use of an earpiece, from the
box itself, as if from a megaphone horn. Miss Haversham, this is
Dr. Klemm. There is a Dr. Kennedy here visiting another patient, a
specialist from New York. He'd like very much to see you if you
can spare a few minutes."

"Tell him to come up." The voice seemed to come from the vocaphone
as though she were in the room with us.

Veronica Haversham was indeed wonderful, one of the leading
figures in the night life of New York, a statuesque brunette of
striking beauty, though I had heard of often ungovernable temper.
Yet there was something strange about her face here. It seemed
perhaps a little yellow, and I am sure that her nose had a
peculiar look as if she were suffering from an incipient rhinitis.
The pupils of her eyes were as fine as pin heads, her eyebrows
were slightly elevated. Indeed, I felt that she had made no
mistake in taking a rest if she would preserve the beauty which
had made her popularity so meteoric.

"Miss Haversham," began Kennedy, "they tell me that you are
suffering from nervousness. Perhaps I can help you. At any rate it
will do no harm to try. I know Dr. Maudsley well, and if he
doesn't approve--well, you may throw the treatment into the waste
basket."

"I'm sure I have no reason to refuse," she said. "What would you
suggest?"

"Well, first of all, there is a very simple test I'd like to try.
You won't find that it bothers you in the least--and if I can't
help you, then no harm is done."

Again I watched Kennedy as he tactfully went through the
preparations for another kind of psychanalysis, placing Miss
Haversham at her ease on a davenport in such a way that nothing
would distract her attention. As she reclined against the leather
pillows in the shadow it was not difficult to understand the lure
by which she held together the little coterie of her intimates.
One beautiful white arm, bare to the elbow, hung carelessly over
the edge of the davenport, displaying a plain gold bracelet.

"Now," began Kennedy, on whom I knew the charms of Miss Haversham
produced a negative effect, although one would never have guessed
it from his manner, "as I read off from this list of words, I wish
that you would repeat the first thing, anything," he emphasized,
"that comes into your head, no matter how trivial it may seem.
Don't force yourself to think. Let your ideas flow naturally. It
depends altogether on your paying attention to the words and
answering as quickly as you can--remember, the first word that
comes into your mind. It is easy to do. We'll call it a game," he
reassured.

Kennedy handed a copy of the list to me to record the answers.
There must have been some fifty words, apparently senseless,
chosen at random, it seemed. They were:


 head       to dance    salt        white        lie

 green      sick        new         child        to fear

 water      pride       to pray     sad          stork

 to sing    ink         money       to marry     false

 death      angry       foolish     dear         anxiety

 long       needle      despise     to quarrel   to kiss

 ship       voyage      finger      old          bride

 to pay     to sin      expensive   family       pure

 window     bread       to fall     friend       ridicule

 cold       rich        unjust      luck         to sleep


"The Jung association word test is part of the Freud
psychanalysis, also," he whispered to me, "You remember we tried
something based on the same idea once before?"

I nodded. I had heard of the thing in connection with blood-
pressure tests, but not this way.

Kennedy called out the first word, "Head," while in his hand he
held a stop watch which registered to one-fifth of a second.

Quickly she replied, "Ache," with an involuntary movement of her
hand toward her beautiful forehead.

"Good," exclaimed Kennedy. "You seem to grasp the idea better than
most of my patients."

I had recorded the answer, he the time, and we found out, I recall
afterward, that the time averaged something like two and two-
fifths seconds.

I thought her reply to the second word, "green," was curious. It
came quickly, "Envy."

However, I shall not attempt to give all the replies, but merely
some of the most significant. There did not seem to be any
hesitation about most of the words, but whenever Kennedy tried to
question her about a word that seemed to him interesting she made
either evasive or hesitating answers, until it became evident that
in the back of her head was some idea which she was repressing and
concealing from us, something that she set off with a mental "No
Thoroughfare."

He had finished going through the list, and Kennedy was now
studying over the answers and comparing the time records.

"Now," he said at length, running his eye over the words again, "I
want to repeat the performance. Try to remember and duplicate your
first replies," he said.

Again we went through what at first had seemed to me to be a
solemn farce, but which I began to see was quite important.
Sometimes she would repeat the answer exactly as before. At other
times a new word would occur to her. Kennedy was keen to note all
the differences in the two lists.

One which I recall because the incident made an impression on me
had to do with the trio, "Death--life--inevitable." "Why that?" he
asked casually.

"Haven't you ever heard the saying, 'One should let nothing which
one can have escape, even if a little wrong is done; no
opportunity should be missed; life is so short, death
inevitable'?"

There were several others which to Kennedy seemed more important,
but long after we had finished I pondered this answer. Was that
her philosophy of life? Undoubtedly she would never have
remembered the phrase if it had not been so, at least in a
measure.

She had begun to show signs of weariness, and Kennedy quickly
brought the conversation around to subjects of apparently a
general nature, but skillfully contrived so as to lead the way
along lines her answers had indicated.

Kennedy had risen to go, still chatting. Almost unintentionally he
picked up from a dressing table a bottle of white tablets, without
a label, shaking it to emphasize an entirely, and I believe
purposely, irrelevant remark.

"By the way," he said, breaking off naturally, "what is that?"

"Only something Dr. Maudsley had prescribed for me," she answered
quickly.

As he replaced the bottle and went on with the thread of the
conversation, I saw that in shaking the bottle he had abstracted a
couple of the tablets before she realized it. "I can't tell you
just what to do without thinking the case over," he concluded,
rising to go. "Yours is a peculiar case, Miss Haversham, baffling.
I'll have to study it over, perhaps ask Dr. Maudsley If I may see
you again. Meanwhile, I am sure what he is doing is the correct
thing."

Inasmuch as she had said nothing about what Dr. Maudsley was
doing, I wondered whether there was not just a trace of suspicion
in her glance at him from under her long dark lashes.

"I can't see that you have done anything," she remarked pointedly.
"But then doctors are queer--queer."

That parting shot also had in it, for me, something to ponder
over. In fact I began to wonder if she might not be a great deal
more clever than even Kennedy gave her credit for being, whether
she might not have submitted to his tests for pure love of pulling
the wool over his eyes.

Downstairs again, Kennedy paused only long enough to speak a few
words with his friend Dr. Klemm.

"I suppose you have no idea what Dr. Maudsley has prescribed for
her?" he asked carelessly.

"Nothing, as far as I know, except rest and simple food."

He seemed to hesitate, then he said under his voice, "I suppose
you know that she is a regular dope fiend, seasons her cigarettes
with opium, and all that."

"I guessed as much," remarked Kennedy, "but how does she get it
here?"

"She doesn't."

"I see," remarked Craig, apparently weighing now the man before
him. At length he seemed to decide to risk something.

"Klemm," he said, "I wish you would do something for me. I see you
have the vocaphone here. Now if--say Hazleton--should call--will
you listen in on that vocaphone for me?" Dr. Klemm looked squarely
at him.

"Kennedy," he said, "it's unprofessional, but---"

"So it is to let her be doped up under guise of a cure."

"What?" he asked, startled. "She's getting the stuff now?"

"No, I didn't say she was getting opium, or from anyone here. All
the same, if you would just keep an ear open---"

"It's unprofessional, but--you'd not ask it without a good reason.
I'll try."

It was very late when we got back to the city and we dined at an
uptown restaurant which we had almost to ourselves.

Kennedy had placed the little whitish tablets in a small paper
packet for safe keeping. As we waited for our order he drew one
from his pocket, and after looking at it a moment crushed it to a
powder in the paper.

"What is it?" I asked curiously. "Cocaine?"

"No," he said, shaking his head doubtfully.

He had tried to dissolve a little of the powder in some water from
the glass before him, but it would not dissolve.

As he continued to look at it his eye fell on the cut-glass
vinegar cruet before us. It was full of the white vinegar.

"Really acetic acid," he remarked, pouring out a little.

The white powder dissolved.

For several minutes he continued looking at the stuff.

"That, I think," he remarked finally, "is heroin."

"More 'happy dust'?" I replied with added interest now, thinking
of our previous case. "Is the habit so extensive?"

"Yes," he replied, "the habit is comparatively new, although in
Paris, I believe, they call the drug fiends, 'heroinomaniacs.' It
is, as I told you before, a derivative of morphine. Its scientific
name is diacetyl-morphin. It is New York's newest peril, one of
the most dangerous drugs yet. Thousands are slaves to it, although
its sale is supposedly restricted. It is rotting the heart out of
the Tenderloin. Did you notice Veronica Haversham's yellowish
whiteness, her down-drawn mouth, elevated eyebrows, and contracted
eyes? She may have taken it up to escape other drugs. Some people
have--and have just got a new habit. It can be taken
hypodermically, or in a tablet, or by powdering the tablet to a
white crystalline powder and snuffing up the nose. That's the way
she takes it. It produces rhinitis of the nasal passages, which I
see you observed, but did not understand. It has a more profound
effect than morphine, and is ten times as powerful as codeine. And
one of the worst features is that so many people start with it,
thinking it is as harmless as it has been advertised. I wouldn't
be surprised if she used from seventy-five to a hundred one-
twelfth grain tablets a day. Some of them do, you know."

"And Dr. Maudsley," I asked quickly, "do you think it is through
him or in spite of him?"

"That's what I'd like to know. About those words," he continued,
"what did you make of the list and the answers?"

I had made nothing and said so, rather quickly.

"Those," he explained, "were words selected and arranged to strike
almost all the common complexes in analyzing and diagnosing. You'd
think any intelligent person could give a fluent answer to them,
perhaps a misleading answer. But try it yourself, Walter. You'll
find you can't. You may start all right, but not all the words
will be reacted to in the same time or with the same smoothness
and ease. Yet, like the expressions of a dream, they often seem
senseless. But they have a meaning as soon as they are
'psychanalyzed.' All the mistakes in answering the second time,
for example, have a reason, if we can only get at it. They are not
arbitrary answers, but betray the inmost subconscious thoughts,
those things marked, split off from consciousness and repressed
into the unconscious. Associations, like dreams, never lie. You
may try to conceal the emotions and unconscious actions, but you
can't."

I listened, fascinated by Kennedy's explanation.

"Anyone can see that that woman has something on her mind besides
the heroin habit. It may be that she is trying to shake the habit
off in order to do it; it may be that she seeks relief from her
thoughts by refuge in the habit; and it may be that some one has
purposely caused her to contract this new habit in the guise of
throwing off an old. The only way by which to find out is to study
the case."

He paused. He had me keenly on edge, but I knew that he was not
yet in a position to answer his queries positively.

"Now I found," he went on, "that the religious complexes were
extremely few; as I expected the erotic were many. If you will
look over the three lists you will find something queer about
every such word as, 'child, 'to marry,' 'bride,' 'to lie,'
'stork,' and so on. We're on the right track. That woman does know
something about that child."

"My eye catches the words 'to sin,' 'to fall,' 'pure,' and
others," I remarked, glancing over the list.

"Yes, there's something there, too. I got the hint for the drug
from her hesitation over 'needle' and 'white.' But the main
complex has to do with words relating to that child and to love.
In short, I think we are going to find it to be the reverse of the
rule of the French, that it will be a case of 'cherchez l'homme.'"

Early the next day Kennedy, after a night of studying over the
case, journeyed up to the sanitarium again. We found Dr. Klemm
eager to meet us.

"What is it?" asked Kennedy, equally eager.

"I overheard some surprising things over the vocaphone," he
hastened. "Hazleton called. Why, there must have been some wild
orgies in that precious set of theirs, and, would you believe it,
many of them seem to have been at what Dr. Maudsley calls his
'stable studio,' a den he has fixed up artistically over his
garage on a side street."

"Indeed?"

"I couldn't get it all, but I did hear her repeating over and over
to Hazleton, 'Aren't you all mine? Aren't you all mine?' There
must be some vague jealousy lurking in the heart of that ardent
woman. I can't figure it out."

"I'd like to see her again," remarked Kennedy. "Will you ask her
if I may?"




CHAPTER XXXVI

THE ENDS OF JUSTICE


A few minutes later we were in the sitting room of her suite. She
received us rather ungraciously, I thought.

"Do you feel any better?" asked Kennedy.

"No," she replied curtly. "Excuse me for a moment. I wish to see
that maid of mine. Clarisse!"

She had hardly left the room when Kennedy was on his feet. The
bottle of white tablets, nearly empty, was still on the table. I
saw him take some very fine white powder and dust it quickly over
the bottle. It seemed to adhere, and from his pocket he quickly
drew a piece of what seemed to be specially prepared paper, laid
it over the bottle where the powder adhered, fitting it over the
curves. He withdrew it quickly, for outside we heard her light
step, returning. I am sure she either saw or suspected that
Kennedy had been touching the bottle of tablets, for there was a
look of startled fear on her face.

"Then you do not feel like continuing the tests we abandoned last
night?" asked Kennedy, apparently not noticing her look.

"No, I do not," she almost snapped. "You--you are detectives. Mrs.
Hazleton has sent you."

"Indeed, Mrs. Hazleton has not sent us," insisted Kennedy, never
for an instant showing his surprise at her mention of the name.

"You are. You can tell her, you can tell everybody. I'll tell--
I'll tell myself. I won't wait. That child is mine--mine--not
hers. Now--go!"

Veronica Haversham on the stage never towered in a fit of passion
as she did now in real life, as her ungovernable feelings broke
forth tempestuously on us.

I was astounded, bewildered at the revelation, the possibilities
in those simple words, "The child is mine." For a moment I was
stunned. Then as the full meaning dawned on me I wondered in a
flood of consciousness whether it was true. Was it the product of
her drug-disordered brain? Had her desperate love for Hazleton
produced a hallucination?

Kennedy, silent, saw that the case demanded quick action. I shall
never forget the breathless ride down from the sanitarium to the
Hazleton house on Riverside Drive.

"Mrs. Hazleton," he cried, as we hurried in, "you will pardon me
for this unceremonious intrusion, but it is most important. May I
trouble you to place your fingers on this paper--so?"

He held out to her a piece of the prepared paper. She looked at
him once, then saw from his face that he was not to be questioned.
Almost tremulously she did as he said, saying not a word. I
wondered whether she knew the story of Veronica, or whether so far
only hints of it had been brought to her.

"Thank you," he said quickly. "Now, if I may see Morton?"

It was the first time we had seen the baby about whom the rapidly
thickening events were crowding. He was a perfect specimen of
well-cared-for, scientific infant.

Kennedy took the little chubby fingers playfully in his own. He
seemed at once to win the child's confidence, though he may have
violated scientific rules. One by one he pressed the little
fingers on the paper, until little Morton crowed with delight as
one little piggy after another "went to market." He had deserted
thousands of dollars' worth of toys just to play with the simple
piece of paper Kennedy had brought with him. As I looked at him, I
thought of what Kennedy had said at the start. Perhaps this
innocent child was not to be envied after all. I could hardly
restrain my excitement over the astounding situation which had
suddenly developed.

"That will do," announced Kennedy finally, carelessly folding up
the paper and slipping it into his pocket. "You must excuse me
now."

"You see," he explained on the way to the laboratory, "that powder
adheres to fresh finger prints, taking all the gradations. Then
the paper with its paraffine and glycerine coating takes off the
powder."

In the laboratory he buried himself in work, with microscope
compasses, calipers, while I fumed impotently at the window.

"Walter," he called suddenly, "get Dr. Maudsley on the telephone.
Tell him to come immediately to the laboratory."

Meanwhile Kennedy was busy arranging what he had discovered in
logical order and putting on it the finishing touches.

As Dr. Maudsley entered Kennedy greeted him and began by plunging
directly into the case in answer to his rather discourteous
inquiry as to why he had been so hastily summoned.

"Dr. Maudsley," said Craig, "I have asked you to call alone
because, while I am on the verge of discovering the truth in an
important case affecting Morton Hazleton and his wife, I am
frankly perplexed as to how to go ahead."

The doctor seemed to shake with excitement as Kennedy proceeded.

"Dr. Maudsley," Craig added, dropping his voice, "is Morton III
the son of Millicent Hazleton or not? You were the physician in
attendance on her at the birth. Is he?"

Maudsley had been watching Kennedy furtively at first, but as he
rapped out the words I thought the doctor's eyes would pop out of
his head. Perspiration in great beads collected on his face.

"P--professor K--Kennedy," he muttered, frantically rubbing his
face and lower jaw as if to compose the agitation he could so ill
conceal, "let me explain."

"Yes, yes--go on," urged Kennedy.

"Mrs. Hazleton's baby was born--dead. I knew how much she and the
rest of the family had longed for an heir, how much it meant. And
I--substituted for the dead child a newborn baby from the
maternity hospital. It--it belonged to Veronica Haversham--then a
poor chorus girl. I did not intend that she should ever know it. I
intended that she should think her baby was dead. But in some way
she found out. Since then she has become a famous beauty, has
numbered among her friends even Hazleton himself. For nearly two
years I have tried to keep her from divulging the secret. From
time to time hints of it have leaked out. I knew that if Hazleton
with his infatuation of her were to learn---" "And Mrs. Hazleton,
has she been told?" interrupted Kennedy.

"I have been trying to keep it from her as long as I can, but it
has been difficult to keep Veronica from telling it. Hazleton
himself was so wild over her. And she wanted her son as she---"

"Maudsley," snapped out Kennedy, slapping down on the table the
mass of prints and charts which he had hurriedly collected and was
studying, "you lie! Morton is Millicent Hazleton's son. The whole
story is blackmail. I knew it when she told me of her dreams and I
suspected first some such devilish scheme as yours. Now I know it
scientifically."

He turned over the prints.

"I suppose that study of these prints, Maudsley, will convey
nothing to you. I know that it is usually stated that there are no
two sets of finger prints in the world that are identical or that
can be confused. Still, there are certain similarities of finger
prints and other characteristics, and these similarities have
recently been exhaustively studied by Bertilion, who has found
that there are clear relationships sometimes between mother and
child in these respects. If Solomon were alive, doctor, he would
not now have to resort to the expedient to which he did when the
two women disputed over the right to the living child. Modern
science is now deciding by exact laboratory methods the same
problem as he solved by his unique knowledge of feminine
psychology.

"I saw how this case was tending. Not a moment too soon, I said to
myself, 'The hand of the child will tell.' By the very variations
in unlike things, such as finger and palm prints, as tabulated and
arranged by Bertillon after study in thousands of cases, by the
very loops, whorls, arches and composites, I have proved my case.

"The dominancy, not the identity, of heredity through the infinite
varieties of finger markings is sometimes very striking. Unique
patterns in a parent have been repeated with marvelous accuracy in
the child. I knew that negative results might prove nothing in
regard to parentage, a caution which it is important to observe.
But I was prepared to meet even that.

"I would have gone on into other studies, such as Tammasia's, of
heredity in the veining of the back of the hands; I would have
measured the hands, compared the relative proportion of the parts;
I would have studied them under the X-ray as they are being
studied to-day; I would have tried the Reichert blood crystal test
which is being perfected now so that it will tell heredity itself.
There is no scientific stone I would have left unturned until I
had delved at the truth of this riddle. Fortunately it was not
necessary. Simple finger prints have told me enough. And best of
all, it has been in time to frustrate that devilish scheme you and
Veronica Haversham have been slowly unfolding."

Maudsley crumpled up, as it were, at Kennedy's denunciation. He
seemed to shrink toward the door.

"Yes," cried Kennedy, with extended forefinger, "you may go--for
the present. Don't try to run away. You're watched from this
moment on."

Maudsley had retreated precipitately.

I looked at Kennedy inquiringly. What to do? It was indeed a
delicate situation, requiring the utmost care to handle. If the
story had been told to Hazleton, what might he not have already
done? He must be found first of all if we were to meet the
conspiracy of these two.

Kennedy reached quickly for the telephone. "There is one stream of
scandal that can be dammed at its source," he remarked, calling a
number. "Hello. Klemm's Sanitarium? I'd like to speak with Miss
Haversham. What--gone? Disappeared? Escaped?"

He hung up the receiver and looked at me blankly. I was
speechless.

A thousand ideas flew through our minds at once. Had she perceived
the import of our last visit and was she now on her way to
complete her plotted slander of Millicent Hazleton, though it
pulled down on herself in the end the whole structure?

Hastily Kennedy called Hazleton's home, Butler, and one after
another of Hazleton's favorite clubs. It was not until noon that
Butler himself found him and came with him, under protest, to the
laboratory.

"What is it--what have you found?" cried Butler, his lean form a-
quiver with suppressed excitement.

Briefly, one fact after another, sparing Hazleton nothing, Kennedy
poured forth the story, how by hint and innuendo Maudsley had been
working on Millicent, undermining her, little knowing that he had
attacked in her a very tower of strength, how Veronica, infatuated
by him, had infatuated him, had led him on step by step.

Pale and agitated, with nerves unstrung by the life he had been
leading, Hazleton listened. And as Kennedy hammered one fact after
another home, he clenched his fists until the nails dug into his
very palms.

"The scoundrels," he ground out, as Kennedy finished by painting
the picture of the brave little broken-hearted woman fighting off
she knew not what, and the golden-haired, innocent baby stretching
out his arms in glee at the very chance to prove that he was what
he was. "The scoundrels--take me to Maudsley now. I must see
Maudsley. Quick!"

As we pulled up before the door of the reconstructed stable-
studio, Kennedy jumped out. The door was unlocked. Up the broad
flight of stairs, Hazleton went two at a time. We followed him
closely.

Lying on the divan in the room that had been the scene of so many
orgies, locked in each other's arms, were two figures--Veronica
Haversham and Dr. Maudsley.

She must have gone there directly after our visit to Dr. Klemm's,
must have been waiting for him when he returned with his story of
the exposure to answer her fears of us as Mrs. Hazleton's
detectives. In a frenzy of intoxication she must have flung her
arms blindly about him in a last wild embrace.

Hazleton looked, aghast.

He leaned over and took her arm. Before he could frame the name,
"Veronica!" he had recoiled.

The two were cold and rigid.

"An overdose of heroin this time," muttered Kennedy.

My head was in a whirl.

Hazleton stared blankly at the two figures abjectly lying before
him, as the truth burned itself indelibly into his soul. He
covered his face with his hands. And still he saw it all.

Craig said nothing. He was content to let what he had shown work
in the man's mind.

"For the sake of--that baby--would she--would she forgive?" asked
Hazleton, turning desperately toward Kennedy.

Deliberately Kennedy faced him, not as scientist and millionaire,
but as man and man.

"From my psychanalysis," he said slowly, "I should say that it IS
within your power, in time, to change those dreams."

Hazleton grasped Kennedy's hand before he knew it.

"Kennedy--home--quick. This is the first manful impulse I have had
for two years. And, Jameson--you'll tone down that part of it in
the newspapers that Junior--might read--when he grows up?"


THE END





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